Unavoidable Questions

Bill Kinnon at Achievable Ends has now given us a "Missional Guru Test." He is now ready to ask that group of missional experts some questions. They are, in reality, the questions to ask anyone who purports to have some answers.

I confess that I'm really not interested in hearing theories anymore. I want to know how the missonal profundities emanating from the particular guru are applied in their own lives - right now. Not last year, last century or last millenium. But. Right now.

"Where are you plugged into a local expression of a missional community? How does that impact what you are sharing with us?"

Jesus lived what he taught the disciples. We should have no less expectation of those who want to disciple us.

I have to admit that this does cut close to home. I am a believer in the missional approach to the church. I also know that the church will take a long time to get back to that. Even my Moravian Church, built on that missional theology and with it firmly in our roots, has trouble finding a 21st Century incarnation of that theology.

I don't know what to do. Perhaps I am just an old, tired, modern pastor living in a post-modern world with ideas and dreams and visions that don't seem to get anywhere anymore. Maybe we are living in one of those incredibly difficult transition eras where we are percolating many different visions and views and over the next century they will be sifted and sorted into a vision and expression of church that we today could not even begin to imagine.

But the questions Bill asked are on target. Where can one find a "missional community" in the midst of a surplus of "seeker-sensitive" churches, contemporary - vs- traditional worship, fundamentalist, right-wing, left-wing, evangelical, liberal and on and on. How will one know a missional community when one sees it? How does one who is interested go about building such a community from outside the church hierarchy or when one is part of a community that could care less about missional anything?

The questions go on and on. Thanks, Bill, for starting the thoughts going. I wish I knew where to find some answers.