We’re not crazy!!! (At least not totally…)

When you set out to think some new thoughts in new ways you can sometimes get the feeling that you’re the leader of a marching band that’s going North when the rest of the parade is headed South…

The whole idea of “the missional church” (as contrasted to the “attractional” church) is something that I am totally committed to understanding and being – but sometimes it feels like I’m pulling a giant rock uphill!

So… I was totally amped this week when I came across Eric Swanson and the “Missional Renaissance Leadership Community“. Wait a minute… we’re committed to being missional, and we’ve even named ourselves “re:naissance” – maybe we’ve found our tribe!

Here’s how Eric describes leadership in a missional community:

[These] leaders are thinking differently about what church could be and even should be. For [them] church has moved from being internally preoccupied to externally focused, from primarily focusing on its institutional maintenance to developing an incarnational influence. These leaders find themselves thinking of kingdom impact more than church growth and are thinking of the church as a catalyst to mobilize all of the community, not just their church, to work on the big things God cares about. These leaders are changing the scorecard for what is measured and valued for the church. The difference in their thinking is not measured in degree…but in kind.

These leaders recognize that every domain of our culture is undergoing profound metamorphosis in its way of being and doing, from healthcare to education to arts and entertainment to the business sector. Dramatically increased levels of education, technology, and wealth are elevating the potential for many human beings to shape their response to the world. At the same time unprecedented numbers of people live in poverty, experience hunger, wrestle with disease and suffer from mal-education.

Wow… “externally focussed”; “incarnational influence”; “kingdom impact more than church growth”; “church as a catalyst to mobilize all the community” – are those big ideas or what! It is SO good to find people who are wrestling through the same questions that you are. The light of a distant sanity can be seen glowing softly on the horizon…

So, we are not alone! There are hundreds (dare I say thousands?) of churches out there that are tired of status quo and “same -old-same-old” and are committed to being church rather than doing church. We’re in the middle of a renaissance!!

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This is another good link to MRLC: Reggie McNeal, Leadership Network’s Missional Leadership Specialist, announces the formation of a new Missional Renaissance Leadership Community.

Also, here’s a post at “FaithMaps”