I’ve decided to do a chapter by chapter review on ReJesus: A Wild Messiah for a Missional Church.
Missional is all the rage these days. But I’m worried we may water-down the importance and meaning of missional. No I don’t think we need to have a post-missional discussion yet. I think we need to do our best to stay focused on the task at hand, which is:
1. How do we become missional followers of Jesus from an individual perspective? How does the story of Jesus change me as a person?
2. How do we become missional followers of Jesus as people involved in a larger global community which is known as the church or God’s people?
3. How does God’s people live on-mission outside the so-called walls of the church? How do we influence culture, love our neighbor etc?
Thooughts from the Introductions
H&F asks some key questions:
-”What ongoing role does Jesus the Messiah play in shaping the ethos & self-understanding of the movement that originated in him?”
- “In how many ways do we domesticate the radical Revolutionary in order to sustain our religion and religiosity?”
- “How can a rediscovery of Jesus renew our discipleship, the Christian community, and the ongoing mission of the church?”
“It seems to us that a constant, and continual, return to Jesus is absolutely essential for any movement that wishes to call itself by his name.”
“Surly the challenge for the church today s to be taken captive by the agenda of Jesus, rather than seeking to mold him to fit our agendas, no matter how noble they might be.”
“The challenge before us is to let Jesus be Jesus and to allow ourselves to be caught up in his extraordinary mission for the world.”
“And so any attempt to reJesus the church must also recover a real sense of the radical and revolutionary nature of what it means to follow JEsus in the current Western context.”
“Christology is the study and examination of the entire phenomenon of Jesus, including his person and work and teachings, for the purpose of determining in what ways the various elements of his life and activity can be emulated by sinful human beings.”
“ReJesus is an attempt to reinstate the central role of Jesus in the ongoing spiritual life of the faith and in the life and mission of God’s people. More specifically, it is an attempt to recalibrate the mission of the church around the person and work of Jesus.”
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on re-Jesus, Chris.
I agree, the "Missional" Church is only as missional as it's people. It must be structured and organized, and constantly re-structured and re-organized, to reflect that focus or it will lose priority. It's too bad that "Missional" is becoming such a buzz word that it's losing it's gusto. It's a great term. While some argue the label "Missional" Church is redundant, and in the purest sense of church it is (or should be), it's not perceived as such in our current culture. So the label communicates a shift in thinking… to everyone. For the most part we've broken the paradigm that church is a building, now we need to break the paradigm that it's a timeslot on Sunday.
As church leaders, we will constantly be looking for terms to communicate change in our church-speak. That's part of contextualizing. I don't think that's a bad thing, I think it is always a worth while effort in communicating truth in our respective cultures (and subcultures). Sometimes we'll hit, sometimes we'll miss.
Keep pressing, bro.
BH