1. From: Church with a Mission To: Missional Church
Patterns of a Missional Church
ELCA Mission Development Training - Part II Rev. Mary Sue Dreier, Ph.D. February 13, 2010

2. Rooted…In the Trinity
“The Holy Trinity”
Andrei Rublev, Ca. 1410

3. Patterns of a Missional Church
From:
Treasure in Clay Jars
Edited by. Lois Barrett
These patterns are not exhaustive or exclusive to a missional church, but were developed by a team of theologians to help describe what missional church looks like in practice.
Missional Vocation
The congregation is discovering together the missional vocation of the community. It is beginning to redefine “success” and “vitality” in terms of faithfulness to God’s calling and sending. It is seeking to discern God’s specific missional vocation (“charisms”) for the entire community and for all of its members.

4. Patterns of a Missional Church
Pattern 1. Missional Vocation
What is God doing in our community?
What is God calling us to be or to do?
What glimpses, inklings, ideas do “WE” have about our mission in the community? What gifts might we have for this emerging mission?
These patterns are not exhaustive or exclusive to a missional church, but were developed by a team of theologians to help describe what missional church looks like in practice.
Missional Vocation
The congregation is discovering together the missional vocation of the community. It is beginning to redefine “success” and “vitality” in terms of faithfulness to God’s calling and sending. It is seeking to discern God’s specific missional vocation (“charisms”) for the entire community and for all of its members.

5. Patterns of a Missional Church
Pattern 2. Biblical Formation & Discipleship
The Bible shapes our life together
What are we doing
with the Bible in these
early stages of our life
together?
Biblical Formation and Discipleship
The missional church is a community in which all members are involved in learning what it means to be disciples of Jesus. The Bible is normative in this church’s life. Biblical formation and discipling are essential for members of the congregation.

6. Patterns of a Missional Church
Pattern 3. Taking Risks as a Contrast Community
Jesus Christ Crucified and Risen lives in our community through us.
That makes us different from the world!
What risks might our church be called to take for the sake of the gospel in our community? How might that affect us?
Taking Risks as a Contrast Community
The missional church is learning to take risks for the sake of the gospel. It understands itself as different from the world because of its participation in the life, death and resurrection of its Lord. It is raising questions, often threatening ones, about the church’s cultural captivity, and it is grappling with the ethical and structural implications of its missional vocation. It is learning to deal with internal and external resistance.

7. Patterns of a Missional Church
Pattern 4. Practices that Demonstrate God’s Intent for the World
We are God’s “demonstration plot” for how God intends people to live together.
What Christian practices are
evident in how we treat each
other?
Practices that Demonstrate God’s Intent for the World
The pattern of the church’s life as a community is a demonstration of what God intends for the life of the whole world. The practices of the church embody mutual care, reconciliation, loving accountability and hospitality. A missional church is indicated by how Christians behave toward one another.

8. Patterns of a Missional Church
Pattern 5. Worship as Public Witness
It’s a public community event, praising God and giving public witness to God.
It’s the main thing we do in our communities!
How is our worship “going
public” with praise and
witness?
Worship as Public Witness
Worship is the central act by which the community celebrates with joy and thanksgiving both God’s presence and God’s promised future. Flowing out of its worship, the community has a vital public witness.

9. Patterns of a Missional Church
Pattern 6. Dependence upon the Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit is the real mission developer! We participate as God creates new churches.
Prayer connects us to the power
of the Spirit.
What prayer practices are we
developing?
Dependence upon the Holy Spirit
The missional community confesses its dependence upon the Holy Spirit, shown in particular in its practices of corporate prayer.

10. Patterns of a Missional Church
Pattern 7. Pointing toward the Reign of God
We point to God and not to ourselves. We are sinful, make mistakes, and live by forgiveness.
What are the particular challenges and failures that we’ve already faced? How are these things helping us grow in mission?
Pointing toward the Reign of God
The missional church understands its calling as witness to the gospel of the inbreaking reign of God, and strives to be an instrument, agent and sign of that reign. As it makes its witness through its identity, activity and communication, it is keenly aware of the provisional character of all that it is and does. It points toward the reign of God that God will certainly bring about, but knows that its own response is incomplete, and that its own conversion is a continuing necessity.

11. Patterns of a Missional Church
Pattern 8. Missional Authority
Holy Spirit gives many different gifts to the “priesthood of all believers” for the mission of the church.
How are we helping people
cultivate their gifts to help lead
our God-given mission?
Missional Authority
The Holy Spirit gives the missional church a community of persons who, in a variety of ways and with a diversity of functional roles and titles, together practice the missional authority that cultivates within the community the discernment of missional vocation and is intentional about the practices that embed that vocation in the community’s life.

12. Patterns of a Missional Church
Pattern 9. Here “For the Sake of the World”
We are not here “for the sake of the church” but “for the sake of the world.”
We “come to go.”
What are we doing for
others in our
community?
Missional Authority
The Holy Spirit gives the missional church a community of persons who, in a variety of ways and with a diversity of functional roles and titles, together practice the missional authority that cultivates within the community the discernment of missional vocation and is intentional about the practices that embed that vocation in the community’s life.