One more word that I can't use.

It is frustrating that all the good descriptive words are being hijacked. Let me give you an example; the word "evangelical" used to mean that you believed in Sola Fide, which means justification is by faith alone. Now "evangelical" means that you vote republican, like guns and don't read the bible much. "Protestant" used to mean that you were a Christian that was radically opposed to the doctrine and practices of Roman Catholicism and affirmed the doctrines rediscovered in the reformation. Now it means you can believe in everything from Oneness Pentecostalism to Joel Osteen to benny Hinn to John MacArthur and R.C Sproul. Now I find out that I need to ditch the word "Missional" lest my little reformed church be confused with an emergant church. Here is what Wikipedia has to say about "Missional".

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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The Oxford English Dictionary defines "missional" as "Relating to or connected with a religious mission; missionary." In contemporary usage "missional" is an adjectival alternative to "missionary." Although both words are related to "missio" (Latin: sending), some scholars, including Darrell Guder et al. in The Missional Church^{[citation needed]} believe "missional" focuses on the church contextualizing its methods, morality, and message to fit its indigenous culture.

In this usage "missional" has rapidly entered the lexicon of the growing emerging church movement whose participants have popularized the term, enabling participants in this movement to recognize each other across denominational lines. Different "emergents" may use the term with different nuances and connotations, but the term persists as essentially a postmodern alternative to the ecclesiology and missiology of Evangelical Christians. The practical outworking of emergent "missional living" does not coincide with the emphases on propositional evangelism, teaching, and holiness found in historic Christianity.

In contemporary, postmodern usage "missional" has become more narrow in scope than traditional terms such as "mission" and "outreach" which infer the inclusion of propositional evangelism and instruction. Jason Zahariades identifies the difference between a traditional "disciple making," evangelical church and a missional church as fundamentally theological.

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So now that I can't define myself as evangelical, protestant or missional for fear of being seen as a gun toting, slain in the Spirit, doctrinally illiterate, emergant pastor. Maybe the artist formerly known as "Prince" is where we are headed, we are the churches formerly known as "Evangelical, protestant and missional".

Matt Masiewicz

http://www.rcf1689.blogspot.com