Examples of Missional Christianity Currently Practiced by Some of Our Group

What is Missional Christianity in action? I suggest that each of the following is an example:

    1. Kevin Vance is giving leadership to a Missional church ministry through his Gentle Road Church of Christ, focused on people emerging out of poverty and addictions. This may be viewed as a Missional Church, both in terms of the mature Christians so engaged and in recognition of those growing in faith, with keen understanding of the contextual community issues.  We see the latter developing in effective witness with this same missional commitment to others in the community.
    2. Angela Fraser is engaging people in hospitals and as fill-in pastoral work with rural churches, often with diverse denominational traditions, in need of pastors. This activity is out and beyond her home church community.
    3. Sam Berg has been engaged in professional counselling practice for years at The Caring Place. It is Christian service to the community.  His professional practice operates with certain professional constraints but, within that, he functions with care and concern for the holistic needs of his clients whether believers or otherwise.
    4. Debbie and David Mamani, and family, are actively involved with poverty ministries and with indigenous social/political issues. While trained and active within traditional overseas missions for years, they now live out this same lifestyle through missional engagement here in Canada.
    5. Nick Helliwell is doing missional work under the name Rising Above, with a focus on discipleship within our inner-city indigenous community.  A number of local churches are engaging indirectly in missional work by giving active financial and other support to Nick and his team.
    6. Sharon is engaged as a writer within a larger social network of writers. She is present with them, a friend, providing coordinating services, and is known as a Christian.  We see this as missional.
    7. Ron and Roberta, in their decision to adopting from the indigenous community, many decades ago, are now actively engaged in social and spiritual ministry with an extended family and their inner-city friends; a secondary ministry has been with English classes and personal friendships with visiting scholars and students attending the U of Regina.

All of these examples, and many more, are “missional” in the sense of active and meaningful inter-personal ministry beyond the normal internal activities of church life.  We want to share such experiences, seek greater insight and wisdom on enhancing such activity, as we grapple with God’s Call on us to be “out there” as salt and light.