“IT IS NOT THAT THE CHURCH HAS A MISSION
BUT THAT GOD’S MISSION HAS A CHURCH.”

A conversation with Glenn Smith about missional church

Have you been following this discussion about the missional church? Perhaps you have asked yourself

• Is this just another fad?
• What is this word, missional?
• Does it mean anything for me, for my church?

Let me try to unpack what it means, and show you a bit of its impact on our work here in the cities of Québec and the Francophonie.

When we talk about a novel, we refer to it as “fictional literature”. The noun, “fiction” becomes the adjective, “fictional”. It is same thing with the wonderful word “mission”. When it is used as an adjective, we say “missional”, for a church that is dedicated to mission. But I call it an accordion word – the more air you pump into it, the more noise it makes!

At the core, in spite of all the noise, there are four key ideas:

1. First, we are affirming that God is missionary in His character – His Being in Action. Mission is first and foremost God acting through Jesus in His creation by the work of His Spirit. Yes, God is love, just, holy…and He is also missionary!

2. When we use the word missional, we are reaffirming the Gospel . Jesus is LORD. A king has a kingdom; the Good News is about the LORDSHIP of Jesus over all His creation, in our lives, in His Church and over our cities.

3. When we use the word missional, we are admitting that we live in a new period in our history. Some people call this, “Post-Christendom”, a period where Christianity and the Church are no longer at the centre of our culture. We may grieve, but we also need to think and act in fresh ways.

4. When we use the word missional, we are affirming that the Church, by its very nature, is living out the implications of the Gospel; we are a people sent into our neighbourhoods and cities.

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