experiencing the gospel
A missional church is incarnational: Rather than creating holy places inside the church building it penetrates people where they already are. Rather than invite people in, a missional church goes out.
Church life and ministry is “more spiritual than strategic, more about prayer than planning, and more spontaneous than organized.”
Rather than creating a plan and then willing it into reality, missional churches follow the spirit to wherever God leads.
A missional church in Manhattan, N.Y., spent 18 months learning about its neighborhood and praying for and serving its people before launching worship services.
A church in Atlanta realized the best model was not creating its own building and programs but infiltrating the activities already in place in the community.
Such churches are often comprised of sub-churches of many people in different neighborhoods rather than one central church.
Many people have heard the gospel. Missional churches focus on helping people experience the gospel.
In the life of a missional church, as the organism matures it is not enough to be a loose ban of Christians without organization and systems. Churches realize complete biblical expression as they organically develop into an organized body.
Chapter summary of Ed Stetzer's, Planting Missional Churches (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2006), Chapter 13, pp. 161-9.