Monday, October 23, 2006

Needing a place to land

I guess I use this expression alot, never doubting that I am being understood. Well, the folly of my ways has been pointed out to me. I used it last night in a prayer request only to be met with a "translation required" look by a friend later on in the evening.
I have just had the final weekend block of the class I having been taking with Gailyn van Rheenen. It was fabulous on every front. (Church Planting and Development). My head is full of soundbites, my fingers have typed over 60 pages of notes and I have done 6 papers with 1 big daddy one to go and I have had 2 weekends of lecture and intense discussion. Needless to say, and here it comes, ...."I need somewhere to land this stuff." I need to dig through it all to get my thoughts in order and have some solid principles established. But, there is so much to think about. It hurts.

My desire is to think theologically about missional church and about discipleship. I have thoughts gathered from Gailyn, from books by Ogden, Frazee, Webber, Stetzer, Rainer -so none of this is original to me. It's a tapestry of others thoughts that I am processing.

Missional discipleship:
It starts with Missio Dei - the very nature of God is that He calls and sends. He forms us into distinctive communities that reflect the redemptive reign of God (Kingdom) in the coming of Christ and in the becoming like Christ (Incarnation). Together we journey(Community), maturing into Christ formed followers (Spiritual Formation) who in the power of the Spirit begin shaping others into Christ formed followers (Equipping).

I know that these are clumsy sentences, but this isn't a neat little simple process either.
Yikes, it's time to pick up kids. Wanna-be theologian out...Mom in!

4 comments:

Missional Jerry said...

Good stuff here

Angie said...

Hey there new friend! Just wanted to pay a little visit here since you were so nice to come over my way! I'm adopting your phrase "I need somewhere to land this stuff" (not to be confused with Dr. Phil's "You need a soft place to fall!")

And missional discipleship... YES! I just read and re-read that. So many layers of life there.

You are a keeper, girl (and your little blog too!!!)

kendanley said...

we need more people like you, thinking and living theomomically!

good work -
kd

Jim Martin said...

Arlene,
This is a very good post. You express missional discipleship very well. Sounds like you have done a lot of work.