Every Church is a local church. We don’t always act like it. Sometimes we act like a franchise of the latest hot and successful church in Peoria or wherever. We borrow programs, forms and messages that were created to fit a people and a place and apply them, one size fits all, to our people and our place. Jesus didnt do that. Jesus’ disciples didnt do that. If our mission is to represent King Jesus to the real world where we actually live - a world of faces and places – then we will not do that either. We will be tremendously local.
Len Sweet does on of his Napkin Scribblepodcasts on being local by discussing the new oatmeal at Startbucks.
We then discern those few key points of dissension that will communicate what it means to live the gospel of King Jesus most clearly to our people and our place.
The church as an alternative community can make a powerful witness when it chooses to live differently from the dominant society even at just a few key points” being missional is discerning the points of dissension where we actually live. Missional Church, 127.
I’ve been challenging myself with this very notion: we ought to bear Jesus’ influence through regular life in our neighborhoods, rather than spending resources on fancy new programs. Of course, saying that and doing it are two different things. I’m moving toward doing, but I’m not there yet.
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