My previous post defined the “missional” church as one that understands it exists in a culture alien to the Kingdom of God. That’s easy to get a handle on when the church is new, but what about when it grows to include several thousand disciples who are growing in the knowledge of God’s Word? Our traditional answer is to keep feeding them and maybe get them involved in maintaining the institution of the church.

That leads to the second defining characteristic of the missional church: Every member is a missionary where they are, every single day. This isn’t a new idea in the evangelical church, but though we talk about it a lot, it’s rare to find a church that really puts it into practice.

One church that does is Watermark Community Church in Dallas. I’ve said before that Todd Wagner is the one preacher (besides me) that you ought to be listening to. You can catch all of his stuff online, but if you really want to hear about a church that puts the emphasis on the mission of every member, listen to this message called “A Steward’s Report”. (You can download it for free and put it on your music player or a CD.)

Watermark gave everybody who attended a service in December an envelope containing some cash. It sounds like most people received $5-10 but a few got larger amounts, up to $1,000. Each person also received the instruction that they were to use this money to make the name of Jesus “more famous” in whatever way God led them. “A Steward’s Report” is the follow-up message reporting on what people did with the money. The remarkable lesson of the message is that this is essentially what Christians face each day. God has distributed his gifts among us, and we are to use them to lift up Christ so He can draw all people to Himself.

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