Missional Building Blocks

Okay, let's keep all the links straight...

Andrew Jones (the Tall Skinny Kiwi) posted a link to Thoughts From the Cheap Seats, where Adam (the Cheap Seat's creator) had posted some excellent graphic depictions of the Traditional church model and the Missional church model. Adam in turn gives credit for his post to Dan Kimball, whose book Emerging Worship inspired the graphic in the first place.

Whew!

(Click on the graphic to see both Traditional & Missional graphics)

Once you've had a chance to look at these two graphics, here's a couple of questions that occurred to me as Wendy and I were discussing them:

Once a church/community of faith reaches the corporate worship gathering phase of its existence,

1. How will it keep itself from inverting the pyramid and having the corporate gathering "take over" the future investment(s) of time, energy and money?
   
   
2. The "original" members of the community, who were there as each stage is realized, will certainly "get" the vision and the mission of the community. For those who are attracted to this community -- say, two or three years down the line -- but who didn't share in the early ground-breaking days, how will they likewise "own" the process and values of this community?

As an aside, I've always appreciated Dan Kimball's writing and thoughts in this whole conversation. In addition to his Emerging Worship book, I would highly recommend Dan's The Emerging Church -- it's an excellent resource, and serves as a continual reminder that the emerging church is missional, not reactionary, in focus and intent.