Missional and Reformed
Sent Missional Church Community (MCC) is intentionally named as such to reflect our identity and purpose as a local church. You can read about Who We Are to understand why we chose these terms to identify with.
We aren’t big fans of being pigeonholed into certain labels, but at the same time it is important to convey who we are and what we focus on. We believe Sent Missional Church Community is the most biblically accurate we could be with our name because it relates to the nature of a local church expression.
Unfortunately “missional” is conflated with many different things these days, but it is a term most associated with the missional church movement. There’s plenty of great resources to learn more about this movement. Overall, this is a welcome paradigm shift within Christ’s church. Mission is not a program in the church or just an event, but it’s in the core DNA of who the church is. In the broadest sense, missional means participating in Christ’s mission to redeem and restore his creation.
To be sure, this is not our mission, it is Christ’s mission, and he alone has the power and authority to execute it. In fact, he already has by dying on the cross for our sins and defeating death in his resurrection. “It is finished” means the cross of Christ alone saves us. This is what the mission is all about: God so loved the world that he sent his one and only son to bear our iniquity on the cross, so that we could be transferred from the domain of darkness and into the kingdom of Jesus. Condemned by sin, we are redeemed by Christ.
Now we have the calling to participate with Him as ambassadors for Christ. The local church are missionaries to bring this good news into the world. This is being an active participant in Christ’s kingdom. Proclaiming and embodying the gospel in our community is the foundation of what it means to be missional. And so in this sense, EVERY church is missional, otherwise it’s not truly being the church.
However, at the end of the day, we want to spend less time worried about labels and more time living out our identity in Christ within the context of his church on mission. Really, if we had to be labeled, we’d prefer 1 Peter 2:9
“you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”
However, “The Chosen Royal Holy Priesthood-Nation Proclaimers of the Marvelous Light” is too epic of a church name even for us, so we chose Sent.
Missional also has the stigma of being a movement that breeds social-gospel peddling, liberal theology having, cultural Marxists. Many local church expressions within the missional church movement are unfairly characterized as such, when in reality they are living as incarnational missionaries for the glory of Jesus. We do disagree with some of the theology coming out of the movement, particularly when we feel like Scripture is interpreted loosely or sections of it explained away. There is also a tendency to be immersed in culture and using it as the basis to interact with Scripture, when the church should be immersed in Scripture to interact with culture.
That’s why we also consider ourselves reformed. That is another word that could mean a lot of things. But we follow after the tradition of the reformers who took Paul’s charge to Timothy seriously:
Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. - 2 Timothy 2:15
The reformers were very missional in their approach. They believed the word of God should be accessible to all people and that the excellencies of him who called us out of darkness should be proclaimed to the masses. They understood that the word of God did not need to be shaped or warped, but that
all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Tim 3:16)
and
Faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17)
How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news? (Romans 10:15 via Isaiah 52:7).
“Beautiful Feet Church” would have also conveyed our identity, but it might have attracted some weirdos with a foot fetish. We went with Sent Missional Church Community instead.
At Sent, we seek to advance the kingdom of Jesus for his glory. We do this by living on mission. Part of that process is through building up those in the kingdom through the Holy Spirit’s sanctifying use of the Word. When we abide in Christ and obey his word, we can be his witnesses to the world. Otherwise, we run on empty and have nothing of value to give to the world.
I John 2:4 says
Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
If the truth isn’t in us, then what exactly are we conveying to others?
In order to expand the kingdom, it needs to be expanded in us first. We need to be built up in it by the gospel truth. We want to go deep and wide. We have a future hope of glory, but the kingdom is here now! We should also continue running the race. We don’t have a set-it-and-forget it faith, but a knead it, stretch it, prove it type faith (Who wants to make some bread now?).
We don’t have to be Bible scholars to live missionally. If you’re waiting until you know enough about the Bible, then you’ll never get going because you’ll never know enough. God wants present, willing, worshipful participants. We’re on a journey either toward God and people or away from them. Abide in Christ, store his word in your heart, the Spirit does His sanctifying, meanwhile go build a new connection with someone and let the marvelous light shine through you.
