PART 2: Interesting insights on the relationship between the gospel and our call to mission

From Darrin Patrick, lead pastor for The Journey in St. Louis, MO.

A Gospel-centered, missional church is one that recognizes that:

1) Authentic heart-transformation cannot happen apart from the Gospel;

AND

2) Culture is not the enemy of the church; rather it is a broken treasure God has gone to great lengths to restore.


Today, part 2: Missional

We are missional because we consider and engage culture as we communicate our core message, the Gospel. We find the story of Jesus' life, death and resurrection to be so compelling and life-giving, that we are willing to let it shape everything we do -our methodology- in order to communicate the Gospel in a way that makes sense to the culture around us.

1) Primarily, a missional church recognizes the centrality of the Gospel as its people live out the calling to be "for" the culture. This means a church must derive its purpose from the Gospel (1 Corinthians 15:1-4); it must be a servant of the Gospel that glorifies God by telling people the story of Jesus through word and action (1 John 3:16-17). A Gospel-centered church's ministry cannot be separated from the person of Jesus, nor can its mission be defined or performed apart from the Gospel. The Gospel is the ultimate guide and authority for how we function and minister as a church. Said another way, a missional church embraces God's call to be a sender of missionaries to its own culture (Matthew. 4:19; Acts 16:20; 17:6).

2) Because the relationship between "the world" and the church can be difficult to navigate, a missional church absolutely must be grounded in the authority of the inerrant and inspired Scriptures (2 Timothy 3:14-17). Indeed, the Scriptures provide the foundation for and inform all God-honoring mission work. After all, what is it except God's truth that we are communicating to culture anyway?

3) A missional church is willing to boldly adapt its methodology, while holding firmly to the core truth of its message, in order to participate in God's transformation and redemption of culture (Luke 7:34; Acts 16:20-21). Note the distinction: the method does not drive the message; rather the message propels the method. In other words, the solid, unchanging foundation of the Gospel renders the method of communication flexible, so long as that method does not contradict the Gospel as articulated in Scripture and illumined by the Holy Spirit.

4) A missional church expects every member to be a missionary to the people they come into contact with (family, friends, co-workers, etc). Therefore, a missional church spends a large amount of time and resources equipping members through Bible study, community groups, worship services and forums so that they can engage their specific contexts with the Gospel (Ephesians 4:11-16).

5) A missional church seeks to understand the stories of culture (through popular film, music, literature, etc) in order to better understand the hopes, dreams and fears of people, so that it can re-tell culture's story in the light of Jesus. One of the primary ways a missional church honors God is by creatively and fearlessly taking Christ into the broken world that needs Him most (Matthew 28:18-20). It does not see church as an end in itself, but rather a means to an end. That end is "Christ and him crucified" (1 Corinthians 2:2).

6) A missional church worships God in spirit and truth (John 4:23-24). We worship in truth by communicating God's truth in a way that makes sense in our day and time, avoiding pious religious language that creates an "us" vs. "them" mentality. We worship authentically, not relying on sentimental religious language to set a "spiritual tone." We worship in spirit by relying on God's Spirit as we help people discover the truth of the Gospel in their own way and timing, trusting ultimately that God is sovereign and working ceaselessly toward restoration of the created order (Romans 8:26-30).