emerging mosaic

As the some says “Its been a long while” since I’ve been blogging anyway. Besides leading my young church plant I had the privilege to teach a class on the missional church at a local seminary Missional Church GRTS MIN567. Still humbling asking why me? Teaching students at a seminary in intimidating enough but teaching about the missional church which I’m still developing and growing in my understanding was truly a great responsibility.

As I reflect on the experience there are some things I discovered along the way that I want to share here.

1. Many people think of the emerging church and the missional church as the same thing.
2. Mission is still seen as a program of the church rather than the function of the church
3. Mission is often discussed separate from the mission dei as if the mission is something the church develops rather than being some thing that God is doing that we join in.
4. There is a tendency to try to separate being missional from being incarnational and contextual
5. It is major paradigm shift for many of us raised in the church to begin to think missionally about the church, the scriptures and our lives

Well that’s a start on my observations I’ll probably have more in the future

BTW required reading for the class was

• The Mission of God:Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative - Christopher J. H. Wright
• The Shaping of things to Come - Frost and Hirsch
• The Missional Church: A vision for the Sending of the Church in NA - Darrel Guder
• Shaped by God’s Heart: The Passion ans Practices of Missional Churches - Milfred Minatrea

Technorati : contextual ministry, emerging church, incarnational minstry, missio dei, mission, missional church

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