Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Reggie mcneal interview in next-wave

The April 2009 issue of the Next-Wave Ezine is pretty good. It has a really nice interview with Reggie McNeal dealing with his new book Missional Renaissance. I should probably read this book before he teaches at our regional conference sessions in June, but maybe it will be discounted at the conference; plus I have a million other ones to read. Anyway...

I like how Reggie says in the interview that "once everything becomes 'missional' it hardly has any punch left." That's one reason I have never liked the word - it is used by way too many people, to mean way too many things, and therefore it has way not enough meaning.

Reggie defines the missional church as "the people of God partnering with him in his redemptive mission in the world." He then goes on to explain what each part of that means. Good stuff.

I also liked what he had to say in regard to worship. He was asked to expound on his idea that "worship is seen as the extension of normal routines, not something that is a discontinuity with the rest of the week." He said this...
I think that in more incarnational ministries the stories we tell in worship are about God showing up and showing off all week as we play our role of being the blessing people of God... When we begin to see service as worship, and not just focusing on cranking out worship services, we allow many more people to find their own lives as part of that. In the attractional model, we invite people to observe a few people do what they are good at; in the missional approach we celebrate more of the spectrum of life pursuits of the participants.

There is also a good article by Steve Bowen "Creating God Space Where God Things Can Happen" that gives a glimpse of what this can look like in our worship gatherings (or, rather, outside of our gatherings). We started asking the questions "Where did you see God this week? Where did you join him? Where did you resist him?" in our Sunday gathering last Sunday. I hope to do so on a regular basis.

Good stuff. I am pumped to hear Reggie in June.

Peace out; and in.

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