3. We can’t de-emphasize Jesus.
We are obligated to make Jesus winsome and attractive in all of His authority, sufficiency and exclusivity. There is salvation in no one other than Jesus Christ, “for there is no other name under heaven given to people, and we must be saved by it.”
The Kingdom of God cannot be proclaimed apart from its saving King. And doing Kingdom work without speaking of the saving King is truncating Jesus mission in a way He did not.
It’s not popular to talk about Jesus as God, or Jesus as the Son of God, or Jesus as the only Way of salvation. Let’s face it: Not much has changed in 2,000-plus years.
His enemies killed him and then lied about His resurrection because they recognized Jesus as a threat to their status quo. People still want to avoid life’s biggest question: What are you going to do with Jesus?
Being missional means we publicly profess, confess and proclaim His name, even in the face of adversity and opposition.
4. We can’t de-emphasize the Gospel proclamation.
At its simplest, the mission is sharing and showing the love of Jesus. But the mission involves words and action, not just action.
Much of the concern regarding use of the word “missional” is that many who’ve adopted the term have jettisoned (wittingly or unwittingly) the proclamation of the Gospel.
What they kept was, “Let’s do the demonstration of the Gospel.” But is it really a demonstration of the Gospel if the Gospel’s not a part of it?
Being missional means making sure the proclamation of the Good News of Jesus Christ to those who need to “hear” (Romans 10:14) is always central to the mission.
5. We can’t de-emphasize the church.
I don’t think you can love Jesus and ignore His wife.
Some believe the church has not done enough in God’s Kingdom mission, and some who have used the term “missional” have attempted to jettison the church in favor of a broader “Kingdom” focus.
Christ loves His church. The church matters. We must affirm the words of the Tambaram mission conference: “It is the Church and the Church alone which can carry the responsibility of transmitting the Gospel from one generation to another, of preserving its purity and of proclaiming it to all creatures.”
The church is on a biblical mission.
The church is not the center of God’s plan. Jesus is. But the church is central to God’s plan.
Being missional means not leaving the church behind and keeping the church central in proclaiming the Good News of Jesus to the ends of the earth.
We are all called to be missional.
Who doesn’t want to be missional? We all want to be missional, if we’re disciples of Jesus.
Yet, we’d be naïve not to realize that there is a lot of biblical and theological revisioning happening right now in evangelical circles. Fidelity to Jesus and His authority through His Word is being tested. And, yes, that impacts the missional conversation as well.
Being missional—in the way of Jesus and in the way the Scriptures describe—means our engagement of culture and context is not at the expense of the person of Jesus and the power of His Gospel.
That’s joining the mission of Jesus.
