Ok, so I guess word has gotten 'round that I like to read. One of the fruits of being a consistent blogger is the opportunity to receive books from authors and publishing houses for me to review. I do my best to be fair and honest about my opinion. Just 'cuz it's free doesn't mean I need to be a commercial.  I'm willing to respectfully criticize when giving my point of view.  But that's all it is:  my POV. 

In these shifting times of church and culture there has, by necessity, developed various terms to help define what is simmering below the spiritual surface. One such term that has been gaining buzz for quite some time is the word Missional.

In an excellent article by Alan Hirsch for Leadership Journal, he tackles the Big Question: What is Missional???

A missional theology is not content with mission being a church-based work. Rather, it applies to the whole life of every believer. Every disciple is to be an agent of the kingdom of God, and every disciple is to carry the mission of God into every sphere of life. We are all missionaries sent into a non-Christian culture.

Missional represents a significant shift in the way we think about the church. As the people of a missionary God, we ought to engage the world the same way he does—by going out rather than just reaching out. To obstruct this movement is to block God's purposes in and through his people. When the church is in mission, it is the true church.

My friend Kingdom Grace recently blogged some thoughts about being missional in the moment:

In order for this to soak into the marrow of who I am, so that missional is more than an abstraction, it has to start at the most basic places.

In a blog post last summer about the term missional, blogger Blind Beggar {aka Rick Meigs} (and someone I know from afar right here in Portland!) wrote this explanation:

Let us be very clear about what it is not first. It is NOT a method, model, style, agenda, program, or even an exhaustive theology. Missional is a stance, a way of thinking, a lifestyle.

I’ve often said that missional is a way of life where “the way of Jesus*” informs and radically transforms our existence to one wholly focused on sacrificially living for him and others and where we adopt a missionary stance in relation to our culture. It speaks of the very nature of the Jesus follower.

Over at Apologetics Index, a kind of guide for outing anything that smacks of heresy, they have posted a snarky, satirical dictionary of terms for the Emerging Church Movement, including this one:

Missional - 1. Working to make the world a better place instead of focusing on the Fundamentalist concepts of Heaven and Hell. 2. Being like the world to make friends with the world.
I understand the need for defining concepts and trends. Missional is simply a word, and words are vehicles to carry forth ideas. What concerns me is when there is a lot of energy spent on theorizing about a word that far outruns the practice of it. For example, I can sit around and talk about love in coffee bars all day long. What is love? What does it look like? How do we do live out love? But really, the best way to discover the true meaning of love is to love and be loved. To integrate the act of love in our lives requires Acts of Love.

And so it is with this idea of being missional. Talking about it is good, even necessary, very necessary in many corners of western Christendom. But the capturing of what it means to be a missional follower of Jesus Christ is, in my opinion, going to be realized when by our lives we Act Missional.

According to some of the reading I've done on it, I offer this simplistic definition of How to Live Missional:

Go and Love Others.

To be a missional follower of Jesus does not require someone organizing you. It does not need results (gasp!). Nor does the concept of missional depend on gifting, calling, talent, skill, a faith system, doctrine, ritual, or reputation. When I think of missional, I think of love and grace. God is the most missional Being I know. He meets me in my effed up world everyday. No explanation or fanfare. He just shows up.

Do you want to be missional? Are you a leader trying to lead others into a missional way? Go and find somebody to love in a way that will be love to them. Just like God does with you. That, to me, is the whole point of the gig.

The Big Lie puts pressure on me to make a difference in a big way. Small is despised. Common kindness uncounted.

But it's the small everyday mercies of human compassion that keep our hearts soft towards one another. It's the small things that are the tipping point.

We've been lied to. Ordinary is cool and common every day kindness is the new sexy.

from Demotivation: The Unspectacular Grandness of an Ordinary Life

A young man came to faith in Christ during the Jesus People movement of the early seventies. He had a radical transformation from living a life of drugs and restless traveling to becoming a drug-free person with a commitment to faith and community. As his faith grew, so did his belief that God had a great plan for his life. He and his new Jesus Freak friends would sit around and talk and pray about what their calling or ministry might be. "Oh man, I think I'm called to teach," was commonly heard among his guy friends, while many of the young women he knew would simply sigh and say,"I'm called to be an encourager."

He eventually got married and had two kids. He had a good job. His family settled down in a cozy little house in a peaceful neighborhood in a picturesque town in the Pacific Northwest. But inside of him gnawed a sense of dread that all was not right, that despite the loving wife, wonderful children, secure job and warm home, he was somehow missing out on what his life was really supposed to be about. He suspected he was not living up to his purpose.

And so, he became depressed, deeply depressed as that black dog grabbed a hold of his mind and would not let go. He begin to look at this life through a lens of self-loathing and disapointment. "I don't know what God's plan is for my life. I thought I would know by now, and I don't. I think I've missed his will somehow."

He'd hear the visiting missionaries at his church recount tales of their lives and ministries in fascinating places like the Philippines, Indonesia, Guatamala, Uganda...he longed to go himself, but never felt the call.

He wondered what a call felt like. He'd heard others talk about feeling called to certain pursuits, like the pastor at his church who said he'd been called to preach since he was seven years old. Or the worship singer who said God called them to lead worship since they'd become a Christian.

But he did not know his call. He had no clue what higher road of meaning and usefulness he ought to have taken.

He took a full inventory of his life, and now, these so many years later after having put his faith in Christ, he realized that his life was simply a mediocre, unremarkable affair that was dull and mundane.

So he decided one day to change that. He began to buy books and tapes that promised to show him the way to his best life now, to reveal to him in only a matter of days, the purpose he was created for. He set his face to discovering his destiny, to the great things God had in store for him. He searched for life's meaning in the books and tapes and seminars and sermons.

But still, no marching orders from heaven came. He sank deeper into his depression, concluding that his ordinary life did not matter. He was of little significance in the great scheme of things. Waves of insignificance washed over him and his entire identity. He began to drown in a sea of self-pity and remorse. How ought he have lived differently?

His wife was bewildered. Did she not give them a happy home? Were they not living a peaceful, quiet life? What more could she do for her husband to help him see the loved and blessed man that he was?

But he felt defeated. His life did not matter. He was as good as dead already for there was no great plan for him. Apparently when God was handing out assignments he forgot to give one to him. He had no stories. No accomplishments. No wow factor to dazzle others with the presence of God in his life. No one was attracted to his life. What did he have to show for his faith? A house, a family, a job. No big deal. So did everyone else.

He tried to go on a missions trip one year. He thought that perhaps if he could not live overseas and minister than at least he could go for a week to Mexico with the missions team from his church. But he couldn't get the time off of work, and the trip was expensive and difficult to fundraise and finance. In the end, he took what little money he had gotten together and gave it to one of the young people. Then, resigned himself to the reality that he had let life pass him by and missed out on the greatness that in his youth he was so certain was his birthright.

******************

He bought into the Big Lie, didn't he? The lie that he was born for greatness and that God had a grand plan for his life that was meant to be thrilling. He totally missed out on the point of the everyday, unspectacular grandness of life happening right in front of his nose. The lust for personal accolades becomes spiritualized into a quest for some kind of greatness that will shatter the common life out of it's coma. But what if the common life is the great life? What if the ordinary story is the epic narrative of each one of us? What if Jesus lived so much of his life in the doldrums of simplicity?

That's the quest that I am on. An uncommon pursuit of the common and profound, co-existing in the same space. That's my calling.

(post title inspired by BECK)