What is Missional?

Last month, I posted a series about missionaries who cross cultures to serve. This month's emphasis will be on how every Christian is called and sent into the world, whether to another country or within the same community.

Cross-cultural missionaries serve an important role in the church. However, there is a broader calling of sent-ness by God to the church. This broader definition of missionary includes all Christians as being sent by God into the world. Andrew Kirk writes, “[T]he Church is because mission is: missio sit ergo ecclesia sit.”[1] When describing the church in this manner, the term “missional” is often used. This term is simply the adjectival form of mission, used to denote something related to or characterized by mission.[2] The term missional was introduced in a 1998 book titled Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America, edited by Darrell L. Guder. Since then, the term missional has been used in a variety of ways to emphasize the role of the missio Dei in the Church’s mission. The term missional refers to the practice of churches and individuals to engage intentionally and actively in God’s mission in their local and global contexts.

The missional church looks beyond the “professional” missionaries. The work of specially-trained and called missionaries who cross geographic boundaries often receives more than a distinction from this general call to participation in mission; it receives a certain “sacredness.” [3] Such an attitude can imply that others are not called to participate in God’s mission, that mission happens far away, or that we must rely on the “professionals” to accomplish mission. However, these positions are not based on a biblical understanding that the whole church, not just a few individuals, are called to participate in mission.

There is no biblical basis for elevating the “foreign missionary” to a superior status. He or she should get no more attention than the Christian who works in the city mission or spends time evangelizing his neighborhood or gives himself in any kind of sacrificial service to the Lord. The value of our work is not based on whether or not we have crossed geographic or cultural boundaries; it is based on our love for Christ and our obedience to him.[4]

Such an attitude is not meant to lower the importance of missionaries nor to imply that cross-cultural missionaries are unnecessary. It is simply a recognition of the varied gifts God has given to His people, as is evidenced in Paul’s epistle to the Church in Ephesus:

“The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles [lit. ‘sent ones,’], some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.” (Ephesians 4:11-13, NRSV)

A truly missional church understands it is not just clergy who participate in mission; laity are taking on active roles as well. Laity (from the Greek laos) means the whole people of God. Over time, however, the term has come to mean the opposite of “professional.” The whole people of God – clergy and laity alike – are called together to be the church in action.[5] Missional congregations equip all of their members to be missional in their own culture, outside the walls of the church. “Full participation is not just for the church service. It is for the church’s service to the world.”[6]

Just as mission is a general term which includes everything we do that proclaims the Kingdom, and missions points to the specific times, places, and situations, so there is a general call to be missional and a specific call to participate in cross-cultural missionary service. The cross-cultural missionary serves in a cross-cultural missions setting, but there is a call for the whole people of God to be participants in mission.

In order to reach the surrounding culture, missional churches must include the whole church, not a select few, to pay attention to those who live outside the church and interact with them. Those who are most likely to embrace the missional calling of the church are those members who are eager to make a difference in the world and will be the first to grasp this new paradigm of mission and will lead the rest of the church forward in it.[7]


1. J. Andrew Kirk, What Is Mission?: Theological Explorations (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000).
2. Christopher J. H. Wright, The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative (Downer’s Grove, Illinois: IVP Academic, 2006), 24.
3. Craig Van Gelder, “A Missional Understanding of the Church” in The Essence of the Church: A Community Created by the Spirit (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2000), 29-30.
4. Thomas Hale, On Being a Missionary (Pasadena, California: William Carey Library, 1995), 6.
5. Charles Van Engen, God’s Missionary People: Rethinking the Purpose of the Local Church (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1991), 151.
6. Eddie Gibbs and Ryan K. Bolger, Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005), 169.
7. Jim Kitchens, The Postmodern Parish: New Ministry For a New Era (The Alban Institute, 2003), 83.