I have worked as a type of missionary with an unusual people group in my own community for years. Most of my educational effort on both the graduate and post graduate level has been largely focused on how we engage this affinity group with the Christian message in a way that is restorative in nature while being both easy to appropriate and reproducible.
Read MoreSt. Joseph's Girls Orphanage
In the world of stories from friends and companions whose paths have crossed with Missional Wisdom Foundation, Maggie and Darryl Patterson have played a role. Through a desire to find and be "more" in the world, and fueled and inspired by family tragedy, these friends have taken a derelict orphanage in Australia and turned it into a place that serves vulnerable children. (Originally published by Eternity News, by Tess Holgate and Bryce McLellan)
On the outskirts of Goulburn, in country NSW, an ordinary couple are hard at work turning the old St Joseph’s Girls Orphanage into a community hub, complete with café and accommodation for vulnerable women and children.
Read More"Hurricane Harvey hit Texas on Saturday, taking lives and leaving hundreds of thousands without power. Once the storm downgraded to Tropical Storm Harvey, even more damage was done, bringing in unprecedented flooding and raising the death toll to eight, a number expected to rise. In Houston alone, an estimated 30,000 will be forced to flee their homes and seek shelter; 450,000 others will require some sort of disaster assistance.
Read MoreWhat Doesn't Missional Mean?
What Does Missional Mean?, Week 14
by Andrea Lingle
For the last three months we have been on the journey of contemplating what does missional mean?
We discussed how the Gospel serves as a missional initiation to reorient our lives in following Christ.
Neighboring
What Does Missional Mean?, Week 13
by Andrea Lingle
Living missionally might, with all of its connection with New Monasticism and intentional community, seem impossible for those living within the confines of a school schedule and a minivan.
Read MoreMissional Imagination
What Does Missional Mean?, Week 12
by Andrea Lingle and Bret Wells
The active work of the Missional Wisdom Foundation is lived out through ongoing missional experimentation. These experiments are developed through a conjunction of the contemplative stance and missional imagination.
Imagination is what we experience when a story takes root in our mind. As the tendrils of narrative spread, new regions of brain activity are ignited. Once our imagination is fully
engaged, we not only hear the story but we see the story; we can smell it, taste it, touch
it...experience it.
Model Trains and Tadpoles!
What Does Missional Mean?, Week 11
by Adam White
What do model trains and tadpoles have in common? This newsletter article!
This week we are looking at two stories of missional living from two different communities of faith, a local church and a neo-monastic community.
Who We Are and Who We Represent
What Does Missional Mean?, Week 10
by Adam White
“Remember, who you are…” These words awaited us every time we as the youth group at New World United Methodist Church traveled anywhere.
The words came from our Youth Director, Sherry Womack. Sherry would always turn and look at us, sometimes just me directly, and, before we could get off the bus, say “Remember, who you are!” and then we’d respond with a glib symphony of pubescence and reluctance, “and who you represent.”
Read MoreFrom Pity to Compassion
Author: Andrea Lingle
Being missional or sent out is tricksy. It is tempting to go out in one’s strength toward those considered needy. We, here in the safety and security of privilege, come to you, there in the lowness and dislocation of your need. If the people of God move out, missionally, from a place of certainty, then a missional way of life just becomes another, hip crusade. It is the way of pity, and no one wants to be pitied.
Read MoreTogether
What Does Missional Mean?, Week 8
This week’s meditation is taken from Together: Community as a Means of Grace by Larry Duggins.
I believe that community itself is a prudential means of grace. Our Creator lives in a constant state of life-giving community, thriving through an inseparable bond between Father, Son, and Spirit. Our Creator made us in the Creator’s image, so we, ourselves, long for the same kind of community connection, and it is the prayer of the Redeemer that we experience that kind of community with each other and with the Creator. Through learning to love each other in communities, we live into our nature as the reflection of the image of God, fulfilling the desire of God, which draws us closer to God.
Read MoreChoose "C"
What Does Missional Mean?, Week 7
Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly. Matthew 11:28-30 The Message
The surveys are in. The numbers are down. Church is changing.
Within church walls the conversations center on what to do. How do we hang on? What has changed? Why do we gather for an hour one day a week to sing and listen to someone else talk?
Divine Synergy:
What Does Missional Mean?, Week 6
by Adam White
“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”
Most of us probably understand the concept of synergy and how it helps to have complementary parts of something working together for a desired outcome rather than separate parts attempting a goal. Last week we discussed how segmented we can be and how living missionally, in light of scripture, calls us to un-segment ourselves. The next step, after un-segmenting, is to missionally bind together. This step involves entering a divine synergy with one another through the Holy Spirit.
Un-Segmenting Mission:
What Does Missional Mean?, Week 5
by Adam White
We lead segmented lives.
We divide our time, presence, and energy depending on where we are, who is in front of us, and how much time we allot to a given situation.
Whether it is segmenting our home life from our work life; how we interact socially between family, friends, and acquaintances; or even what mode of communication we invest in, be that in person or through social media—our lives have become and continue to be segmented.
Freedom to Fail:
What Does Missional Mean?, Week 4
Before the cock crows, you will deny me three times.
How often have we read those words of Jesus with a bit of a self-righteous—I would never?
How often have we examined our lives for ways we deny Jesus?
How often have we crowed in accusation, demanding that a betrayal, denial, disappointment be brought to light?
Read MoreReordering Normal:
What Does Missional Mean?, Week 3
by Adam White
“It’s not normal!”
I usually hear this phrase when I confide to people that growing up I not only liked to dip french fries into a Wendy’s chocolate frosty…but also proceeded to let chicken nuggets join the party. I know, you are probably thinking,
“It’s not normal!”
Read MoreGod's Missional Initiation:
What Does Missional Mean?, Week 2
by Adam White
What Does Missional Mean?
What comes to mind when you hear the word “initiation”?
For me, I can not help but think of people being initiated into a Greek collegiate society or social club. It seems like persons being initiated are willing to go to great lengths so that they might be accepted into whatever group they are wanting to become members of.
Read Moreby Andrea Lingle
What is Missional?
Missional is...
Well, missional is…
Exactly.
So, we hope to spend the next several months talking about what mission means, to us, and to you.
Read MoreFreedom from Failure:
The Active Presence of the Holy Spirit, Week 8
by Adam White
Nobody likes to fail.
Even just reflecting on the words “fail” or “failure” bring back memories from school assignments, sports performances, and life moments that still find ways to linger in my mind. You have heard of a cloud of witnesses; I think of this as a cloud of failures. I think we each have our own cloud of failures that arise and follow us around during certain periods of time. This cloud can stay with us for quite a while if we let it hover over us and pour down things like doubt, insecurity, and fear.
Missional Imagination in Action
by Rachel Wells
Missional Imagination is one of the most popular, most talked about courses in Missional Wisdom Foundation's online learning program, Launch & Lead. In this course, students are encouraged to actively look for places in which God is already breaking into the world, and ways in which they can join in and continue that work. It is my privilege to be married to the instructor of the course, the ever-eloquent Dr. Bret Wells, so I hear about Missional Imagination often. Bret and I also talk with our children daily about finding ways to see Jesus at work and in others.
Read MoreWhat Kind of God?: Reading the Bible with a Missional Church
by Bret Wells
What kind of God is God? If, as the Apostle Paul claims in Colossians 1:15, Jesus is the exact image of the unseen God, then what is that God like? And how might the revelation of God in Jesus—God’s will, God’s nature, God’s action, God’s plan revealed fully in Jesus—change how followers of Jesus read the Bible?
