Missional Monday: Wright Sings, Chan Chastised, Breen Brings It

Here’s a quick recap of the major highlights from the missional conversation last week:

• N.T. Wright performed at The Rabbit Room (not to be confused with The Bunny Ranch), singing an original song he co-wrote with Francis Collins called “Genesis” (sung to the tune of The Beatles “Yesterday”), as well as an interesting cover of Bob Dylan’s “When The Ship Comes In.” (Don’t quit your day job, Tom!) Wright was making other headlines around his views on Heaven. Money quote: “What we are doing at the moment is building for the Kingdom.”
• Francis Chan got chastised by Chaplain Mike over at The Internet Monk, for a comment he made at the 2012 Verge conference during a talk on missional fellowship. The offending quote: “If I just read the Scriptures, I wouldn’t even think so much about the gathering. You know, like, my first thought wouldn’t be, ‘Let’s have a gathering.'” Chaplain Mike argues that this one singular statement (from one talk at one conference) disregards “the ecclesial nature of salvation.” Alternatively, he points to Acts 2:42-47 to suggest that “if this passage is any indication, their ‘mission’ grew out of their ‘fellowship,’ not vice versa.” This whole debate points to the very real tension in the missional conversation around the nature and purpose and structure of gatherings in relation to God’s mission.
• Mike Breen brought it on church leadership in a blog post promoting the launch of his new book Making Missional Leaders. Breen writes, “At the end of the day, what most pastors want (and have been trained to want!) is minions to execute the most important vision of all. Their own. In doing this, they effectively kill people’s ability to get a vision of their own.” And this (which relates to the whole Chan controversy): “I don’t think we’d know what to do with missional leaders if a bunch of them were given to us. Our vision for church has been so captured by the place and space of the four walls of Sunday mornings that we’ve bought into the belief that it’s the only place where leadership lies.” Go read the whole thing. Breen nails it.