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[Over the next few months, as part of a Missional Synchroblog collaboration at Missio Dei, I will be sharing and reflecting on being “missional.” This is second post of the series. See the bottom of the post for a participant link list. They are all excellent bloggers and I would strongly recommend subscribing to each of their feeds if you haven’t already. They put out some good stuff.

Part I: What Does Missional Living Look Like?

“Mission is, quite simply, the participation of Christians in the liberating mission of Jesus, wagering on a future that verifiable experience seems to belie. It is good news of God’s love, incarnated in the witness of a community, for the sake of the world.” –David Bosch

In my last post I tried as best I could to briefly describe what I believe it means to be missional that being the new evangelical and the new evangelism that reclaims the orginal veracity of the Jesus message within specific communities, contexts and locales.

Now I’m going to try to and describe something much more difficult: why am I missional?

At first thought, it seems that this shouldn’t be a hard undertaking, but as I was reflecting on this over the weekend, it became apparent to me that it is much easier to describe a movement or a belief and much more difficult to actually, personally, and frankly discuss why I believe it other than to use the typical response a parent might when convincing a child: “just because.”

So bear with me.

Simply put (and to slighty paraphrase Walter Wink) I am missional because I not only believe it is the best and most faithful response to God’s grace in authentic contextual community as incarnational, synergetic participants in the process of creativity, but because I believe it is the best, most compelling and liberating remedy to the “worldly” (and I use the word with a bit of hesitation) systems of domination and coercive power in which we all live and participate.

And that gives me some serious hope.

We live in an emerging, postmodern and postcolonial world and because of that context we’re beginning to realize our past mistakes in proclaiming the good news and as a result we’re reinventing what it means to live and proclaim (and proclaiming by living) the counter-cultural good news of Jesus of Nazareth.

And really, when you get down to it, it’s not that complicated. It’s just hard to actually do. Mainly because it involves a completely different way of “being” and living. One that denies self and lives for and in service to the entire world; one that takes Jesus at his word.

So, when missional persons read things like: “Love your neighbor as yourself,” “Love your enemies” and “Forgive those who persecute you” they try their best to not reduce them to cute one-line catch phrases but actually put them into action by exemplifying what Paul Tillich calls an “ultimate concern for ‘the other.’”

And that’s why I am missional.

Because it involves living out the good news not just talking about. It involves an ethic that is not divorced from but it vital to the ongoing, interactive narrative of salvation. Rather than humor oneself solely with sophisticated theological or philosophical reflection, a missional follower of the Way participates in theological praxis alongside theological reflection. Furthermore, a missional agent, a missional insurgent, sees any theological reflection that is not preceded, accompanied, and followed by praxis as inherently counter-productive to and Jesus message and God’s dream for the world.

I will never forget the tragedy that happened a few years ago at the Amish school in Pennsylvania. And even more compelling the response of the Amish community to the tragedy will be forever ingrained in my memory. Rather than acting in anger and revenge, the community destroyed the school where the shooting took place and moved on by responding with an overwhelming outpouring of forgiveness and reconciliation. They reached out with compassion, mercy, and grace, grieved along with the family of the perpetrator and set up a charity fund in that family’s name. They attended the funeral of the perpetrator and responded with further acts of forgiveness and love. They became Jesus.

And that is why I am missional.

Because, to me, being missional is the best possible way to live the good news of the Jesus movement and participate in God’s alternative reality (God’s kingdom) in the world today. It is the best possible way to be Jesus in the here and now and to convey the message of restoration and re-creation. It is the best possible way to seek justice, resist evil and do good.

Simply put, it is the best possible way to live.

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List of Participants:

Jonathan Brink - “Why I Am Missional”

Jeromy Johnson - “Why I Am Missional: Three Reasons”

Ben Wheatley - “What Would Shepherd Book Do?”

Bryan Riley - “Jesus is the Way and He was Missional”

Alan Knox - “Demonstrating the Heart of God”

Tim Jones - “Participation or Observation?”

Dave Wierzbicki - “Why I Am Missional”