Friday, December 01, 2006

Church Growth, Church Health, Missional Church

Just been reading a book that suggests a contium between the church growth movement (Fuller etc..), church health (40 days of purpose etc..) and the emerging missional movement. WHile there is some validity in that I suspect the major difference is that form where I sit the missional movement is more about indivduals than how we do Church. It is about dare i say the Kingdom of God rather than the Church. For that reason i would not expect to see many missional churches come out of the changing paradigm, but missional communities, collections or networks of people who come together for a purpose other than worship - while this may emerge into a 'structural' church of sorts, I suspect in many cases it won't.
Which leads me to another point to ponder - what of the palce of Consultancy? at the moment that is a large part of my role and it works out of a pardigm of Church health, the model that we use suggest that "if we build it (properly) they will come." This has been an issue for me and has caused me to look again and again at what i suggest to Churches in the way of youth ministry. I want to equip, direct and allow the local church to discover there AHA moment of realising that how they do Youth ministry in their mission context is always going to be different and if the Kingdom of God is to have a broad expression of Ethne then it must be different.
I guess then missional consultancy will be about listening and guiding, offering a tool box full of expereinces but most of all allowing the local church to find her own way...

3 comments:

Missional Jerry said...

believe missional is the function of all church and not just a form.

Missional needs to be what all churches become and be.

I think you lead people to be missional and the church will care for itself.

Missional Jerry said...

exceelent post btw

Mich said...

Jerry, thanks for summing up in a few words what i wanted to say
we lead people to be missional and the church will take care of itself - that's it exactly