Being Missional

Bill Kinnon posted a wry send up of being missional called Missional Shampoo. He's rifting off of Leslie Newbigin's missional legacy.  The reaction to this bit of nonsensical fun has been the appearance of an apparent dispute over the origin and meaning of the word.  Read Bill's post to get the full story.  I'm not really interested in the specifics of the dispute. 

So, why I'm I writing about it?

Lately, I've been thinking about how we arrive at our theological beliefs.  We read a scripture passage, and immediately jump to a generalize conclusion about how God works.  In seminary, we called this proof-texting. We are trained to spot a proof-texter.  What we don't realize is that most of us are pretty good at reading far too much into a text.

The same is true in reverse. Words like missional that are neo-logisms are open to a variety of interpretations.  Hence, disputes arise over whether one interpretation is correct and another not. Or one the original idea and another a corruption of it. Is it okay for a word to change meaning over time?  I don't know. It is the first time I've thought about it.

The reality is that we do not control the meaning of words. Words serve the people who use them.  Some languages are more ambiguous, like English, and so create confusion.  Take C.S. Lewis' famous tract on The Four Loves. One English word - Love,  four Greek ones - Phileo, Storge, Eros, Agape.

Obviously, I don't have a dog in the hunt for the origin of the term missional. Rather, I'm more interested in what it means, and the range of meanings that can be derived from the word.  If one interpretation inspires a person to venture forth to do poverty work in the name of Jesus Christ, I say, Go for it. If another, finds their call in the church, God bless them.

In other words, the term missional applies to both individuals and churches.  And if I may use my Circle of Impact diagram to parse this out.  Missional is a word, and all words are ideas. These Ideas, like Missional, influence not only our Relationships with people, but also how we create the organizational structures of churches.  So, if Missional is an Idea that we together Value in our Relationships, then Missional becomes a key term for understanding our Mission as a church, and therefore the church organizes itself to provide people in relationship a way to be Missional through their Relationships in the church.  When the Idea of Missional and the Value of Missional come together a Vision for the Impact of being Missional can be realized.

The problem with many of these ideological disputes in the church is that they are predicated on a belief that we know what we know, and we know it absolutely.  I think it is safer to say I know a little, and you know a little, and maybe we should figure out what we don't know and go from there.

Let me close with a quote from Nassim Taleb's The Black Swan.

“The writer Umberto Eco belongs to that small class of scholars who are encyclopedic, insightful, and nondull. He is the owner of a larger personal library (containing thirty thousand books), and separates visitors into two categories: those who react with “Wow! Signore professore dottore Eco, what a library you have! How many of these books have your read?” And the others – a very small minority – who get the point that a private library is not an ego-boosting appendage but a research tool. Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight real-estate market allow you to put there. You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menacingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books. Let us call this collection of unread books an antilibrary. 

We tend to treat our knowledge as personal property to be protected and defended. It is an ornament that allows us to rise in the pecking order. So this tendency to offend Eco’s library sensibility by focusing on the known is a human bias that extends to our mental operations. People don’t walk around with anti-resumes telling you what they have not studied or experienced (it’s the job of the competitors to do that), but it would be nice if they did. Just as we need to stand library logic on its head, we will work on standing knowledge itself on its head. Note that the Black Swan comes form our misunderstanding of the likelihood of surprises, those unread books, because we take what we know a little too seriously.

Let us call an antischolar – someone who focuses on the unread books and makes an attempt not to treat his knowledge as a treasure, or even a possession, or even a self-esteem enhancement device – a skeptical empiricist.”

What Taleb writes here applies to the church and we church people as much as to any person or human institution. We have all made grandiose statements about God, Jesus, the Spirit, the church and what is and what isn't biblical, Christian and worthy of the church.   We have spoken way beyond our pay grade, and because we all do it we think that it is no big deal. It is a big deal because it goes to the heart of what it means to be an authentic person, an authentic follower of Jesus Christ and an authentic pastor, theologican, church member or, forgive me, consultant.

The real test of the word missional is the impact of the people who are inspired to service by the idea.  So, we need more than shampoo, we need Missional Body Wash to bring the whole body into the Missional world.

Comments

[Dennis]

A mental shoreline of debris and foam,
line the vast ocean of the unknown.

The image of missional shampoo (or body wash) suggests that something created and bottled elsewhere is the answer. A missional soup or stew might make more sense, as we mix local (stock) ingredients with the spices of ideas originating elsewhere. Besides, I'd rather have a mission which warms and feeds, than one which looks and smells good for a little while.

The treasure store of a library is not what it used to be - now that there are public libraries and internet. Shelves of unread books are more likely to signal an addiction to conquer and possess - even though it's often physical bulk - rather than mental stimulation and growth. (Fat, rather than lean minds.) Seminary professors now warn about our addictions to accumulating books which will never be read.

While I'm on a liminal shore at the moment, some thoughts were seen drifting in through the haze...

Vision is standing on the shore, with a view to the horizon. (Vision can be where relationships and structure originate - or where they go by default. The difference between dusk and dawn.)

Mission is our purpose and industry.

Values are the foundations upon which we build. Strength and depth affect what can be built upon them.

Relationships are the people which accompany us, and provide the interactions and story lines of our existence. They help us build and tear down, and may assist with focus and perspective.

Ideas are the treasures which wash upon the shore, as well as those which we catch with bait and traps.

Organizational structure is the boat which assists in our industry - carrying us to ports along the shore of mission, upon the waters of vision. The power, size, and outfitting of this vessel can be changed.