How Any Church Can Be Missional

Sunday, March 24, 13

How Any Church Can Become a Missional Church:

Reaching People in a Post-Christian West Michigan


Missional: To live in such a way that God’s glory is proclaimed and people are introduced to Jesus.


e Problem


e number of adults who do not attend church has doubled since 1991.


3500 churches close their doors each year


80% of the remaining churches are plateaued or declining


“e combined impact of the Information Age, Postmodern thought, globalization, and racial ethnic pluralism that has seen the demise of the grand American story also has displaces the historic role the church played in that story”-Mike Reagle, Researcher


UK: 20 % Churched, 40 % De-churched, 40 % Unchurched

70 % of the population has no intention of attending a church ever


In America 1 out of 4 people has no connection to church

In Great Britain it is 3 out of 4

In Australia church attendance declined from 35% in 1966 to 8% in 2001

e problem is that every trend says we are moving toward being Great Britain


American Unchurched by Race:

-African Americans (25%)

-Whites (32%)

-Hispanics (34%).

-Asians (63%)

-Single adults (37%)


If the unchurched population of the United States were a nation of its own, that group would be the twelfth most populated nation on earth.


Liquefaction


"I respect your convictions but I cannot allow you to put God's law over your country's." - a Vermont judge to a Mennonite pastor


“In Great Britain it is easier to come out as a homosexual in the workplace than it is to come out as a Christian”-Tim Chester and Steve Timmis


What doesn’t work anymore (or won’t for most of us)


Stylistic solutions


“Cool Churches”


“Church Like You’ve Never Seen it”



e 40/60 Factor



“Every current poll I’ve seen indicates the American church is in decline. Yes, the number of large churches is increasing, but overall church attendance continues to go down. e way we do church—the model of Christendom that has been followed for the past 1,700 years—is working with fewer people all the time. Most people reading this are the product of the type of church that is, as a whole, becoming less and less effective.” -Tim Stevens (Mega-Church Guru)




e Christian Bubble and the Culture War



A culture war mentality says that those people are the bad guys and we are the good guys.

A gospel mentality says that we are the bad guys and Jesus is THE good guy who rescues bad guys.


Victims?

Or the rescue squad.


1 Peter 1:1-3, 2:9-11


To those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sancti#cation of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood...


But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.


Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the $esh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation..


Break


What we are NOT talking about


Mobilizing people for everyday mission.


Key Components


Commitment to Local

Relationships

Community on Mission




Neighborhood Mapping


Break



Spheres of In$uence



Missional Journaling


What are you already doing?


Missional Communities


Exponential Multiplication


Missional Leadership


Time + Intentionality = Discipleship


Questions?


Spiritual

How Any Church Can Be Missional