A couple of weeks ago I received a book from
Fred Peatross called
Missio Dei. I was asked if I would read it and give a review. Initially such a request could have been seen as me simply doing a favor for Fred but just the opposite was true. Fred did a wonderful favor for me.
My church's vision is that we are a
"community based missional church". And yet even though that vision has been at the heart of the church when it was started 5 years ago, we have over the past 2 years experienced mission drift.
We have gotten distracted from that initial vision and mission. The gravitational pull of the "business" of the church doesn't go easily in the direction of mission. We have been so easily distracted by so many "good" things, that we were forgetting why Big Creek Church existed.
Recently God has been bringing me, Jon and the leadership of the church to repentance. We have repented of not being true to God's call on this church. That is why Fred's book couldn't have come at a more appropriate time.
Missio Dei is an excellent primer on the "missional" call of the church.
Missio Dei follows the pattern of the ABC show, "Extreme Makeover Home Edition". On the show, they have to demolish and deconstruct a home, before they are able to build a new one.
Fred spends the first half of the book deconstructing the current and most popular model of how churches do church. After the deconstructing is completed, Fred then constructs the missional model.
The book addresses to models of the church, attractional and missional. These two models are juxtaposed to each other. Simply put, the attractional model often emphasizes the Sunday morning experience and the programs/events that happen at the church. The attractional model asks the community and culture to "come to us". People coming on our turf is the emphasis of the attractional church. The missional church is entirely different.
In a missional church "Mission becomes the very essence of the church as opposed to one function of the church." Mission becomes the air that we breathe. Mission permeates the entire fabric of the church and community. Instead of asking people to "come to us", the missional approach goes out into the community.
The question is, how do we change course? Can we change course from attractional to missional? Fred believes the church can, and in fact must do so if we are going to effectively influence and transform the ever-changing culture that we live in.
What I appreciate about Missio Dei is that it isn't merely a theoretical book. Missio Dei gives practical thoughts and ideas on how to move from attractional to missional. The book outlines practical applications without crossing over into the programmatic. This is a hard balance to strike, but I believe Fred does this well.
Being missional can feel messy, but people are messy. We are not neat little packages that can come to a salvation decision in 4 easy steps. Fred reminds us that being missional and seeing people become Christ followers doesn't come in a nice, neat program. Rather it is a process. Also Fred makes a good point about the "intentional but ordinary" nature of missional. It is a challenge to keep both of those principles in their dynamic tension. And lastly, following
Jim Henderson's lead, Fred reminds us of the attitude and posture that we are to have toward those who are still missing.
Fred has done a wonderful favor to the church for writing this well communicated, brief and yet powerful book. This book is what most books should be.
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