In the Old Testament God calls the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt to be God 's witnesses as a people set apart by their culture and worship in a Pagan world. Similarly, the contemporary church finds that God still is calling His people to be a set apart community unique in the culture and worship in a secular world. In missional ministry the church is the faithful embodiment of an alternative sanctified community witnessing to God 's love and mission in the world. Hauerwas and Willimon write, “The church was called to be a colony, an alternative community, a sign, a signal to the world that Christ had made possible a way of life together unlike anything the world has seen.”1 The missional church, or the confessing church,2 is concerned with worshiping Christ through faithful living in all …show more content…
Missional discipleship seeks to equip the congregation with the resources to enable it to be the faithful set apart people of God. This equipping evolves organically from the gifts of the Body of Christ in response to the needs of the particular ministry context of the particular congregation. Flowing from the passions of the congregation, this discipleship is as much an expression of the God given passions of the congregations as it is seeks to move people closer to