The Emerging / Missional Church

“Missional” has become a Christian buzzword. Every church is believes in evangelism now considers itself missional. Missional, like other historic terms such as evangelical, charismatic, and baptist, has lost its distinctive meaning. But among evangelical churches, the Emerging Church may be the closest to a true missional church.

So what is “missional”? It really begins with the great missionary Lesslie Newbigin. Newbigin spent nearly four decades as a missionary in India. When he returned to his native England, he found a radically different country! No longer was England a “Christian nation” who sent missionaries, but England had become a “post-Christian nation” that needed missionaries! As a result, Newbigin shifted his ecclesiolgy from a Christendom ecclesiology to a missional ecclesiology (Christendom is Christianity since the time of Constantine: it dominates the culture, it is highly institutionalized, it focuses on buildings and professional clergy, etc - sound familiar?). Missional came about when several North American missiologists, forming the Gospel and Our Culture Network (GOCN), began to apply Newbigin’s thoughts to the West (including the U.S.). The seminal work from GOCN is Missional Church edited by Darrel Guder.

But, you may say, we’re missional! We say that too. But the reality is, most of us operate within the bounds of Christendom. Most of our evangelism is still attractional. Most of our leadership is still professional. Most of us expect and pray for heavy influence within the government to advance our agendas. Most of our Christian lives revolves around the institution of the church (and is often forgotten about when we are away from the church!). Even the most “relevant” seeker-sensitive churches operate under this paradigm. So, sorry, most of us are not missional.

Perhaps more than anybody, the Emerging Church Movement (ECM) is influenced by the Missional Church. If you look carefully at the footnotes in many ECM books you will find the names Lesslie Newbigin, Darrel Guder, David Bosch, and Vincent Donovan (for just two examples, see Gibbs and Bolger’s Emerging Churches page 49 and Kimball’s The Emerging Church page 257).

More specifically, Darrel Guder outlines five characteristics of Missional Church. It is very evident that ECM shares these characteristics:

1. A Missional Ecclesiology is Biblical. ECM emphasizes the narrative of the Bible and the story of Jesus. Some may claim ECM takes too many hermeneutical liberties, but ECM does see the Bible as its foundation.
2. A Missional Ecclesiology is Historical. This is not only an understanding of church history and culture, but it is sensitive to the church in all its cultural expressions: past, present and future. Practically, this means overcoming Western Christendom and Constantinian institutionalism.
3. A Missional Ecclesiology is Contextual. The church must incarnate itself into specific cultures. As Guder says, “the gospel is always conveyed through the medium of culture.” Both the Missional Church and ECM see the postmodern culture as the new culture, which requires a completely different form of church. Some within ECM, such as Doug Pagitt, goes as far as to say that theology is contextual and must always be developing in each specific culture! (see Listening to the Beliefs of Emerging Churches page 124)
4. A Missional Ecclesiology is Eschatological. Here is a challenging quote from Guder that ECM lives out: “Neither the church nor its interpretive doctrine may be static. New biblical insights will convert the church and its theology; new historical challenges will raise questions never before considered; and new cultural contexts will require a witnessing response that redefines how we function and how we hope as Christians.”
5. A Missional Ecclesiology is Practical. Very simply, all this can be translated into practice.

This is Missional Church. It is obvious that many segments of the Emerging Church Movement have been heavily influenced by GOCN and are functioning as Missional Churches. And here is where we need to learn from both GOCN and ECM to become truly missional churches.