I think in my point about intentional life i am trying to get away from the notion of right belief - i think we often can subscribe to what we think is the right way of believing but that has little impact on our actions - so we subcribe to advocatig a missional life, read books and blogs on being missional, think great thoughts about how to define it and do it and then never do anything missional.

Worse is having a pop at those people who are not missional like me but who probably have done more missional stuff than i ever have - but that’s a different hobby horse of mine that i won’t ride off on now

When i say that i am not having a pop anyone other than myself - but somehow i can fool myself into subscribig to the idealogy of missional but not have a do-logy

So by intentional i am trying to get to the point of doing - i don’t really care what label we slap on it or underpin it with, more than we are living life intentionally so we get involved, make time for, love and serve those around us - i think John Wimber used to talk about people being naturally supernatural and i guess i am talking us being naturally intentional in the same sort of way. Or to ground it in practice during the 40 days of faith i have been praying for a number of people everyday and looking for opportunities to get involved in their life, meet with them, connect and hoping that in doing so God will be their pervading that space too - i have been intentional in choosing them and intentional in commiting myself to them.

Does that help explain where i was coming from?

I suppose i am thinking that there are many folks who would see themselves being intentional, but perhaps aren’t missional? What do you think?

How do you understand the quote from Wright?

I maybe wrong here, but i sense that God is broadening our view of the gospel … we are searching the scripture afresh to find what we have missed of the gospel in our modern mindset, and we need to recapture in our postmodern culture (i wonder if that is what NT Wright is alluding to in the link?). I find that tremendously exciting. What do you think?

I think you are right to widen out the mission of God to more than just dealing with sin and/or getting us to heaven - they are great parts of the story but only parts - and indeed can sound awefully selfish/self centred/focussed in a i’m ok sort of way. I find it usegul to thinkthat we are not chosen by God for a priviledged destination that our neighbours can’t get too but for service in order to help our neighbours by being helped by God.

I like the way that you go back to Genesis and the desire of God to have a people in his image, who are created to tend and serve creation - that even God is holding creation back until we are ready to resume that role a la Romans 8. That the mission of God is as much about restoring our humanity, about reconnecting us as the people of God, image-bearers, God idol’s, kingdom subjects etc. That God has been on a mission to call that people into being and will not rest until he has done so. That God came as man to show us this humanity and to restore and reconnect us through the way of Jesus, the way of obedenience to the Father through the power of the Holy Spirit - a life that is other centred, loving, serving and a death and resurection that provides hope that our humanity that is broken will be made new and what a great body we’ll have when we get our life fully back…

In terms of responsibility - i think we need to be aware that God reveals himself and sweeps down to us and lifts us up to him - that self revelation is key. I think we however have the responsibility to be a witness to that act of revelation as it impacts on our own lives and as we are changed and transformed by God in his image to be more generous, gracious, loving, serving, giving etc. To make ourselves available and to share the blessing as we are blessed.

I think missional could maybe could be called intentional life…

An interview with N T Wright on post-modern evangelism and mission, and how they cannot be separated.

TallSkinnyKiwi: what comes first: mission or theology?

Also another quote from Wright which I am trying to unpack in my mind: “What Jesus was for Israel, the Church is for the World”.

Regarding the diagrams, I have to admit I don’t really understand them. Can you provide some more commentary?

What I said during the service regarding the meaning of missional church kinda sums up my understanding at the moment: we need to be missionaries to our own culture, and even sub-cultures. This missional approach needs to extend not only to our evangelism (our communication of the gospel), but to the way we do church. In other words, we need to have a theology and a practice like this:

christiology -> missiology -> eclessiology

I don’t know where I came across the above, but it sums up what I’ve been trying to say for years.

What is God’s responsibility? Well, I guess it is to draw people to him, to convict them of sin, and to bring them into his church/people. That’s a start, I’m sure we could add to this.

What is our responsibility? Making disciples is a start. Again, lots we could add.

Some good stuff on this topic here, at Open Source Theology, with input from the Stuart Murray Williams and N T Wright. I like this:

Stuart Murray talks about three principles to work with for ‘thinking theologically’ about mission. If I remember rightly (it’s a little while since I read it!) they are…

3. and the mindset of mission is about extending the Kingdom of God (in its Wright-esque sense, with a lovely eschatological twist) to the world with generosity and justice (i.e. putting things right) - the emphasis maybe being more towards offering life before death, being and telling true good news to the poor and the marginalised, than life after death.