[featured_image]Welcome to Day 26 as you Take the Missional Challenge!

Take the Missional Challenge is a 31 Day experience designed to help align believers with Jesus’ mission. Each day’s post includes missional concepts and activities. For more information – click here.

Church isn’t a destination, it’s people. It’s not somewhere you go. It’s not something you do. It’s who we are as followers of Jesus! The Church is His Body – His missionary people!

Steve Dueck, my brother-in-law, often reminds me that we are on mission “to be the visible presence of Christ’s Church in our neighborhood.”

We are the church! This requires us to “be Jesus” to everyone around us – not just to attend weekend worship services.

“Stop going. Start being the Church.”
~ Lesson #62 (Six-Word Lessons to Discover Missional Living )

Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian, or define your life in Christ. What would happen if you stopped going? How would anyone know you were a Christian?

For too many Christians, going to church is their only activity each week that identifies them with Christ’s Church. Instead of going to church, try being the church this week!

The Bible tells us not to forsake “our own assembling together, as is the habit of some.” Instead, we are to be encouraging one another and stimulating one another to love and good deeds (Heb 10:24-25). I’m not advocating that you forsake gathering with other Christians to worship God regularly. However, I doubt Jesus expected Christians to measure their Christian activity simply by their church attendance.

When Jesus said, “I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not overpower it” (Mt 16:18), I doubt He envisioned hundreds and even thousands of Christians sitting in pews or rows in a weekend “worship service.” Church is not somewhere to go or something to do – it’s who we are as the missionary people of God.

Jesus sends every believer (His Church) with the cross in community to engage the culture for the King and His kingdom! That’s what being the church looks like! Embracing the Cross, Experiencing Community, and Engaging the Culture! That’s what the Missional Church is all about.

Stop going. Start being the Church!

DAY 26 ACTION STEP: Be the Visible Presence of Christ’s Church in Your Neighborhood

  • Reflect on this quote – “In order to make people ‘see how they love each other’, we would literally have to place the church, the body of Christ as a ‘shop-window for God’ in the neighborhood of every person on the planet.” (Wolfgang Simson, Houses that Change the World)
  • Ask yourself: What would it look like to be the presence of Christ’s church in my neighborhood?
  • Commit yourself to be the Church! (Obey anything the Spirit is leading you to do!)

Day 26 Missional Challenge: Skip going to a church service this Sunday. Instead, gather together your Christian friends to visibly display Christ’s Church in service in your neighborhood.