Missional is a buzzword in the North American Church. It’s a buzzword with a lot of ambiguity. What does it mean to be missional? What is a missional church? What is a missional follower of Jesus? These are all questions that church leaders are asking. And there are many resources that are trying to provide some clarity to these questions.
Missional Spirituality (Paperback, Kindle) by Roger Helland and Leonard Hjalmarson is one of these many books. Unlike many of the other texts that I’ve been reading on the subject. Missional Spirituality builds its foundation on Jesus response to the question, “What is the greatest commandment?” Jesus’ reply to this question is, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. The second is like it, love your neighbor as yourself.”
From this response Helland and Hjalmarson begin to investigate what it means to love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. They focus on practices that help believers grow in their love for the Lord in all four of these arenas. This is important as it helps people build faith and knowledge about God and move them into living the mission of God. The authors then go into examining what it means to love your neighbor as yourself.
Missional Spirituality is by no means a ground breaking revolutionary text on what the church should be doing to be more “missional”. However, it is a helpful text for church leaders and non-church leaders to begin to figure out what it means to live in God’s mission of grace and saving the world.
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