How do we be missional?

How do we be missional? Here is a collaborated list of thoughts on how to be missional.

1. Think Missio Dei. God is a missionary God. As God the Father sent Jesus, Jesus sent us, and empowered us by the Spirit. Isaiah 61:1-2 is God’s manifesto; it is what Jesus gives as his first sermon in his hometown. He opens the Isaiah scroll and read what is to be his manifesto also, and it is mine also, Isaiah 61:1-2 is the goal if missio Dei. As God sent His Son with His manifesto, mission, so Jesus sends His people, His bride the church with the same manifesto, mission.
2. Think biblically. Be a student of the word of God, Jesus was. Be someone who studies them day and night, who thinks, eats and breathes the scriptures.
3. Be a Missionalest. If you aren’t, what’s the purpose of you life? Everything in your life should be directed toward participation in God’s mission, accomplishing God’s mission in the world, the restoring, renewal, redemption and reconciliation of all creation. (i.e. “Missio Dei is central in all that we say and do in life.”)
4. Be a Gospelists. The Gospel must be the very “heartbeat” in the soul of every believer, his worldview it molded by the Gospel, what he thinks about and meditates on is filtered through the Gospel. So then being gospel-centered means the gospel is functional central to your life, at the core of your being, what defines you. (i.e. “The gospel is central in all that we say and do in life.”)
5. Have a functional gospel-centered identity. Being gospel-centered means the gospel is functional central to your life, at the core of your being, what defines you. It is at the core of your identity, who you are.
6. Think contextually. If it was good enough for the apostle Paul, it’s good enough for me (1 Cor. 9:19-23). One-size never fits all. The Gospel never changes, but how we communicate it does.
7. Think culturally, act biblically. We live, breathe, and swim in culture. What's more, it's impossible to be a Jesus-follower in a non-cultural context. If we are serious about being missional, we need to understand the culture and subcultures surrounding us.
8. Practice incarnational principles. Incarnational living brings the living embodiment of the gospel to our neighbors, manifesting the reign of Jesus to our neighbors, and therefore liberates their suffering. We should consider how we can live in a way that makes the gospel most accessible to the people around us, that is see it at work in your life and Jesus tangible to them be cause you are the living image of Him.
9. Practice love. As in love God with all that you are, and love your neighbor with the same kind of love you show yourself.
10. Practice caring for those in need. Give loaves of bread and fish to those without, physically touch today’s lepers, and if you have more than one of something someone needs, give it to them.
11. Practice compassion. Bringing the same love that Jesus would bring to the broken and the lost.
12. Practice mercy. Bringing the same love that Jesus would bring to the broken and the lost.
13. Practice grace and forgiveness. Most people will need to see the gospel in action before they can adopt and practice it. Give grace, give forgiveness. Even if you think it will kill you.
14. It is about justice. Standing alongside the neglected, the falsely accused, and the abused.
15. Actively engage in restoration. In God’s mission of restoration, actively working to restore al of creation to wholeness. Not to condemn others who are in a fallen state, but on the mission or restoring them to wholeness and a right relationship with God.
16. Live in and build authentic community. Jesus was about intentional community, communities engaged in the restoration of each other and the world.
17. Practicing missional discipleship. Actively teaching one on one others to duplicate the life of Christ by imitating your example of dong it, by your life being about restoring, renewal, redemption and the reconciliation of all creation lived out right before them to see how it is done.
18. Practice the Great Commission. Share your faith in word and deed. Engage in doable evangelism. Don't discriminate. Instead, share the gospel with everyone regardless of ethnicity, religion, economic or social status.

I intend to make these my non-negotiable way of living a missional lifestyle.

To Be Like Jesus

This is a great list I came across and add my twist to some of them, this is something to think about, and act on, what it would be like to live like Jesus.

1. Get baptized by the craziest guy in town.

2. Say and do things that are guaranteed to make religious people want to kill you. Repeat again, and again, and again, and again, and again and don't stop unless forced.

3. Do amazing things for people and ask them to not tell anyone.

4. Hang out with the most despised, marginalized, looked down upon, and shunned people you can find. Prostitutes, gang members, druggies, est.

5. When possible, forgive and restore people, even if they betrayed you.

6. Live in a way that provokes gossip.

7. Win the most grace competition.

8. Keep the party going, hang out at the local bar, and buy a round or two.

9. Serve people (note: nose plugs may be required).

10. If you're sad cry.

11. Empower people to do the extraordinary.

12. Act like a rock star in a hotel church.

13. Radically simplify theology. “Explain it to me like I was a 10 year old.”

14.Break human-made religious laws. Repeat consistently.

15.Prioritize the most important over the important.

16. Let women with questionable backgrounds pay your bills.

17. Be courageously willing to demonstrate your love for others.

18. So trust God to rescue people that you don't feel compelled to run around spouting off predictable religious language.

19. Reject the secular-religious dichotomy by treating all of life as the place where God works and spiritual things occur.

20. Be bold on things that matter, but always be driven by genuine love for God and others.

21. Join Scripture to life and life to Scripture, allowing both what God has said with what he is saying to permeate your thoughts and life.

22. Expect, as Jesus did, that living in a fallen world will always make you susceptible to hypocrisy. (What makes him amazing is that he never succumbed to this, but others often did, which is why he warned them/us.)

23. Point out the harmful tendencies of the religious (but do so in a way that demonstrates that you are not bitter but rather angry at those whose ways misrepresent God and hurt people).