I’m feeling challenged over being more missional. The question arises, ‘is it possible to be both missional and cruciform’? At one level of analysis, being missional is about being relevant to the society that we’re rooted in. Communicating with people in ways that they can understand. But I’m left with the question, ‘communicating what?’ The Gospel of the Kingdsom of God, come in Jesus Christ?
If the Gospel is essentially cruciform (entering the Kingdom of God by conforming to the call of the Christ whose path leads to and through the Cross), can we focus in phrasing the Gospel in a way that is readily attractive? Or is it not first necessary to express that message in the way and manner in which we live and form and express our agendas for life and living? What’s our focus? Being relevant or radical?
I can’t get away from the conviction that the greatest need of relevancy is to focus on church life that prioritises the Nazareth Manifesto. Where Jesus is found amidst our pusuit of care for those who suffer because of societal values that are fashionable yet unrighteous and unjust, merciless and unfaithful.
Seems to me that being radically cruciform is the meat in the meal of missionality, with everything else a side salad.
