However, the danger is present for those who put to practice what you are suggesting (which I hope people will do, I think you’re spot on!)

I really appreciate your guidance on this issue. As a church planter (in north Texas) coming out of the Stone-Campbell Restoration movement I have a thought to add. One thing that we learned is that there are some benefits to moving away from the professionally trained seminarian and instead relying on often bi-vocational ministers who may (or may not) have received a certificate from a preaching school or something similar.

This helped our churches stay light on their feet (in theory). But it had some pretty damaging drawbacks as well. While seminary certainly has its own pitfalls and shortcomings, it does at least cultivate an awareness of the historic faith. Our preachers and eventually our churches became ahistorical (partly because they were made uncomfortable by a subject they knew little about and partly because they didn’t see the value in history…just the Bible, thank you.)

This, as you can imagine, brought numerous illnesses with it.

So, as a post-Christendom domestic missionary, I find it important that there be those associated with our new missional communities who are aware of and able to translate these historic lessons. That isn’t to take away from what you’ve noted about missional leaders. However, lets be careful not to throw away the baby of knowledge and learning with the bathwater of modernity.

It would be nice to be part of a movement, to be a leader or to sense that movements led by people with new ideas make that much of a difference. Beside the greats of church history there lie the bones of the faithful no ones who simply plunged ahead in faith… They don’t get to right books or get cool people to join them in their movements, they simply live the Gospel. And this leads to the end of carrying their own private cross. While the few stand around to mourn and the many watch casually or turn away to do something greater, the small church pastor sometimes has to speak those words that haunt him, “It is finished.”

For me it is finished. This part of the journey is done and it is time to move on. I am not sure what lies ahead but I do know Who I will follow. Time to pack the bags and move on.

You seem to propose that good liturgies are the foundation for spiritual formation. How does a historically-thick-yet-organic liturgy foster spiritual formation? And how is such a liturgy the opposite of “preaching the Mission as a legalistic requirement?”

On a more fundamental level, I still am bewildered about how a missional community actually makes disciples. You articulate a clear vision for communities that engage and love the world around them, but how do they call that world to join the mission, to repent and believe and be baptized (for how can we fulfill the mission of Christ without becoming His)?

Look forward to seeing you at Ecclesia next week.

I think it’s important to always emphasize that a missional leader is one who embodies the mission and message of Jesus. You can’t lead anyone toward missional activity if you are not incarnationally displaying the gospel in your own life.