Curious Christian

Reflections on culture, nature, and spirituality from a Christian perspective

Tim Keller discusses what missional church is about. Not bad.

“A missional church for example is characterized by a great deal of respect for people who don’t believe … we understand what it’s like not to believe.”

If you liked that, see also:

Missional vs. Evangelistic “An evangelistic tends to be a church with an evangelistic department or an evangelistic program. By missional church I mean a church that has restructured everything it does for inhabiting a very post Christian culture.”

Missional vs. seeker churches “A seeker church tends to put, more I think, of its emphasis on programs. A missional church is trying to infuse a consciousness in everyone.”

Is the Bible Culturally Conditioned? “Your theology is a response to the questions you ask the scriptures. Nobody can asks all the questions … it doesn’t mean there’s no overlap between all the different sets of questions.”

Importance of Doctrine and Theological Training “Everything we do is theological. Everything is based on implicit or explicit theology, and so, it is not exactly fair to say that people are moving away from theology. They are just not looking. It’s not smart, well thought out, reflective…”

The Gospel, Moralism, and Irreligion “Well, one of the things that I think is important is to not talk about two ways, like there’s God’s way and there’s man’s way … I like to always talk about three ways. I think there’s the gospel approach, there’s the moralistic religious approach, and there’s the irreligious secular approach.”

Identity restructured “…and when you understand grace … when that penny drops that actually doesn’t just get your sins forgiven … it really restructures your whole identity.”

Scripture as foundation “If you don’t know how to apply the text you don’t know what it says”

Being Salt & Light in Culture “I think that the cultural transformationists have under emphasized the importance of thick, strong Christian communities who serve as counter-cultures”

About young adults “… they are so afraid of being controlled, they are so afraid of losing the right to decide what they want to do, that in spite of all the talk about community they are basically still quite radically individualistic.”

Preaching and the Missional Church “I know that a church can be missional without the sermon being a major event.”

http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=jouinbet-20&o=1&p=13&l=st1&mode=books&search=missional%20church&fc1=000000&lt1=&lc1=3366FF&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr

9 responses to “Characteristics of a Missional Church”

  1. John W. Morehead Avatar

    Matt, this is a good collection of finds at YouTube. I appreciate much of what he says as he puts forward a reconceptualization of church along missional lines, and distinguishes this from being emergent. Thanks for sharing it.

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  2. Matt Stone Avatar

    You’re welcome John.

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  3. Peggy Avatar
    Peggy

    Matt,
    I look forward to watching these…the comments resonated strongly, especially the one about “the importance of thick, strong Christian communities who serve as counter-cultures”
    Very much CovenantClusters…

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  4. nic paton Avatar

    I like what he and others are saying on missional church.
    However, i have a problem with the word “mission”. I seems somewhat imperialistic.
    Emission, however is different. To emit is to radiate from an essence. But Mission is prescriptive, it implies an intentional program.
    Of course there will be others who have thought about this more than I, but that’s my immediate response.

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  5. Matt Stone Avatar

    I appreciate the word has become somewhat tainted in popular perception and in some conversations I would be inclined to avoid it. But the same could be said for the word Christian too. In the end I think its worth effort to reframe it for people.

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  6. Greg Burch Avatar

    Thanks for the video post. I just placed it on my blog as well. Keller really speaks to the issue of authenticity.

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  7. nic paton Avatar

    Reframing: a worthy venture. As long as one understand the price, which is possible misunderstanding.

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  8. Matt Stone Avatar

    But misunderstanding can also be the price of not reframing 🙂

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  9. nic paton Avatar

    Good point, and well made.

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