Posts tagged missional
St. Joseph's Girls Orphanage

St. 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.

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Heroes You Should Know

"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.

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Missional Imagination

Missional 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. 

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Model Trains and Tadpoles

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.

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Who We Are...

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.”

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From Pity to Compassion

From 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.

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Together

Together

What Does Missional Mean?, Week 8

by Larry Duggins

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.

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Choose "C"

Choose "C"

What Does Missional Mean?, Week 7

by Andrea Lingle

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?

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Divine Synergy

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.

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Un-Segmenting Mission

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.

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Freedom to Fail

Freedom to Fail:
What Does Missional Mean?, Week 4

by Andrea Lingle

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?

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Reordering Normal

Reordering 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!”

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God's Missional Initiation

God'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.

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Freedom from Failure

Freedom 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.

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Missional Imagination in Action

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.

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What Kind of God?

What 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?

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