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Missional living is a Christian practice to adopt the thinking, behaviors, and practices of a missionary in everyday life, in order to engage others with the gospel message.
The Missional Church Movement, a church renewal movement based on the necessity of missional living by Christians, gained popularity at the end of the twentieth century, mainly due to the publication of “Missional Church” by Darrell Guder in 1998, and advocates like Tim Keller Advocates contrast missional living in ordinary life with the idea of a select group of "professional" missionaries, emphasizing that all Christians should be involved in the Great Commission of Jesus Christ.Tim Keller, "The Missional church by Tim Keller" http://download.redeemer.com/pdf/learn/resources/Missional_Church-Keller.pdf
In 1934, Karl Hartenstein, a German Missiology, coined the phrase in response to Karl Barth and his emphasis on actio Dei ("the action of God"), seeing God as the primary acting agent in the world and within the church.Bosch, David J, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1991), 420.
During the International Missionary Council conferences of the 1950s and 1960s, Mission Theology began to take shape. It came to public attention in 1962, in Johannes Blauw’s book The Missionary Nature of the Church. Missional Church Network website
In 1983, Anglican Bishop, and missionary to India, Lesslie Newbigin published The Other Side of 1984, which looked at the close ties between Western Christianity and Western society and the loss of influence which the church had had upon society around it. In 1989 he wrote that according to Jesus’s statements in the Gospel of John, every Christian has been sent by Jesus with the gospel into the community to live with those in the surrounding culture for the sake of the King and His kingdom: “The Church is sent into the world to continue that which he came to do, in the power of the same Spirit, reconciling people to God.”Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1989, 230. Jesus said, “As the Father has sent Me, I am sending you” ().
"No one can say: ‘Since I’m not called to be a missionary, I do not have to evangelize my friends and neighbors.’ There is no difference, in spiritual terms, between a missionary witnessing in his hometown and a missionary witnessing in Katmandu, Nepal. We are all called to go - even if it is only to the next room, or the next block.”"Thomas Hale, On Being a Missionary, p 6
There is no definitive definition of ‘Missional Living’ and many Christians interpret it in different ways. Guder notes that this happens when “we experience the transforming truth of Christ and bring it to everything we do.”. Theology of Work website The Reformed Theological Seminary in the US sees it as “live as a saint, one of the Lord … to live as a sent one, to think as a sent one, to write as a sent one for the sake of God’s glory, the edification of God’s people the church, and the salvation of the lost, across the street and around the world.” Reformed Theological Seminary website The Missional Challenge workshop sees it as “embodying the mission and message of Jesus and seeking to be Jesus to everyone everywhere.”. Missional Challenge website
The Missional Challenge workshop also notes that for any Christian, Mission Living covers many areas of life including, to seize Christ’s mission as a personal goal, to commit to proclaim the gospel to a specific geographical area, to influence non-believers towards Christ and to motivate other Christians. Missional Challenge website
"Both refer to more than a simple translation of the gospel into different languages and cultures in the way that one translates a history book or a science text. Rather, they point to the embodiment of the living Word in human culture and social settings in such a way that its divine nature and power are not lost. True contextualization is more than communication. It is God working in the hearts of people, making them new and forming them into a new community. It is his Word transforming their lives, their societies, their cultures."Paul Hiebert and Eliose Hiebert Meneses, Incarnational Ministry, Baker Book House, 1995, 370.
These five biblical distinctives form the foundation of a missional perspective:Dave DeVries, Missional Transformation: Fueling Missionary Movements that Transform America, Bakke Graduate University, 2007, 8-12.
"Jesus was the first apostle. He was sent by his Father. He, in turn, sent the Twelve. They went to people who would then take the gospel to the rest of the world. Whoever received it would understand that they, too, had been sent. With the gospel being what it is, the church as bearer of the gospel is bound to be apostolic."Jim Petersen and Mike Shamy, The Insider, NavPress, 2003, 83.
The Kingdom of God was central to Jesus’ message and mission. The Book of Acts ends with St Paul, under house arrest in Rome, “proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance” (Acts 28:31). Christians are sent to proclaim the gospel of the kingdom so that others may enter the kingdom. George Hunsberger conveys the idea that the Church is pointing beyond itself to the kingdom of God. The Church is not an end in itself; God has a mission that goes beyond the Church which includes the kingdom. The kingdom and the Church must never be divorced, yet they also must never be equated. In a similar way, “the reign must never be separated from the One who reigns.”.George R. Hunsberger, “Called and Sent to Represent the Reign of God,” in Missional Church, ed. Darrel Guder, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1998, 94. The kingdom is always at the heart of the King.
"Mission is not just a program of the church. It defines the church as God’s sent people. Either we are defined by mission, or we reduce the scope of the gospel and the mandate of the church. Thus our challenge today is to move from church with mission to missional church."Guder, ed., Missional Church, 6.The mission of the Christian church is to spread the gospel.
"Missional church is a community of God’s people that defines itself, and organizes its life around, its real purpose of being an agent of God’s mission to the world. In other words, the church’s true and authentic organizing principle is mission. When the church is in mission, it is the true church. The church itself is not only a product of that mission but is obligated and destined to extend it by whatever means possible. The mission of God flows directly through every believer and every community of faith that adheres to Jesus. To obstruct this is to block God’s purposes in and through his people."Alan Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways, Brazos, 2007, 82.
Missional living is a term that is used in contrast with historical institutional churches. Church leaders as well as Christians in general have often regarded the Church as an institution, to which outsiders must come in order to receive a certain product, namely, the gospel and all its associated benefits. Institutional churches are sometimes perceived to exist for the members and depend on pastors and staff to evangelize the lost. The "missional church", on the other hand, attempts to take Christ to "the lost". Members of the missional church are personally engaged in reaching their communities with the message of Jesus Christ.
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