Why the Missional Church Movement?

Dear COAH,

Last week, we finished another missional church conference at Young Nak Retreat Center. It was good to do this again after the pandemic. We invited twenty pastors to the forum from the US and Canada. Knowing how hard it is to take a week off and come, I appreciated all the pastors there. At the same time, I realized how serious the pastors were about getting a firmer grip on the missional church movement.

Those of us who are not well versed in the missional church conversation might think that it is another way of encouraging God’s people to do more in missions and evangelism. But let me tell you that it is not. The conversation is not about increasing our mission budget or mobilizing more people for missions. It is rather about asking more profound questions about the identity and mission of God’s people. Why do we exist here on earth as redeemed people of God? Is our life on earth like being inside a holding tank until our days are done and we are brought into glory?

The missional church movement is about recovering and rediscovering the biblical mandate for God’s people. God redeemed us so that we can live redemptive lives here on earth and be (in the words of Leslie Newbigin) the sign, the instrument, and the foretaste of the Kingdom of God. That is why we have been redeemed and chosen. That means we must lift our eyes off our immediate concerns of raising children, meeting mortgage payments, getting our job done at work, and so on, and see why God placed us here on earth. Everyone has a mission from God, or to put it in another way, everyone is called to be part of the mission of God. I was so encouraged to see many pastors excited about the missional church movement. It was a week well spent in the learning community of like-minded pastors.

Blessings,

Pastor Minho Song