The following is unashamedly lifted from the Prodigal Kiwi's blog (which is in turn taken from Phil McRedden):
"A missional church is a community of God’s people who live into the imagination that they are, by their very nature, God’s missionary people living as a demonstration of what God plans to do in and for all of creation in Jesus Christ.”
Many of us on the course want to integrate our working life with our (future) parish priest life (and this is sort of related to the previous post) because there is a belief that we should be combining the two and living out our ordained life in our every day communities within the workplace...
... a passion for the focus on Christ leading to the mission and from there the mission dictating the nature of how we "are" church - nothing new in this - but trying to put this into practice is already seemingly a challenge in itself...
Interestingly the "secular" perception is very positive and the "churched persons" perception somewhat confused.
I am drawing from my own experiences and perceptions which are of course subjective, I am also acutely aware that other people are called to ordained ministry in different ways, quite rightly, and please bare in mind that these are my thoughts and feelings, my workings out (if you like) at a point in time.
Mark Berry quotes as follows:
I like this quote...
A missional ecclesiology is rooted in God’s character and purpose as a sending or missionary God. Therefore, it’s starting point is the missional nature of The Trinity. God the Father sent the Son. God the Father and the Son sends the Spirit. God the Father, the Son and the Spirit sends the Church (Matthew 28:18-20; John 20:21; Acts 1:8). The church is God’s sent missional people. So just as Jesus was the fullness of God incarnated and embodied in a human being, the missional church follows Jesus’ model, learning from him how to embody the fullness of God as a new way of being human for the sake of the world. That is it’s very identity and essence.
Jason Zahariades The Off Ramp
Missio Dei - God's mission - ours to serve...
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