Mission... 'a little more' than thinking aloud...

I quite like the kind of conversation that Alan Hirsch' working definition of 'misional' generates...

“So a working definition of missional church is that it is a community of God’s people that defines itself, and organizes its life around, its real purpose of being an agent of God’s mission to the world. In other words, the Church’s true and authentic organizing principle is mission. When the church is in mission, it is the true Church. The Church itself is not only a product of that mission, but is obligated and destined to extend it by whatever means possible. The mission of God flows directly through every believer and every community of faith that adheres to Jesus. To obstruct this is to block God’s purposes in and through his people.”

   And it's unfashionable and surprising to many that I find common sense in the underpinnings of early Kenon Callahan writing about the unhelpfully labelled '12 Keys to an Effective Church.' Kenon's wisdom is jargon thick and sounds like corporate growth planning... but of the few 'church effectiveness/growth/missiologist types/consultants' I've encountered, his ideas are grounded in simple ideas with relatively simple measures that tell a story.
   Much more important than this is he is the one who begins his conversation, understanding and urgings, grounded in fundamental human life searches... not in the church. Bandy is aggressive and will jam reforms through, Bill Easum is inspiring but allows me to stay big picture where I gravitate BUT Callahan does have 'keys' to simple ideas for 'congregations' or faith communities seeking to be better at responding people and God.
   I read a great review of his stuff that was an exercise in completely missing the point. The reviewer focused on missing underpinnings which would have weighed the material down to no good cause and rather than allowing the ideas to breathe and speak, would have tied any conversation to one or other part of the theological spectrum. Callahan's work explains often what is, in a way that allows what is to not hold a group back from growing. It also tackles our tendency to want to figure out what we are 'crap' at and fix it... when if it were that easy we probably would have. Instead he's looking for communities to discern their passion and gifts and things present in their life that are there but could be more effective, more central or create more energy... connecting all that to what fundamental life searches are happening amongst people in their community.
   It's not really about car parking spaces, signage and egress... but then again it is...just in proportion to mission, vibrancy and focus or purpose [for more than 40 days though]. In a wierd way Callahan's ideas come back to me as vignettes when I read other inspiring material including Andrew Root's ideas about 'place sharing' in ministry with young people... Anyhow I digress, which is why I kept other lists simple...

Motivated by missio dei, understanding something of it's call as a community and trying to share place with people in their lives and community... what are some simple ideas which live out mission. They will have much in common with 'good citizenship' because they are about contributing, but they will also sometimes be subversive and counter cultural because the underlying values are different...

I'm not trying to explain them, I'm just trying to simplify, example and inspire...

Seeing a need in your community and it's intersection with what you believe to be God's hope or an expression of God's grace and testing it out by serving/acting
Buying Dairy Farmers milk
Opening a 'Soul Food' cafe
Providing sandwiches for a local senior citizens volunteer grafitti clean up squad
Opening a hall space for youth drop in or a homework centre
Seeing property as a community resource to be used/worn out/shared
Collaborating with other groups and individuals on projects that meet basic human searches and needs in your community
Collaborating on celebrations e.g. Community Carols

A useful filter is to look for that thing you really want to do that if done well could develop you a 'legendary status on the community grapevine' not for that aim but because that's not a bad measure of how your going at helping.

Anyhow... just thinking unformed half ideas aloud, just playing... just writing stuff I can recant later
and just avoiding other work...