• Missional – Your Time Has Come

    Hear Ye! Hear Ye!

    I hereby announce an international competition to rid the ears of the godly of a peculiar modern ugliness. Everywhere I go (and I’ve recently been engaged on a quest to go just about everywhere) I’m hearing the word MISSIONAL used in church circles. It seems to me that this is a modern phenomenon and one from which we need to be freed.

    How long, oh Lord, how long? How long will you let your church think it can succeed in bringing your love to the world whilst it mangles English grammar?

    Is it not enough that we have kidnapped the word INTENTIONAL and used it for our own devices and desires. It was clearly a sin for whoever first added those two little letters to have created such a hybrid monster. Greater though was the sin of those who GIFTED it from one Christian community to another.

    No, no, and a thousand times no. Missional will not do.

    Yet the trouble is, what should we use instead? Is there a simple word or very short phrase that is more acceptable to holy earlugs than missional?

    I declare a competition to find something else. Bring out your simplicity. Wash your spotless grammatical linen in public. Wear your loveliest past participles on your sleeve. Offer up your adjectives. Pour a gentle libation of adverbs before the altar of the Lord.

    Please, please. Offer an alternative.

    Suggestions welcome in the comments below.

    A crown of laurel to the winner.

28 responses to “1066 And All What?”

  1. Lester Knibb Avatar
    Lester Knibb

    I hope management have investigated and deducted any pay that may have accrued during the writing of such “tosh”, assuming it was done in work time. It’s hard enough trying to get non-Christians to take Christianity seriously without putting stumbling-blocks like this in their way. Perhaps this was what Paul was talking about in 1 Corinthians.

  2. Rob Avatar
    Rob

    I am attending an Alpha Course to find out if I am a Christian. When I read a prayer like this I wonder if it was intended to give God a good laugh (which I hope) or was just plain misguided. My course seems to be riddled with items like this along with wild assumptions.

  3. Rachma Avatar
    Rachma

    so lovely to get back from 8 days IGR and 3 different funeral directors messages and then to see this and get a laugh catching up. This will be another one of your emails that will make a very good exercise to use when training intercessors to develop some critical thinking skills.

  4. Bob Shearer Avatar
    Bob Shearer

    Definitely using this in home group this evening, based upon the notion that England is “poised”. Does this apparent self-possession occur only post Brexit? For christians, what does that mean in our relation to God? And this a temporary condition?

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