missional church indicators

In 1999, New Life Ministries wrote "An Anabaptist Look at Natural Church Development". It contained the following table of empirical indicators of a missional Church.

1. The missional church proclaims the gospel. The good news of God’s reign is publicly announced in word and deed, audibly and visibly. It involves individual and communal salvation. Persons, in their words and actions, express to others what God has done in the world and in their lives through Jesus Christ. There is evidence that this is a community that can be entered into as a concrete expression of the living gospel story.
2. The missional church is a community where all members are involved in learning to become disciples of Jesus. Citizenship in the reign of God is learned—those behaviors and processes that witness to the way of Jesus, who is forming his people for life in the reign of God. Participants train, mentor, and nurture each other in following Jesus Christ. New participants indicate that they are being helped to integrate their life with the practices and habits of life in the reign of God. Existing participants in the community indicate that they are engaged in a lifelong process of integrating their lives with the practices and habits of life in the reign of God.
3. The Bible is normative in this church’s life. It is expected that Christians will know the Scriptures and seek to be obedient to the Word revealed in Scriptures. The community reflects on its hearing of the gospel and its obedience to the gospel’s imperatives in order to become more faithful disciples. The community translates the biblical message into the language and experience of its immediate context.
4. The church understands itself as different from the world because of its participation in the life, death, and resurrection of its Lord. The church is consciously seeking to conform to its Lord instead of the multitude of cultures in which it finds itself. The church is willing to follow the way of the cross and share in the sufferings of Christ. Members can give examples of instances when the church was willing to suffer or take risks for the sake of the gospel. The church’s distinctive conduct is frequently different from and often in opposition to the world’s patterns of behavior.
5. The church seeks to discern God’s specific missional vocation for the entire community and for all of its members. The goal is discerning together the will of God. The need for the gifts and insights of all members is emphasized. Believing that the Holy Spirit gives gifts to all, the community identifies, commissions, and uses the gifts of new and continuing members. Leadership teams demonstrate, model, and cultivate in their behavior what the whole community is called to be and to do.
6. A missional community is indicated by how Christians behave toward one another. Acts of self-sacrifice on behalf of one another both in the church and in the locale characterize the generosity of the community. Members spend more time with one another, take their relationships with one another more seriously, provide tangible support for one another.
7. It is a community that practices reconciliation. The church community is moving beyond homogeneity, toward a more heterogeneous community in its racial, ethnic, age, gender, and socioeconomic make-up. Differences are dealt with constructively. Conflict is used to enrich discussion. Healing and forgiveness takes place. Violence is rejected as a method of resolving difference.
8. People within the community hold themselves accountable to one another in love. Substantial time is spent with one another for the purpose of watching over one another in love. People place a high value on sharing a common life. Participants indicate that they are accountable to a grouping of people with whom they are learning to live the Christian life more faithfully. The community is characterized by a unity of spirit. Participants pray for one another. The community reflects on how its structures hinder or enable mutual love, respect, and accountability.
9. The church practices hospitality. It welcomes the stranger into the midst of the community. People are reached and invited into new relationships with God and with one another. People are becoming citizens of God’s reign. Visitors experience welcome, aid, and comfort. The church demonstrates a sense of urgency about inviting people to enter the reign of God.
10. Worship is the central act by which the community celebrates with joy and thanksgiving both God’s presence and God’s promised future. There is significant and meaningful engagement in communal worship of God, reflecting appropriately and addressing the culture of those who worship together. Worship is the community’s action of publicly giving allegiance to the triune God. Worship focuses on God and gives opportunity for human responses to God. Worship provides for the formation of people into a new humanity. It celebrates God’s presence and promises. Participants can give anecdotal evidence of how corporate worship enables persons to become incorporated into the life of Christ, and thus the Christian community.
11. This community has a vital public witness. The church makes an observable impact that contributes to the transformation of life, society, and human relationships. Its public deeds do not impose the church’s moral will on others but give hard evidence of the reign of God that intrudes into the world as an alternative vision and practice. Members can identify actions that have resulted in the transformation of lives, changed conditions, promotion of justice, and combating of evil.
12. There is a recognition that the church itself is an incomplete expression of the reign of God. There is a widely held perception that this church is going somewhere—and that somewhere is more faithfully lived life in the reign of God. The measure of success used in this church is the quality of Christian love experienced in its common life and ministry. Participants indicate that this church is on a journey to the future, that it has not yet arrived. Participants are able to pray with meaning Jesus’ prayer, "Thy kingdom come." This prayer creates for them a sense of expectancy and anticipation of God’s fulfillment of all God’s promises.

I learned a lot from Christian Schwarz's Natural Church Growth and I'm not clear what these guys are saying about NCD but I like their list of Church norms. I'm not sure if this would have been my list but it's pretty good.

Regarding the twelfth point relating to the Kingdom of God, there's good emphasis on the "net yet". I would have balanced that with a little more of the "already".

HT: NextReformation

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