![\"Missional.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/imgs\/Missional.jpg\")
<\/span><\/p>\nThe\u00a0ecclesiological shift\u00a0<\/i>is found in the church renewing its missional identity in practice as well as in theory. Moving from merely a sending church that sends a few professional missionaries to a imaginatively exploring and living as a sent people who live out mission daily.\u00a0<\/i>The West is growing more and more Post-Christian which may sound like\u00a0all<\/i>\u00a0bad news. This shift can however contain promise in it for the Church in the Post-Christian West in offering it a purifying challenge. Today there is a huge opportunity for the church to develop a missiology of Western culture and be what by nature she is called to be: A sent people, a missional church.<\/span><\/p>\n Tim Keller speaks about the failure of the modern church to appreciate this and its need to make this ecclesiological shift in a holistic way instead of just changing one dimension of its life or enacting merely a new program of evangelism while the rest of the churches life stays the same:<\/span><\/p>\n \u201c\u2026the church in the West had not become completely \u2018missional\u2019\u2013adapting and reformulating absolutely everything it did in worship, discipleship, community, and service\u2013so as to be engaged with the non-Christian society around it.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>It had not developed a \u2018missiology of western culture\u2019 the way it had done so for other non-believing cultures.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/i>The Missional Church<\/span><\/u><\/span><\/font><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Later in this same article Keller shares the four 1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 4.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The ecclesiological shift of the missional church is a \u201cThe most difficult step for many \u00a0<\/p>\n Discussion Questions:<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n 1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Thank you everyone for commenting and contributing. I have learned \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Best short article; <\/span>The Missional Church<\/span><\/i><\/a>, by Tim Keller<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Best book; <\/span>The Missional Church: A vision for the sending
\n<\/p>\n
\nkey characteristics of missional churches who\u2019ve made the ecclesiological
\nshift;<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span>Discourse in the
\nvernacular:<\/span><\/i> Missional churches avoid tribal language, we-them language, talking
\nas though non-believers weren\u2019t present in our churches. We must learn to
\ndiscourse in the local vernacular\u2019s our churches are situated within<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span>Enter and re-tell
\nthe culture\u2019s stories with the gospel: Missional<\/span><\/i> churches enter
\ninto their culture by showing sympathy toward and deep acquaintance with the
\nartifacts of the culture (music, art, literature, food, etc.) acknowledging the
\ngoodness of culture because of common grace and the image of God in all
\nhumanity; missional churches are able to re-tell their cultures stories in
\nlight of the biblical story which shows us how in Christ we can have freedom
\nwithout slavery, embracing the \u2018other\u2019 without injustice. <\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span>Theologically
\ntrain lay people for public life and vocation:<\/span><\/i> Missional
\nchurches train everyone to \u2018think Christianly\u2019 about everything and work with
\ndistinctive\u2019s shaped by the biblical story; people are encouraged to renew and
\ntransform culture through a theology of work; and to become culture-makers;
\nmissional churches encourage people to demonstrate love and \u2018tolerance\u2019 in the
\npublic square, under cutting intolerance as a common defeater of the gospel in
\nthe Post-Christian West.<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span>Create Christian
\ncommunity which is counter-cultural and counter-intuitive:<\/span><\/i> Missional
\nchurches seek to empower and equip the body to show the surrounding culture how
\nradically different a Christian society is with regard to sex, money, and
\npower; and missional churches practice holistic mission because the world is a
\nholistic mess because of sin and God has provided a holistic answer in Christ;
\nthey do this through word and deed, through the proclamation and presence of
\nthe Kingdom of God.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nholistic shift. A shift made for the sake of reaching, in incarnational way,
\nthose without Christ in the Post-Christian West. As Harvie M. Conn said long
\nago,<\/p>\n
\nmissionaries and urban church planters in the United States to take is to
\nrearrange our lives. Jesus rearranged His life for us, and it is imperative
\nthat we rearrange our lives for the people he died for.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span>Is it only bad news that the West is growing more and more
\nPost-Christian? What benefit could this new setting bring to the church?<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span>Are missional churches the only viable expression of the church in
\nthe global setting of today? <\/span><\/p>\n
\nmore from all of you than you have no doubt learned from me. Here are a few
\nresource suggestions to continue considering the Missional Church;<\/span><\/p>\n
\nof the Church in North America<\/span><\/i><\/a>, edited by Darrell Guder<\/span><\/p>\n