Sola Scriptura?
The Wesleyan Quadrilateral, Week 3
by Andrea Lingle
Our garden is a terrible tumbled mess right now. The broomcorn has gone to seed and we haven’t made a single broom. Weeds have invaded the sweet potatoes, and we got one meal’s worth of green beans. This is late summer. We have officially missed fall planting like I do every single year. Every. Single. Year.
Read MoreThe B-I-B-L-E
The Wesleyan Quadrilateral, Week 2
by Andrea Lingle
The B-I-B-L-E, yes, that’s the book for me.
Actually, I have a rather volatile relationship with the B-I-B-L-E. It is a book that I have read and re-read, but do not understand. It is surprising, confusing, infuriating, and precious. There are stories that have left me terrified, inspired, and everything in between.
Foundational Issues: The Wesleyan Quadrilateral
The Wesleyan Quadrilateral, Week 1
by Adam White
We all need foundations to build upon. This exists physically for the construction and repair of houses and buildings, emotionally for establishing relationships with each other, and spiritually for our faith.
Read MoreIt Is Time
by Bret Wells
Since the first cohort in 2011, Launch & Lead (formerly known as The Academy for Missional Wisdom) has been equipping people and teams from all over the US to launch and lead alternative forms of Christian community, and/or provide support to those who do.
Read MoreAs we prepare to begin a new series of devotional thoughts in a couple of weeks, we have asked some Missional Wisdom Foundation staff members to tell us more about some upcoming classes and events.
Autumn is close, and the kids have either gone back to school or are well on their way. Back to school isn’t just for the kids, though. If you’ve been searching for a way to grow your engagement in your community, the Missional Wisdom Foundation has you covered.
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 Moreby Justin Hancock with Lisa Hancock
Growing up in a medium-sized, almost rural, West Texas town, the kitchen table played a prominent role. It doesn’t matter if it was sitting down for Sunday dinner at my great-grandparents’ house, with what felt like a billion relatives to my 5-year-old sensibilities, or rolling up to the table as the smell of homemade Chex Mix that my mother had just taken out of the oven filtered through the house during the Christmas holidays. The kitchen, and more specifically the kitchen table, has exerted an almost primal hold on the most tender part of my heart for as long as I can remember.
Read More
