imagining how the church can reorient around mission

By Corey            One of the things that I love about Missional Church is that I have an opportunity to be around people with different fields of study. Being a marketing major I often take classes with economics students, future accountants, and other business students. On the other hand, Missional Church is filled with theology majors, communication majors and myself, the lone student from the business department. As we have talked about consumerism and materialism in our class it seems that marketing and advertising get accused for much of the blame. This is something that I hear often and don’t take any offense to. However, I do think that the marketing gets an unfair share of the blame and I want to suggest that we shift that blame elsewhere.              The first thing you learn in business school is the law of supply and demand. Grounded in Adam Smith’s “Invisible Hand” theory, a business student learns of the inverse relationship between price and quantity on the demand side and the direct relationship between price and quantity on the supply side. All that to say, each business student is taught that to keep the doors open a business must sell products that the customers actually want. Therefore, the customers are the driving force of what is sold, not businesses.             I believe that businesses sell benefits not products. When this approach is taken the customer, once again, holds all the power. Take for example, a new pair of shoes. A person does not buy a new pair of shoes just to have them; a person buys a pair of shoes for the benefits. Whether it is to improve one’s self image or to keep one’s feet dry, consumers look for these benefits when deciding what product to purchase. Further, it is the marketer’s job to make sure that the customers’ desired benefits are met. As a marketing student I am not interested in making sure our country is more obsessed with consumerism, I am interested in giving people what they want.             It is not the marketers and advertisers that are behind the unhealthy consumerism, it is our culture. The business side of consumerism is a by-product of our culture and therefore at the mercy of what our culture wants. I suggest that we begin to shift the blame to ourselves for a culture that is fascinated by individualism and consumerism. And as our culture begins to shift away from consumerism the marketing and advertising will as well. After all, the first rule of business is supply and demand. -cz

 By Brendan

The concept of missional living has been brought to the forefront of my mind as I have entered into this New Year. My paradigm of missions has been forced into a place of reflection and rediscovery. My own concept of missions seems to be evolving as God is faithfully opening my eyes to His very nature and character. I have at one time or another thought of missions as supporting—whether financially, or through prayer—someone else. I have also at one point or another treated missions as something that one does through short-term trips (somewhere else) of relief or encouragement. And finally I have thought of missions as something that is lived out through love for those I am in community with, essentially attractional community—John 13:35, “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." But all of these conceptions of missions seem to fall short of the incarnation. Christ’s ultimate example. The nature of God is characterized by His sending of His own son, Jesus. In doing so Jesus left the comforts of heaven and stepped down from his position of authority into our world and experienced all things as we do. Another aspect of the nature of God is apparent in Jesus’ life as He lived relationally. Jesus reached out to the “unlovable” those who were on the fringes of society, lepers, widows, prostitutes, “sinners”, the poor, and the unreligious. He set the ultimate example of love as he interacted with sinners, healed the sick, and called fisherman, and tax collectors to join Him on His mission. Missional Living, as exemplified by Jesus seems to be the example of both go, and as you are going. What I mean by that is Jesus came to our world, and as he was going (living) He made disciples. So He was both sent and was obedient to live in a way that cultivated The Kingdom right where He was. Jesus example has caused me to reflect on my understanding of missions and how it is practically acted out in my own life. Am I loving those who culturally are “unlovable”, those on the fringes of society, or those who I rub shoulders with daily? Am I following Christ example? Am I ultimately following Christ’s call for my life?

 

By Kayla

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By Peter

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Anyone who has watched the movie “Finding Nemo” knows that clownfish live where? “In an anemonenene”. The symbiotic relationship between the clown fish and the anemone is truly beautiful. The fish constantly feeds on small invertebrates that potentially kill the anemone, and the anemone protects the clownfish with its stinging cells. If either of the two organisms is not present, the remaining one will struggle to survive and probably die.   A healthy church has a similar relationship between the sodalic and modalic structures. Examples of sodalic organizations are Youth for Christ and Campus Crusade, while most churches are examples of modalic structures; this is where people are primarily fed and grow in their faith. In simple terms, sodalic organizations bring many new converts into the church, while modalic structures nurture and develop these new converts into servants (which often results in sodalic servants). Do you see how this symbiotic mutualism is similar to the clown fish and the anemone? The modalics feed the sodalics and the sodalics feed the modalics. An example would be a small church that is also a Youth for Christ center. The YFC center would constantly be bringing new converts into the church and the church would reply by developing these converts and placing them in the YFC center. When both organisms are functioning together, life flourishes.     However, in America this symbiotic relationship is rarely found. You see churches all over the place trying to function and draw people in on their own, and you see sodalic organizations converting people and then trying to “place” them in a church (which is similar to transplanting a killer whale into a mountain lake in many cases). Since these two categories in the church are not functioning together, both are struggling to survive on their own. It is similar to a clown fish trying to survive without the anemone; while the fish may survive, it will not be healthy and will constantly be attacked by its enemies. This is all because the clown fish is not living the symbiotic mutualism that God designed it to live in……. and the same is true about the church.

 By Trevor

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By Holly

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By Laura

It is interesting to me that family is such a central part of the Church, and yet families often do not go to church together. Well, they go to church together, but once they get there the kids are put in the care of others to have their own time of age-appropriate biblical learning, while the adults attend the main service without ‘distractions.’ As I have grown up, I have seen both positive and negative aspects of this practice in the church. Personally, I went through children’s Sunday school as a child, and later participated in multiple youth groups as a teenager. These were all great places to grow in my faith in fun ways with people my age, while my parents were able to have more in-depth teaching with older adults. This was good. read more

By Jannah I really liked how we talked about the tragic gap in class today and finding the middle ground between being a cynic and idealist. It’s too easy to become engulfed by the bad and lose sight of the good, or on the other hand to focus only on the hope and good and ignore the pain that is so real and thriving. One of our visitors in class today talked about entering into the pain and while you keep sight of the hope, it is important to recognize how real the hurting is. This is difficult at times for me. I am in my senior year and don’t know what I’ll be doing after college. It’s not that I don’t have any ideas; it’s just that I have so many of them and I’m not sure where to start. My major is music ministry and while I love being involved, this probably wouldn’t be a career for me. I’d like to work a little in health care, especially assisted living homes. For some time I have also been interested in going into music therapy. I would love to work with both children and adults and help those people who do not have the ability to easily express themselves in writing or through speech. For so many of them, music is something that just clicks. It is remarkable to watch these people who struggle so much in everyday life become truly alive through music. The hesitation is in opening myself up to all the pain. We talked about compassion fatigue and that is a big struggle for me. God is always with us and for that I am daily thankful. I know if this is where He leads me, then He will help me make it through. It’s easier said than done. There won’t always be good results and it might not seem like I’m doing much. Sometimes trust is one of the most challenging things.