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I found a blog post at Stumbling Into The Kingdom that has caused me to realize that the transition to a Missional based community from a traditional church is a lot more radical than I ever thought. So radical that many, if not most, won’t make the journey. One of the sections that ‘got me’ was: For many churches, change won’t come easy; many will never be willing to pay the price of admission to the missional community. But to be fair, it is not surprising that there are many who have already staked their claim in the emerging missional community, who are trying to have their cake and eat it too, and they too will ultimately not be willing to pay the price. For some, emergent is just another spiritually elite, cliquey club they can belong to where they can engage in trendy post-modern conversation without getting their hands dirty in real-life mission work.
I hate to admit it, but I think he might be right. So, where does that leave those of us in traditional churches (UMC) and ministry? I believe it leaves us at a place of reflection and repentance. Are we really willing to pay the price? I believe the root problem is how we, as Christians, have bought into the American way of life and have allowed our churches to become mini-versions of the culture. We have “benefited” from the system in place. Because of that, we have much to loose (or sacrifice) in a shift to missional. Perhaps the first shift is to take up our cross by dying to our American lifestyles so we might be able to truly be people of the kingdom. Until we do that, any talk of being missional will end up being another “spiritually elite, cliquey club” that we setup because it is fashionable or serves our purposes. Instead of being about God and God’s kingdom, it becomes about us and our kingdom. The full article is here.
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