[featured_image]Here is a simple explanation of the word missional—it describes being a missionary everywhere you are! It is about doing missions—aligning your life with the redemptive mission of Jesus in the world. It is adopting the posture of a missionary in order to engage those in the culture with the gospel message. It is recognizing that every believer has been sent by Jesus as Christian missionaries with the good news of salvation together in community with other believers to their specific geographic and cultural context. Just as God sent Jesus, now Jesus sends all believers (John 20:21).
Missional is an adjective that describes the way in which Christians do all activities, rather than identifying any one particular activity. Everything is directed toward participation in God’s mission in the world.
Missional then, no matter what noun it is modifying, must qualify the meaning of that noun by referencing God’s mission as defined by Scripture. More specifically, missional limits any noun that it modifies to the temporary mission task of the Church to make disciples of all ta ethne for God’s glory and worship Therefore, a local church is missional when it intentionally pursues God’s mission for His glory among all peoples by following His patterns and His ways of expanding His kingdom
(Van Sanders, “The Mission of God and the Local Church,” in Pursuing the Mission of God in Church Planting, ed. John M. Bailey, Alpharetta: North American Mission Board, 2006, 25.)
