Prolific author, missiologist and all around good guy, Ed Stetzer, has teamed with Georgia pastor and all around really good guy, Philip Nation, to author the WMU theme book for 2008, Compelled by Love: The Most Excellent Way to Missional Living. As part of their “Blog Tour” the authors have graciously agreed to an interview at ie:missional.
The word â??missionalâ? is being used by many people. What is your brief definition?
Ed: You are right. And for most people, it does not sound like a real word. For the purposes of this book, we use a very simple definition: missional is to live sentâ??living like a missionary and focused on the Kingdom. To the average Christian, they know that missionaries go places to tell the Good News of Christâ??s redemption and serve a place to show the effects of Christâ??s redemption. They live for Jesus and his mission. For a more extensive conversation on the word, check out my blog at http://blogs.lifeway.com/blog/edstetzer/meaningsofmissional.html
Give us a sense of what biblical love looks like to you.
Philip: Biblical love is much more sacrificial than I previous admitted. Like most, I had grown accustomed to romantic-comedies giving the definition of love: boy meets girl, happily ever after stories. The Bible gives the sense that love has a purpose and a cost. God wants to glorify himself and one way he chooses to do it is through the death of his Son.
How do you want people to be changed after reading this book?
Philip: Changing perspectives is one of the big changes I hope people experience. I want the people who read this book to look at their neighbors with a new mindset that is birthed out of their kingdom citizenship.
Ed: My hope is that people will engage their communities with a deeper passion and at a more rapid pace. From all that we know, the church is not impacting culture as it once did. Being missional will mean that Christians seek to immediately get in the middle of their community to make a difference through serving the hurting, showing Christ, and communicating the Gospel.
With so much being written about the missional idea, how is this book different?
Ed: This book is for everyday believers â?? not only pastors. It will be helpful to pastors in their own lives, but our focus is people, not just leaders. Hopefully, the book will give the â??whyâ? behind much of the â??whatâ? pastors are asking their people to do.
Both of you have varied backgrounds but church planting is the common denominator. How did church planting prepare you for writing this book?
Philip: Iâ??ve always been around traditional churches. And I entered the ministry as a teenager. But planting a church has taken me way outside of the church sub-culture I had grown accustomed to in my life. Church planting widened my perspective of just how far most of my neighbors are from God. Planting has also made me more patient with the â??sinners and tax collectorsâ? Christ was so fond of hanging with â?? whereas before, they scared/offended me.
If churches and denominations do not adopt a missional understanding of the church, how long will it be before they are not merely philosophically irrelevant but functionally so?
Philip: As you have here, we all normally think of relevancy as an issue of how we engage culture. So the short answer is–not long. Speaking in and working in understandable ways is critical to any work we assign a missionary sent to foreign fields. It is equally important for all Christians who â??stay at homeâ? to work on our own turf. Without speaking in the koine language of our setting, it is a bit silly even to speak.
Additionally, let me set my answer in another-and I think more important-direction. A church without an understanding of Godâ??s mission is already irrelevant to Godâ??s purposes. So, as in our book, I would point peopleâ??s attention to be in step with the heart of God first and then his work through our lives will be a more naturally outworking.
Compelled by Love is available through amazon.com and at Lifeway stores.
