The second characteristic of missional community as I define it is “pursuing community on a daily basis with others both inside and outside of the community.”
The reality is that at least in the United States, this is not how the church lives today. We live our lives – individually – during the week, and then commute to our regional mega-church (or even local less-than-mega-church) on the weekends for our fill of “church”. The more committed may go to church more than once per week, and even involve themselves in small groups, but with a few exceptions, we don’t see the kind of daily Christian community that we see in the Book of Acts.
Which is both a shame and a major threat to the continuing existence of the Church.
I’m going to go out on a post-modern limb here, but I am becoming more and more convinced that the modernist structures of church which have, at various times, served the church well in the past no longer function. Instead of making disciples, we meet the needs of our consumer congregations. Rather than influencing the world, we tend to lock ourselves away in the “Christian ghetto” in an attempt to try to protect ourselves from being influenced by the world (or even worse, we use the machinery of the state to expand that “protection” to others who do not even want it). And instead of reaching the lost, we by and large grow our congregations by poaching existing believers from other, “less hip” churches.
Now, that being said, I want to make it clear that I do not consider the faith of those involved in traditional churches (be they evangelical, mainline, Catholic, Orthodox, or what have you) to be defective, nor state that those churches do not have a valuable role and purpose. In fact, I am involved in one myself. However, my point is that in the long-term, the traditional church structure as it exists today will continue to decline, and only a radical re-imagining of the church will allow the Gospel to continue to expand in the post-modern world.
Like the monastic movement which kept the faith alive through the middle ages, we may be entering a period where a newly imagined church will be required to keep Christ’s lamp lit through a difficult period of transformation for the world. And the existing church structures, increasingly co-opted by the principalities and powers of consumerist culture, simply are ill-equipped in the face of the challenges ahead of them.
I believe this is where the community aspect of missional community comes in.
It is in community that we can pursue new rhythms of live – accountably – which will help us swim against the tide of consumerism which has enveloped our society.
It is in community that we can support one another financially in the event of economic calamities, so that our brothers and sisters in community can continue to be fed at the banquet table of the Lord.
It is in community that we can raise our kids to hold fast to the powerful good news of Christ in the midst of a world which increasingly doesn’t care.
It is in community that we can show the world a different way – a way that I believe is so attractive that it will challenge many to start caring and join in.
It is this last point which leads me to the question of “who is this community for?” I would argue that the community is not only for those who are members of it, or even more broadly for “Christians.” But in fact, the community exists BOTH for those inside and for those outside of its boundaries. In this sense, the types of missional communities which will sustain the Church in the 21st century will be those which model the radical inclusivity of Jesus in their dealings with the world.
It is this very inclusivity – the bringing of the church to people rather than attracting them to “church” once a week – which will allow the church to embed itself into our post-modern world as another – and I would argue better – alternative to the rampant consumerism which is killing our planet and driving us off an economic cliff.
