Forgotten – Missional-Incarnational Church

So, not Attractional, but what? Hirsch says that we are called to be Missional and Incarnational.

If you’re asking what that means, let’s start with where it comes from. Missional means “sent.” The people of God are sent by Him into the world as His apostles. No, not Apostles, the guys who wrote Scripture, but apostles, those who are envoys or ambassadors or messengers for the King. There will be more on apostleship in the next post, so hold off on bending your face out of shape because this sounds a little different than what you may have been taught. The bottom line is that Christians should view themselves as those who have been commissioned by the King to carry His message into the world in order to expand His Kingdom.

And Incarnational is the manner in which we are to go. It is built upon the doctrine of the Incarnation, that the second person of the Trinity, the Son, took on the form of a man. God did not come to us in all of His glory and splendor and majesty. Philippians 2 says that He “emptied” Himself, taking on the form of a man and humbling Himself, even to death on a cross. He didn’t come to overwhelm us, but to woo us. And that is the pattern we are to follow. That amazing passage in Philippians begins with the exhortation to have the same attitude (v.5).

Hirsch says that we are to follow this pattern. Rather than to plant churches, he says that we should plant the gospel. And from that effort, a people will grow and form a church. And this is exactly the opposite of what we do. We plant our preferred form of church in a new context and fight to conform the context to our predetermined interpretation.

Look at the ministry of Christ and see if it resembles how “evangelism” is done in America:

Presence: Jesus left His position of power and glory and honor and made Himself very present in His mission field.

Proximity: He lived with and among people. He was accessible to people, not just certain people, but intentionally meeting those who had been marginalized by the culture.

Powerlessness: He let His authority be discovered by His words and deeds, rather than by announcing who He was and demanding subjection.

Proclamation: His message was not about his audience and their sin problem and a way for them to escape judgment. Time after time, Scripture says that He came proclaiming the Kingdom. Then, He called people to repentance and faith.