Missional Values

Drew Goodmanson lists 10 Shared Values of Missional Church Communities that are a summary of the values of the church planting movement he is a part of. I've pasted the overall values below, but I encourage you to read his post where he succinctly fleshes out each of these. I really resonate with these thoughts and a couple of them are heavy on my heart for upstate New York. A couple were a real challenge for me: "Home as the primary location for church." When I first read it I was thinking that this was just an advocacy for home churches and I haven't really drunk that kool-aid yet. But then I got thinking about a recent conversation with Jason Condon from ArtisanChurch.com where he challenged my thinking about youth and children ministry. Artisan has grown a church with next to no children's ministry because they haven't discovered the right model for them (and because a huge focus of their ministry is to college students). But their value is that parents be the primary influence on their kids life -- not the church's ministry or youth pastor. I agree and want to adopt that as a church planting value: we want to be a church that trains and empowers parents to be the primary spiritual directors in a child's life -- our church's ministry will supplement their role not replace or usurp. It's not that we don't want the church to have a children's ministry or a youth pastor, but we don't want them to usurp the rightful leadership role of the parents. Back to the value of: "Home as the primary location for church." It's not that there is no role for large congregations and buildings, but they should supplement, enrich, enliven, encourage, be strength and life giving toward church life lived out in the home instead becoming the focus. That might not be what Drew meant but it's got me thinking. I also was challenged with the value of "prayer as missionary activity". In the evangelism seminars I lead I frequenlty quote the sourceless statistics that it involves the ministry of 15-20 Christians to lead one person to Christ and that person has likely heard the Gospel on average, 7 times before they make it their own. Those 15-20 Christians are helping that person move closer to the Gospel through prayer, through demonstrating God's love and values in tangible, servantesque ways, and through sharing testimonies and the Gospel message itself. All are equally important. Still, we look at missionaries as ones who are out there in a community across the globe strategizing and working toward the evangelization of some city, region or country. Yet the group praying for that missionary or group of believers in that community praying for it's salvation are really no less missionaries. The scripture says, "The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective." Pray-ers can be missionaries too. Here's Drew's list but go read his post here: Shared Values of Missional Church Communities. 1. the priority of the gospel 2. mission through community 3. home as the primary location of church 4. sharing our lives as extended family 5. inclusive communities 6. working for city renewal 7. growing by starting churches and church planting networks 8. prayer as a missionary activity 9. everyone exercising gospel ministry 10. shaped by the Bible story