We Changed Our Identity Statement
At Life on the Vine, we changed our “identity statement.” We used to use only three words that we emphasized around our places: Transformational, Communal, Missional. Each word encompassed what we’re pushing for in terms of our focus as a people. We are pursuing a discipleship that transforms us into Christ, by sharing a life in Christ together, that participates daily in the Mission of God in the world. Nothing too radical here eh?
Then this past summer we began to question whether these words were too ethereal. Had they become buzz words? nice sounding but in end not really meaning anything for the concrete lives of our church. One of the pastors, Geoff Holsclaw began pushing for something more concrete and action oriented as opposed to just a nominalizing adjective. We came up with the phrase “Living in Christ, with One Another, for God’s Mission in the World.” Ah … we loved it. It resonated with what God was doing in our people.
The Missional Non/Checklist
Ah, but Holsclaw wasn’t satisfied yet. He pushed for more. He proposed a set of things we could list that were already going on in our community that we could point our people towards in order to further their discipleship into this way of life envisioned by this statement. After all, people needed to be able to visualize what this life might actually look like. I called it a “Missional Non/Checklist” because we wanted to offer people some ideas as to how they might enter this way of life, BUT WE DIDN’T WANT TO TURN IT INTO A FUNDAMENTALIST LEGALISM ALL OVER AGAIN. Each section highlighted some basic “best practices” we could engage our lives in. And then under that, we offered a few examples of places where this is going on in our church body. Under “Living in Christ” for example, we highlighted transformational practices of life in Christ like our triads (three people getting together to do a Benedectine type spiritual formation practice), Taize service, spiritual retreat and private devotional exercises. Under “with One Another” we highlighted things like missional orders (house gatherings in neighborhoods), our church picnics, various mission projects, the community garden etc.. And under “for God’s Mission in the World,” we highlighted some service projects and engaging hurting people in regular life rhythms – things we have been teaching about at our church. The idea was not to sign people up for everything going on in the church. Rather give people an idea of what the Christian life looks like within our body as God has been working among us by His Spirit. Let them find something that fits within their ongoing life rhythms (or develop some form of the practice within their own already existing relationships/rhythms ).
Now I know I’m going to get ripped for proposing a Checklist of anykind, even if I explicitly called it a Non-Checklist. But I think such a Non/Checklist has some advantages. For when the leaders are meeting with various members of our body, we have the ability to ask how’s your transformation going, how’s your communal life, how is your participation in God’s mission? Tell me your struggles? Where do you think this might be happening. Where do you go to get oriented in your life towards God and His mission? Where is there opportunities for God to work in your life that we might be missing? We have something to talk about that’s concrete. CONCRETE, CONCRETE, CONCRETE, did I say concrete?
Of course the first reaction to all of this is, please this smacks of my fundamentalist upbringing – I don’t need this or want this. And of course I still believe that certain ongoing practices beginning with the Sunday gathering around proclamation and the Lord’s Table and the Being Sent – profoundly shape our mind/body/souls for participation in/discerning God’s Mission. Yet is there not a need for some hands on practical discipleship to guide our people into God’s Mission? For this purpose we have been introducing the Missional Non/Checklist. It’s got a bunch of problems with it that we have already discussed. For one, everything listed under one area could easily be listed under the other two. Yet it offers a starting point (just getting people to think that last thought is a major great piece of discipleship).
Any other ideas out there on missional discpleship? Any other ideas for improving this one? Go easy … 
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I have no problem with your “non-checklist”. I think we need examples to help us see…as you say, “concrete!”
Our church is trying to get at the same thing. One thing we are trying to do is help people name what it is they are already doing.
Concretely: I define blessing as “…living in the service of Life”. Then I ask people: what is one thing you did this week that puts some flesh on that?
One person spoke of buying a Bible for an addict who did not have one. Another spoke of taking a homeless woman to the doctor.
Another spoke of building friendships with folks in his own neighborhood.
All of these are instances of “living in the service of Life”, each is a blessing.
Another thing, as a way to help us embrace “the little things” is that we have adopted a new “blessing cry” (we sort of lifted it from Shane Claiborne):
“Brace yourselves! God is getting ready to do something really small!”
We do the same thing at our church. I refer to them as “training wheels for the heart”. These are suggested opportunities for people to grow in their desire to serve and be sent. And we’ve found that, once people begin sharing meals or serving others, they take it upon themselves to find more ways of doing it outside of “church” stuff.
It’s a little nebulous, sure, but people are growing and calling others to join them…
Jim, Kyle … excellent! thanks for these helpful comments
Dave,
Thanks for this post. It resonates with me as well. In fact, it was our pastoral teams discussion at breakfast this morning. We can talk about learning to live together as God’s people here in our city (Brooklyn) but if we can’t even put a concrete picture of “what it might look like” together, why would we expect anyone else in our community to be able to either. It seems as though this might be the harder work, learning to translate the idea into concrete practices, but potentially a way to help people learn to live out the language we use.
Dave,
Looks good to me.
Love and Kisses,
Keith
Keith,
Dave does not appreciate man-kisses like he should. But don’t let up on him…he will see their immense benefit some day.
Hope you are well, friend -
Matt
Can I blush now? DF
No time to think about this at the moment but wanted to say I appreciate your generosity in sharing a narrative sentence that envisions your community, and yet they are congruent with your earlier identity statement.
I appreciate your desire in not wanting to offend our fundamentalist “wounds”. But we need to get over this and see that fundamentalism (at its worst) was about legalism, earning, control, fear, guilt, etc.), vs. active practices, disciplines, etc. that lead to deeper relationships of loving God, loving others as well as receiving love from God and others. It is often sacrificial and cruciform but also life giving resurection power.
i see a keith meyers impersonator (Matt, dave prefers man-hugs!) OXOX.
Dave, way to hang me out to dry in case their was a big backlash!
but it seems we are not the only ones who don’t have it all figure out. that is reassuring. Of course for us these things are still just BIG ideas which still have to take root and become ingrained in us all. that is the tough part, yes?
Values are often motherhood statements; practices, while they will connote legalism for some, are the only way to move beyond dualism while putting feet to the ground. I like the way you moved beyond the buzz words while casting a “concrete” imagination for everyone. Well done bros!
Absolutely need the concrete. Too much of a congregation’s time is spent wondering what the blokes up front actually mean when it comes to talking about where we’re all going.
Of course, I’m not talking about MY church…!
Love it. The statement is succinct, memorable with depth and direction and the specific ways to practice it can only be helpful for the congregation.
Here’s a contribution to the conversation – but I submit it with an invitation to critique(!).
Our church, in a quest for the “concrete,” put in place a description of the functions of biblical community. We tried to identify what was already going on and draw from the NT evidence (what we were missing) to define the functions a Jesus-community will do in obedience to the great commandment/s.
The acronym COSMOS is what we came up with (if you’re interested, you can read the six functions here: http://bridgecommunity.org/about/cosmos/). Hopefully, it doesn’t become a legalistic thing, but we’re trying to build a certain set of “expectations” for what it will mean to be part of the mission/church …
Thanks for the discussion!