I read The Resurgence… a lot. As well as catalystspace.com, Mark Driscoll’s blog, Scott Knight’s blog, and a host of others. This provides a lot of food for thought and some good ideas for how to minister hope and healing to the world around me. I often will blog a trackback to the stuff I think is cool, but I wonder… is it okay to blog the stuff I think is lame?
I hope so. Today is one of those days.
Steve Timmis over at The Resurgence recently posted “What’s in a Name?” arguing that we don’t need to think up names for our movement such as “missional” when what we’re really doing is the “gospel.” We should just use the same old word and call it what it is. In some sense I can understand where he’s going with this, but my issue with this generalization is the fact that words change as culture changes.
Gospel (Origin: bef. 950; ME go(d)spell, OE gōdspell (see good, spell 2 ); trans. of Gk euangélion good news;), means something quite different to day’s culture than it did in its day. The gospel truth is that gospel today is more about gospel singers and gospel churches than about the “good news” that it should be about. The truth is, we have more success uniting around our “mission” (matt 28) than we do around a word that has lost its relevancy in a world far removed from the 1st century.
So, I would say continue to use whatever word describes the force behind what you do. If it’s gospel, then gospel is fine for you. If you’re about returning to call for taking this good news into all the world, then missional probably makes more sense. If your focus is on hope and healing for the walking wounded, then “recovery” might be a likely moniker.
The good news is at the center of mission, hope, healing, and renewal. But don’t feel like you have to use a word many won’t understand to explain the dynamic of your mission. In fact… maybe no defining titles are needed at all. Just tell people that they are screwed up (they already know this, but tell them anyway) and then tell them that there is a way out of the downward spiral. They’ll get it, regardless of the cool name you give.
