Welcome back. You belong here.
I'm not going to label myself as missional, that's too narrow a definition. I do believe missional gifts have always been in me but so have other things. Music, formation, justice and others. The social justice arm is something I saw modeled by my father as a little boy growing up in Nicaragua.
Mission for me (as I remember) started when I was 13 years old. I used to stand on the street corner of 10th and Cherry in Long Beach, CA outside McCoy's supermarket, and help the elderly cross the street, push their carts, etc. It was my way to serve others in the name of God.
As an adult, the Kingdom of God focus happened about 7 years ago while listening to a sermon by a mission's pastor. The guest speaker talked about Jonathan getting out from under the "pomegranate tree"(while Saul lazily camped out) to go and do the will of God. I remember God clearly telling me (with my lovely wife sitting next to me) "I want you to get out from under the pomegranate tree and follow me". It took me 7 years, but I'm finally doing it.
As a contemplative/artistic type, I've always enjoyed Formation (meditation, prayer, solitude, etc) but it became a focus reading Nouwen, Willard, Richard Foster, Manning and others. I went on silent retreats before it was Clairborne-monastic-cool. But the biggest growth in formation happened about 8 years ago when a friend invited me to join a spiritual formation group. This catapulted my growth as I went from walking alone to walking with others.
I also remember when I first heard of postmodernity. I was a sophomore in college (1990), at a college retreat up in the mountains and the speaker (a guy maybe 4-5 years older than me), talked about postmodernity around the campfire. I had been reading about it myself, but this guy rocked my world. Then I read McLaren's first book "A New Kind of Christian" and that did it. I was forever changed. Emergent, postmodernity, etc. it all made sense to me.
My first experience with a pastor leaving traditional church was a young guy at a cool church back during the GenX church-within-a-church years (circa 1995). I remember him taking a group of us out to lunch and saying crazy stuff like "we can't just preach the Word, we have to live differently and love people". That was so radical at the time, but I knew he was right.
The worship burnout was something I saw in a man in his 70's about 15 years ago. I remember asking him after a great night of worship "how do you keep doing it after all these years?" He turned to me and said in a strong but sad voice, something like "I don't know why I'm still doing this, it's no fun anymore". I told myself "I'll never be like that" I'm glad I got out when I did.
And the story continues...that's the exciting part!
May God give us all times to listen, times to reflect and eventually times to act on what we know to be true.
Have a great day.
Into the future,
davidTrig
