Missional Going Forward, Part 5

I know, I know…what topic could be worth FIVE parts. What is this, Roots?

But it just didn’t feel quite done…didn’t feel quite clear enough, complete enough. And then I tweeted the last post to missional blog hero Dave Fitch, and he responded in the comments section encouraging me to flesh out the ‘fresh expression’ form stuff.

The last post (and, I thought, the series) ended with the idea that the missional form “must be a fresh, incarnational expression, centered to move.” So, in the spirit of fives, here are the five marks of a fresh, incarnational expression, centered to move.

Mark 1: Core Rootedness. The incarnational bit is fundamental (1.a., etc.). The individuals who make up the core of a missional community at its genesis must be deeply rooted in the soil of a people and a place. They will generally have been there for a while (for us, 16 years in the Burlington region, but it doesn’t have to be that long), work jobs, be culturally engaged (and not culturally antagonistic or sub-culturally driven), have deep friendships with all kinds of people, and be well acquainted with the needs of those around them. The web of relationship will span years, demographics, townships, and affiliations. The point, for them, is not to “plant a church”; the point, for them, is to grow as the church – because they are already planted. In this way, the kingdom witness and the gospel presence must predate a church effort or organization. This is not contrived. It is grown.

Mark 2: Spirit-wrought Emergence. Similarly, the church that emerges from this rootedness is going to uniquely bear the mark of the Spirit’s work and timing. The individuals who make up the core will be brought together in an undeniably Providential (I might prefer, incarnationally Spiritual) manner. And the Spirit will lead the core community into the initial shape and form – an embodiment of gospel expressed in friendship, the Word, the Eucharist, baptism, eating together, internal and external justice, & the arts.

Mark 3: Missional Freshness. All of this amounts to a sudden presence: the kingdom breaks in where it had not formerly been. And a people join in God’s mission by his Spirit through the risen King. In the dynamic interplay of gospel word and deed, an embodiment of good news begins to impact the people and the place. The freshness of this missional expression is vital; that it bears the first two marks and so arrives as if God were really, actually doing a new thing (because he is), is an indispensable characteristic. At this point, if we had not gotten there yet, we come to the harsh truth: the established & traditional church (for lack of better adjectives) simply can’t establish this kind of a presence, not with our thoroughly post-Christendom situation and our entrenched cultural antagonism in play. It has to be a fresh expression. It may be supported by or in partnership with established churches and networks, but the expression itself is “fresh.” In this way, friends, neighbors, acquaintances, relatives, associates, and conversation partners join in the sudden witness of the kingdom that missional people are bringing. The community of faith overlaps with all other communities in the place, restoration is introduced, and Jesus followers are made.

Mark 4: Centered Apostolic Identity. This might seem surprising, but structure must begin to envelop this missional engagement, or despite its initial vitality it will fall flat and fail. Yet this structure is no less incarnational than the engagement and expression itself – it flows from that engagement. And it bespeaks the presence of DNA from day one – that missional-theological kernel (a missional gospel!) present within each individual making up the core of the missional community. As such, the communal practice and celebration of the Word, the Eucharist, the arts, etc., are themselves reflective of a theological center to be embodied in the life of the expression. Likewise, the theological center is itself a seedbed for mission, vision, and values particular to the expression among a particular people in a particular place (…at a particular time). And this centered identity is nothing less than apostolic; it exists not for the building of an organization or institution or empire (power-structure) but for the catalyzing and facilitation of a missional movement out from the center. This is the Acts-apostolic pattern. Centered to move.

Mark 5: Unrelenting Movement. If there is anything that may distinguish this ‘new thing’ from the church’s tendency in recent centuries, it would be the refusal to stop moving, in keeping with the marks above.  That is, the engagement continues. The humble (not antagonistic, subcultural, or power-grabbing) incarnational presence, the gospel presence in the midst of a particular people in a particular place at a particular time, continues to press out into new places/spaces. The way in which that occurs is the multiplication of the DNA out from the center in a dynamic expansion of people and communities. Instead of church “planting”, look at it this way: the church is simply growing, pressing out, without the need for corporate or organizational duplication and additional budget items. Sure, structure will always come to newer expressions; but imagine an apostolic center capable of launching ongoing movement Jerusalem-style, where the core leaders and core DNA are all that is necessary to multiply out and press into new places among new people!

That’s what it might look like.

Fresh, incarnational expressions, centered to move.