Imagine You Are Part of a Church Planting Team

Via the Church Matters blog, here's a portion of the book Total Church: A Radical Reshaping around Gospel and Community. Though I've listened to several lectures by the pastor-authors, I have yet to get to this book that's been sitting on my long list for a while. This only whets my appetite:

We sometimes ask people to imagine they are part of a church planting team in a cross cultural situation in some other part of the world.

· What criteria would you use to decide where to live?
· How would you approach secular employment?
· What standard of living would you expect as pioneer missionaries?
· What would you spend your time doing?
· What opportunities would you be looking for?
· What would your prayers be like?
· What would you be trying to do with your new friends?
· What kind of team would you want around you?
· How would you conduct your meetings together?

We find it easier to be radical in our thinking when we transplant ourselves outside our current situation. But we are as much missionaries here and now as we would be if we were part of a cross-cultural team in another part of the world… These are the kinds of questions we should be asking wherever we are.

While I understand the concern of some who believe that we minimize cross-cultural missions by saying "Everyone is a missionary," I still think that these kinds of questions (above) are very helpful and challenging. I would say that the difference between a "regular Christian" and a missionary is one of degree, not category.