Oklahoma Baptists are talking about missional churches. They have started a process to help their churches be missional. Their State Exec. is Anthony Jordan and he is helping to set the tone. Leaders like Scott Phillips, Bob Mayfield, and the team are working hard to cast a vision for missional ministry. Recently, Scott Phillips and I wrote a couple of missional church articles you can find here in a magazine for their pastors and church leaders.
Part of that includes the annual missional ministry conference. The conference has grown rapidly as people are seeking to engage culture and live in and for the mission of Jesus.
Here is a photo of the meeting I just left:
One story recently explained:
Churches were challenged to abandon religion by Anthony L. Jordan...
Jordan challenged Oklahoma Baptists neither to act like a religion nor to be identified as another religious body, but as a people following Christ. "Jesus did not come into the world to start a religion, he came to start a movement that is relational, transformational, and incarnational," Jordan said, during his Tuesday morning address.
"The Jesus movement is relational in that the relationship is with Christ above religious activity, doctrinal correctness, ritual or structure; and transformational in that it focuses on making disciples and on a way of living; and incarnational in that it focuses on serving and going rather than protecting us from others and keep us from storms. To care for the hurting we must venture into the storm."
That's just good stuff... and even better coming from a key denominational leader who "gets it."
Bob Mayfield is seeking to help churches with traditional structures to be missions. He writes about the "Missional Sunday School."
He wrote in a recent article:
Is your Sunday School class impacting your culture, or is it full of people who have been sitting for 20 years? Here's some good news! Your Sunday School is meant to be a culture changing dynamo!
Are you interested? A new style of Sunday School is emerging that is still appreciative of the classic Sunday School disciplines of the past, but sensitive to the needs of engaging the 21st century with the gospel. We're calling it Missional Sunday School and here's what it
looks like:
• They do not have lessons! They invite people to engage the Bible and search and discover the eternal truth of God's Word, rather than having information given to them;
• This class functions like a "community of evangelism" that invites their lost friends and neighbors in for a view of authentic Christianity;
• Missional Sunday Schools build bridges to the culture and engage in ministry in the community, often by partnering with community services;
• Because these new classes are reaching beyond the walls of their class, churches with missional Sunday Schools have more people enrolled in Sunday School than they have church members (Oklahoma, by the way, has 31% fewer people enrolled in Sunday School than members);
• These missional classes are actively praying for their lost friends and neighbors to come to Christ;
• Missional classes use "team evangelism". They recognize that for most people, becoming a Christian is a journey and a number of people can help bring someone to Christ;
• Because these classes are relationally driven, they tend to be smaller classes.
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