Missional sojourners

I'm doing some talks (actually leading the discussions) for a gathering of pastors who serve international churches in Asia (English speaking churches that primarily serve ex-pats). I am trying to develop a link between being a sojourner (or as Dave Gibbons phrases it -- a "misfit") and **missional effectiveness.

In a nutshell I'm suggesting that the church is best at being missional when it is in the sojourn mode. There is a paradox in that we become more effective at influencing culture when we are less attached to a given culture. Sojourners/misfits are more attached to the mission of God than the culture. (Although there is a temptation for sojourners to have a romanticized attachment to a distant or past culture or place.)

Of course, not all misfits are healthy or influential but radical changes, changes which last, are usually initiated on the edges of cultural rather than from the center of a culture. This means that the potential for aliens, strangers, misfits, immigrants, ex-pats (all people on the cultural fringe) to have kingdom of God impact is significant.

I am not suggesting that indigenous and culturally sensitive forms of worship and church organization are unimportant -- only that sojourners, those who can at least mentally step outside the cultural flow, are in a better position to see what God is doing in the culture and to respond to his mission.

Examples of sojourners who embraced God's mission and had major impact -- Abraham/Sarah, Esther, Priscilla/Aquilla -- and Jesus (in the incarnation God sojourned among us).

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**Missional -- We trace the term to Darrell Guder and the Gospel and Our Culture Network. It is a response to some of the weaknesses in the Western church.

For example, in American evangelicalism we've had the mindset of "build it and they will come." However, the missional approach does not worry so much about building things or responding to perceived consumer preferences. To the contrary the emphasis is on "going." We've treated missions as one of the church's many programs but in fact, biblically speaking, everything the church is and does is about mission -- going out -- making disciples -- impacting the world for the kingdom of God. The main idea behind missional thinking is that we need to see the church as not so much a sending body as itself is a sent body -- participants in the mission of God already in progress.

There are several strands of thinking which embrace the term but at the core to be missional is to be outwardly focused, on-the-go, and embracing the fullness of the mission of God in the world. It is to be all-consumed by the mission of God.

These ideas are not really new, and many Christians throughout history have been missionally focused. We're talking about a correction in emphasis.