“Missional” is not a Tame Lion 1

Michael Frost, one of the “coiners” of the M-word (missional), is suggesting we might call a moratorium on the use of this word because it has become too trendy, too add-on, and too thin. In his new book, Road to Missional, The: Journey to the Center of the Church (Shapevine), Frost contends the M-word describes a “wholesale and thorough reorientation of the church around mission” (16).

In other words, missional isn’t a department or a new ministry. To be missional is all or nothing.

What is going on in your “world” that is missional? Is this term being discussed at your church, among your leaders? How can a small group be missional? Has “missional” become a buzzword for you?

Frost is not alone. He’s with Alan Hirsch and John Drane and Darrell Guder and Lois Barrett and Neil Cole and Ed Stetzer and Dan Kimball… among others he mentions. Without giving names this time, he sees too many “not-quite-missional” voices. The M-word is not just a new edition of the word “missionary.” Frost thinks the growth of megachurches is an indicator not of the vibrancy of missional but of its absence and he thinks the younger generation is turned off to the megachurch.

The M-word is about the unfurling of the kingdom, the mission of God in this world.

“The call to live an incarnational life, to serve as Christ did, and to lead others into the risky vocation of following the missio Dei, is not a simple or easy task. It is a lifelong calling to service, sacrifice, selflessness, and effort” (21).

Missional is not the same as evangelism. He quotes David Bosch and I’ve got to tell you I hear “king Jesus” in this: “Mission is more and different from recruitment to our brand of religion; it is the alerting [of] people to the universal reign of God through Christ” (24). It means both announcement and demonstration. Mission and the triune God are connected as the God who reigns. Evangelism is a subset, though I’d contend that what he means by evangelism is more or less the soterian gospel and not enough of the apostolic gospel, that is, the king Jesus gospel.

On the evangelism vs. social action debate, the missional sees evangelism and social action as equally important dimensions of the church’s mission. They are so entwined it is folly to separate them.

The church is a movie trailer for the kingdom of God. The church is to be a “thin place” where God is breaking through. That is, God’s mission is to make the church a thin place, a movie trailer, of what God is doing in this world.