Introduction to the Missional Church Patterns

A missional church listens to God’s specific call.  It experiences and participates in God’s sending it and the Holy Spirit’s empowering it to participate in God’s mission in the world. It does this in such a way that both its outreach and its life together as a church are a witness to Jesus Christ.

There is no easy formula: do these three things and you will be a missional church.  There is no handy checklist of activities you can perform in order to be successful.  Instead, researchers have identified eight somewhat overlapping “Patterns” that they have found in missional congregations.  These are explained in more detail in the book Treasure in Clay Jars, where you will also find congregational stories illustrating these Patterns.

You can recognize patterns, even if they are not identical.  For example, a plaid pattern on fabric may look different from one piece of fabric to another.  Plaids may have different colors, even different numbers of colors.  They may be symmetrical or not.  The repeat may be small or large. The fabric may be broadcloth or corduroy, cotton or wool.  But you can still identify the pattern as a plaid. That’s the way it is with these “Patterns in Missional Faithfulness.”  They may take different form in small congregations versus large congregations, in different cultural settings, in different denominational traditions, but you can still identify the pattern.

Missional Pattern 1:  Discerning Missional Vocation

How is God calling and sending your particular congregation? A missional congregation knows its vocation.  It knows why God has called it into being.  It knows the tasks that God has given it.  Missional vocation is not just an annual plan of action.  A missional vocation is lived out over many years.

Many congregations practice the discernment of the gifts of individual members, and this is a good practice.  The Pattern of missional vocation goes beyond individual gift discernment, to discerning the gifts of the congregation as a whole.  How has God gifted this congregation in particular?  How is God asking the congregation to use its gifts?

Congregations that know their missional vocation have spent significant time in discernment.

Discernment involves:
• Time.  A process of discernment may take several months—and continue as the congregation understands more about its missional vocation.
• Prayer.  Discernment means listening to God as well as speaking to God.  The congregation prays with an attitude of openness to whatever God will ask of them.  In prayer, the congregation asks for God’s will to be done through them.
• Discussion.  Discernment means learning from other members of the congregation and testing whether what one person may have heard from God is of God’s Spirit or not.
• Understanding the congregation’s context—in its neighborhood, city, nation, ethnic group, etc.
• Action.  The congregation can try out the actions implied by its missional vocation.  After acting on the missional vocation, the congregation may understand more about that calling.
Congregations that know their missional vocation decide what to do—and what not to do—and what not to do—based on their missional vocation.  Discovering a missional vocation does not necessarily add to the activities of the congregation.  Some new activities may be added.  Some old activities may be dropped.  All the congregation’s activities and programs should be evaluated in light of its missional vocation.
Often a missional vocation can be stated very simply.  Holy Ghost Full Gospel Baptist Church in Detroit, Michigan, understands that their job is to “love everybody.”  Transfiguration Roman Catholic Parish in Brooklyn, New York, has stated their missional vocation thus:  to be present with Christ in the Eucharist, and present with the poorest of the poor.  Spring Garden Baptist Church, York, Ontario, understands their vocation as presenting and representing Christ in the city. Boulder Mennonite Church in Colorado is shaped around a ministry of peace and reconciliation, both locally and globally.

A missional congregation is discovering together its missional vocation as a community.  It is redefining “success” in terms of faithfulness to God’s calling and sending.  It is seeking to discern God’s specific missional vocation for the entire community, as well as for all of its members.

Missional Pattern 2: Biblical Formation and Discipleship

The missional church is a community in which all members are involved in learning what it means to be disciples of Jesus Christ. The Bible is essential to this discipling process, because the missional church takes the Bible as normative for its life and witness. 
Discipleship means following Jesus.  During his earthly ministry, Jesus was physically present to teach, guide, and form his disciples.  Now we not only experience Jesus’ presence through the Spirit, we have the testimony of these first disciples in written form in the Bible. This witness as recorded in Scripture can continue to teach, guide, and form disciples of Jesus Christ.
Christians need training.  Missional congregations don’t assume that anyone automatically knows how to be a Christian. No one automatically knows how things are done in the reign of God. Becoming a citizen of the reign of God requires a naturalization process, learning a new vocabulary, learning new practices. Missional congregations train converts through some form of intentional catechesis.  They continue to disciple new Christians after baptism.  They assume that all Christians can continue to grow in discipleship.  No one is ever “finished” with learning how to follow Jesus. 
Missional formation can happen through Bible study.  Not all Bible study is missional formation.  People can approach Scripture with a “what’s in it for me?” attitude, rather than looking for how the Bible can transform us as individuals, and transform us as a congregation.  Authentic Bible study leaves open the possibility that the scriptural text we are reading or hearing might challenge and change us.
Small groups are important to the discipling process.  Discipling happens best in living-room-size groups of people in which people develop significant relationships over time.  Such small groups can:
• Study the Bible together, letting the Bible challenge their lives and the life of the congregation.
• Share issues of their lives with each other in the light of the Scripture.  Some small groups practice a “review of life,” in which one person each meeting tells the group about their lives and listens to the group’s response and guidance.  Other small groups have a practice of sharing spiritual pilgrimages with each other annually.
• Care for each other and hold each other accountable to their baptismal vows.
Committees and other regular church meetings can be shaped by the Bible.  Some congregations begin and end their committee meetings or congregational meetings with listening to the Bible.  They expect the biblical text to guide them in their process of becoming a more faithful church.
The missional church is a community where all members are learning what it means to be disciples of Jesus.  The Bible has a continuing, converting, formative role in the church’s life.

Pattern 3:  Taking Risks as a Contrast Community

When a congregation discerns its missional vocation, it will probably discover that it is becoming different from the dominant culture around it.  It is learning how to be different from the world for the sake of mission to the world.
We’re not in Christendom anymore.  The missional church recognizes that it no longer lives in “Christendom,” if it ever did.  It cannot expect the society around it to be Christian and to adopt all the church’s values.  It understands that the church is called to be “in the world, but not of the world.”  It raises questions about the church’s cultural captivity.
The church discerns what of the culture it can affirm, and to what of the culture it must offer an alternative.  Some aspects of the dominant culture are helpful and commendable.  Other aspects of the dominant culture are hostile to the way of Jesus.  For the sake of the world and its salvation, the missional church practices “nonconformed engagement” with the world—engaging the world, but not conforming to the world, conforming rather to the reign of God.  One pastor said, “If we are faithful Christians, we will be out of step with the culture.”
The missional church understands itself as different from the world because of its participation in the life, death, and resurrection of its Lord.  Jesus Christ lived a life of conformity to the God’s mission in the world.   That life led to his death on the cross.  The early church understood that God was calling it the same mission as Jesus:  “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”  It also understood that it was to share Christ’s sufferings and thus participate as well in Christ’s resurrection victory.  It grapples with the ethical and structural implications of its missional vocation.
The missional church knows that witness to the gospel often involves risk.  If doing God’s will and living out one’s missional vocation is the most important thing, then everything else is worth risking.  Risks can be small or large. One congregation decided to spend money for a project important to their missional vocation, even though they didn’t yet know where the money would come from.  Another congregation took a public stand on a controversial issue and arrived one Sunday morning to find red paint had been thrown against the front door of the church building.  Some risks for the sake of the gospel may even be life-threatening; we take inspiration from the witness of Christian martyrs throughout the centuries.
The missional congregation is learning to deal with both internal and external resistance to the gospel.  It engages conflict in healthy, reconciling ways. It knows that living out its missional vocation will not please everyone all the time.  It deals with conflict in Christlike ways.