Minatrea describes a missional churches as "reproducing communities of authentic disciples, being equipped as missionaries sent by God, to live and proclaim His Kingdom into their world." This is by no means a radical or unusual definition of what a church should be. The real difference is that there is a renewed effort to reverse the trend among the churches to gravitate toward being "maintenance churches" - churches that spend most of their energy maintaining themselves, more focused on the church activities than Kingdom activities.
Minatrea describes nine practices of missional churches - things that missional churches tend to do that make them missional.
- Have a high threshold for membership. This may seem counterintuitive - we want to get people into membership, don't we? But when membership has a reasonably high threshold, that carries a sense of seriousness to membership, that only those who are truly willing to commit to be engaged with the ministry of the church make that covenant commitment. There are real expectations of members to the church and of the church to the members. Of course, all attenders are of concern, but membership itself is reserved for those who will make it mean something.
- Be real, not real religious. The emphasis is on authenticity, not performance. They are serious about the "one anothers" of Scripture. They are authentic to the outside world, too.
- Teach to obey rather than to know. All of the teaching of the church is for the intent of living out the authentic Christian life, not just gaining Bible knowledge. They equip rather than merely teach.
- Rewrite worship every week. God is to be the center of worship, and worship is to be experiential and participatory. Again, authenticity is more important than form.
- Live apostolically. Every person is sent (the word "apostle" means "sent one"). The members live lives sharing the Good News in a variety of ways.
- Expect to change the world. Perhaps too many Christians don't really believe they can be used of God to change much of anything, let alone the world. Missional churches believe they can. They minister to others by building genuine relationships, and they have the rest of the world in mind with a strategy to reach at least some of them. If you doubt that DBC can change the world, let me introduce you to some Kenyan orphans who would insist otherwise.
- Order actions according to purpose. Missional people have priorities in life that match God's priorities in Scripture. Then, they live their lives according to those priorities, not the priorities foisted on us by the world and by the religious community. This means letting go of things and activities that don't fit into the priorities.
- Measure growth by capacity to release, not retain. Missional churches measure success by how many of their people are ready to serve, not how many people go past the turnstiles each week.
- Place Kingdom concerns first. Missional people adopt a worldview based on the Word and evaluate everything by Kingdom standards. They are "Kingdom-minded," partnering with Christians who differ with them on the minor issues. They also understand that our real enemy is the leader of another kingdom of dark power.
We're not fully missional by any means, although our priorities have always been in these directions. The recent writings on missional churches will only help to clarify our vision for what we want DBC to become, and know that she can become. It is my deep heart's desire that all of us in the DBC family will develop a missional commitment to life as we continue to walk down this road together.
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