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What Missional Looks Like

… “It’s important to find people who are treated the worst, who have the worst resources and just love them,” Kiniry said. “Not try to fix them, not try to save them, but just show them hospitality and kindness.”

He said he began organizing the potlucks when it dawned on him that he had more food and material items than he needed.

“I realized I had all the food I needed and more,” he said. “I was wasting food and many in my same community were going hungry. It meant I wasn’t truly loving my neighbor like I loved myself and I wanted to change that.”…

…

More than a year ago, Lenni Lissberger, a pastor, brought her services to the group when she began hosting what she dubbed a Pilgrims in the Park service on Sundays before the potluck.

Lissberger leads an “open-air” service in the center of the park and said about 15 to 20 of the area’s homeless attend. The service is open to anyone – something she stresses.

“I tell them no one is here to judge them,” she said. “We’re here to provide a place of hospitality. A place where God can do what only God can do.”

(Hat tip to Eric Posa)

What Missional Looks Like

What Missional Looks Like

Vietnamese nuns build a community in Houston

…Their disciplined way of life begins at 5 a.m. with an hour and a half of prayer and worship, followed by breakfast before they commute to full-time jobs. After work, they pray together again before they prepare meals and eat. During meals they have lessons, so they can be “fed physically and intellectually.”

Different activities on their packed agenda each evening include visiting nursing homes and the sick, studying, preparing lessons and holding workshops. Before they retire, there is more prayer.

“We sacrifice ourselves in service of others,” Sister Bernadette said. “We limit ourselves to entertainment for 45 minutes once a week. We lead a very balanced life, and there is lots of joy, laughter and singing. We balance between prayer life, community life and work life.”

The sisters have always been self-supporting with working incomes. All work full time either in their preschool, as Catholic schoolteachers, or as nurses. One sister teaches at the University of St. Thomas.

What Missional Looks Like

What Missional Looks Like

“Dolores Scott carefully rolled up the cuffs of Willie Wright’s khaki pants and helped the 50-year-old man remove his socks and shoes.

Wright sighed as she helped him place his feet in a large bowl of warm, sudsy water.

With a washcloth, Scott gently scrubbed his feet, paying careful attention to his toes.

He closed his eyes, relaxed and leaned back into the chair. Once Wright’s feet were clean, 70-year-old Scott powdered, lotioned and slipped them into a new pair of white socks.

Wright smiled.

So did Scott.

And then Wright put on his new knit cap, picked up his bag and headed back out onto the street — his home. …”

What Missional Looks Like

RevMoz-Ministry and Mope Rock: Brontoburgers, anyone?

revmoz:

I’m thinking brontosaurus or diplodocus or some sort of thing right now and wondering: Can a brontosaurus change into a butterfly? Or will it only ever be an enormous, ancient animal? If being a missional church is being a butterfly, how can an old, established congregation (a dinosaur) make such…

RevMoz-Ministry and Mope Rock: Brontoburgers, anyone?

What Missional Looks Like

When the Rev. Ron Robinson was a little boy, he went by the name Ronnie and he attended this church with his Mama and Daddy and numerous relatives who all lived in a bustling community named Turley.  Then people moved away.  And this church was effectively abandoned.  One of the ruins of the empire.

Now Ronnie is all grown up and he has a great vision.  To gain this church for the community of Turley, to clean out all the mold and fix the rot.  Not to restore it to its former incarnation but to make it something even better.  As you stand out in the 106 degree heat and humidity of Turley in August, there seems to be a cool breeze as he explains how this part of the church will be a community center, and this part will be for communal meals, and over here we’ll have worship, and over there, we’ll …

What Missional Looks Like