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For many people the word missional is a fairly new word. Those within churchdom or more accurately churchdom leadership have become more familiar with this word in recent years. Matter-of-fact, I have a former blog that was dedicated to nothing more than the conversation, explanation & example of what missional looked like.

To set up today's post, let me try to define for you not what missional is... but actually what the essence of what missional actually means. You see there is a kazillion different definitions of what missional means. Frankly, part of the reason that I got out of the conversation is because of the people that were online conversing what missional meant... they could not agree what it means or what it even looked like. Again, it started to wear me out after some time. My views on what missional church means & looks like is mostly influenced by Steve Sjogren [father of the servant evangelism movement, author & pastor] & Ed Stetzer [an author, researcher & missiologist with Lifeway Research & the Southern Baptist Convention]. But I am also heavily influenced by guys like Rick McKinley [a pastor from Portland, Oregon] and the guys [Hugh Halter & Matt Smay] who wrote a great book called "The Tangible Kingdom" from the Denver, Colorado area.

The essence, the embodiment of what missional means is to be sent out on God's mission. Or you could see it as, acting like a missionary to your city, your community, etc. As somebody that has been a missionary here in the states... and has been willing to approach my ministry in the local church the same way a missionary would coming into a new, unreached community the core of what it means to be missional is God's love. Let me explain.

Let's start by looking at what the Bible says about God's love...

1 John 4:9, it tells us that the way God showed his love for us was by sending Jesus from heaven to earth.

John 3:16 [may be the most well known Bible passage in the whole world], says that God loved us so much that he sent Jesus.

So we see that God's love is the basis for the mission that Jesus had set out before him...

1 John 3:16 says that the example for what love is... is Jesus Christ laying down his life for us. This was his mission. This was his "missio dei" which is the Greek for "mission of God". The core of our missio dei... has to be that of love. Love has to be the motivation for what it is that we do.

You see God's love for our communities, for our cities, for the people that are our neighbors is so great... that He has sent you, me, our churches, to share His love. But did you catch that... just like Jesus was sent from heaven to earth on His mission... we are sent to our cities, our neighborhoods, our workplaces, because God loves people. It is because of this love that we are sent out. It is because of this love that we are to lay down our lives for those around us.

In 1 John 4:15, it says that if we acknowledge Jesus is the Son of God... God lives in us and you are in God. That means God's love is also in us. Just like Jesus says that they Kingdom of God lives inside of us... God's love lives inside of us.

This love... is what sends us out on our missio dei... or our "mission of God". What is God's love sending you out to do?

God's love is also what compels us to be a Luke 4 Church as well.

From my blog... http://luke4church.com/2009/10/20/gods-love-is-missional/