a day at the park
What is missional community?
I suppose there are various ways to answer that, but at least today... it seems pretty clear. Gathering in a Bronx park, many from our Bronx/Westchester network met for a cookout. If you just walked by, you might just see a lot of people eating and having fun on a hot July day. This was the case, but it was so much more than that. There wasn't preaching or singing, but there was church and mission happening.
As participants in our house churches gathered in the park, we welcomed into our celebration a collection of people from a shelter, students from our summer conversational English initiative, and various other friends that we've met along the way. There were people that would be unlikely to ever enter a church building of any kind -- secular, muslim, buddhist, and souls deeply wounded by relationships, by religious legalism, by a fallen world.
What is missional community? It is when followers of The Way spend time, conversation, and recreation with others. As hospitality was a central tenet of the Christian faith at its beginning, we desire with all of our heart to capture that same spirit. Missional community takes place when a Bronx teenager walks up to thank one of us and says she can't believe that we would offer this to others so freely. It is when those of other faiths can come and be welcomed by followers of the Creator of the whole universe and feel safe. Outsiders will not be won to the cause of Christ by careful persuasion. We live in different (plurastic) times. They are introduced to Jesus when Christians love and embrace as Jesus did and through peaceful and hospitable dialogue.
Since arriving in the Bronx, we have probably made hundreds of blunders, and there are many things we are not so good at. But there are simply things that can't be measured quantitatively (besides, I seldom count!). The real question I am learning to ask is: When an outsider enters our midst, do they experience the body of Christ? That, my brothers & sisters, is missional community. And to know what to look for -- what that should look like -- is to ask: What was it like to be with Jesus?
There was a lot of mission happening today. It happened at picnic tables, playing volleyball, sitting on blankets, and through several conversations throughout the crowd. No one controlled it or engineered the interactions. There was no strategic planning. Just people following Jesus and opening their lives to others. That to me, is missional community.
I suppose there are various ways to answer that, but at least today... it seems pretty clear. Gathering in a Bronx park, many from our Bronx/Westchester network met for a cookout. If you just walked by, you might just see a lot of people eating and having fun on a hot July day. This was the case, but it was so much more than that. There wasn't preaching or singing, but there was church and mission happening.
As participants in our house churches gathered in the park, we welcomed into our celebration a collection of people from a shelter, students from our summer conversational English initiative, and various other friends that we've met along the way. There were people that would be unlikely to ever enter a church building of any kind -- secular, muslim, buddhist, and souls deeply wounded by relationships, by religious legalism, by a fallen world.
What is missional community? It is when followers of The Way spend time, conversation, and recreation with others. As hospitality was a central tenet of the Christian faith at its beginning, we desire with all of our heart to capture that same spirit. Missional community takes place when a Bronx teenager walks up to thank one of us and says she can't believe that we would offer this to others so freely. It is when those of other faiths can come and be welcomed by followers of the Creator of the whole universe and feel safe. Outsiders will not be won to the cause of Christ by careful persuasion. We live in different (plurastic) times. They are introduced to Jesus when Christians love and embrace as Jesus did and through peaceful and hospitable dialogue.
Since arriving in the Bronx, we have probably made hundreds of blunders, and there are many things we are not so good at. But there are simply things that can't be measured quantitatively (besides, I seldom count!). The real question I am learning to ask is: When an outsider enters our midst, do they experience the body of Christ? That, my brothers & sisters, is missional community. And to know what to look for -- what that should look like -- is to ask: What was it like to be with Jesus?
There was a lot of mission happening today. It happened at picnic tables, playing volleyball, sitting on blankets, and through several conversations throughout the crowd. No one controlled it or engineered the interactions. There was no strategic planning. Just people following Jesus and opening their lives to others. That to me, is missional community.
posted by Jared | 5:02 PM
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