This is the Day to “Show Forth”!

Epiphany means to “show forth,” and this is the day for showing and going forth at Missional Tribe! Seven months in the making by seven instigators from North America, with two weeks and two dozen beta-testers, and now the “seven second preview period” is over and done. It’s public beta-test time, and the site is up and running for Epiphany! Drop in and see what social networking and learning resources are already available for the missional conversation:

  • Overview the history of where Missional Tribe came from and what motivated the instigators to create this resource.
  • Read a working description of the term missional, drawn from 50+ missional practitioner participants in the June 2008 Missional SynchroBlog.
  • Engage in conversations by connecting with other members, respond to the “topic of the week,” and comment on forum issues of interest.
  • Check out various groups and/or create an account and start a new group. (I started one with Peggy Brown of The Virtual Abbey on “Missional Metrics” to explore how to measure discipleship, maturity, and successful impact in missional paradigms and practices.)
  • Find stories, absorb articles, read news, view videos, see visual art, click links all related to the ongoing missional dialogue.
  • Check out member blogs - or start one yourself.

I’m one of the seven “tribal instigators,” and one of my roles has been minute-taker/archivist. As a futurist, I enjoy this – it’s sort of like being an “archaeologist of the present,” trying to figure out what’s important in the here-and-now that might be critical to understanding something in the there-and-then. (I’ve posted the first few sections in a more detailed “Deep History.” This case study with interpretive commentary documents the origins and early period of Missional Tribe, for those interested in an in-depth look at how this unfolded as a decentralized, “centered set” collaborative network.)

Anyway, over the past 20 years, I’ve been involved in the start-up of about 5 networks or non-profits, as well as about a dozen pioneer ministries and church plants. It has long intrigued me that the “spiritual and organizational DNA” of a group gets set (and sometimes stuck) in the very early months of its existence. And it is primarily due to who is or is not involved, and whether things are done with intentionality and creativity, or on autopilot and with overcontrol.

I’ve quoted Price Pritchett before from The Ethics of Excellence: “The organization can never be something the people are not.” And I’ll be forthright and state that the other instigators who co-catalyzed this amazing resource – Bill, Brother Maynard, Kingdom Grace, Peggy, Rick, and Sonja – are themselves amazing disciples, so this site is more than just some vacuous razzle-dazzle! I cannot recall any of the Kingdom enterprises I’ve worked for that have been quite so productive (and laugh-filled!) as this has been. Or where the participants have felt so much freedom to be real with one another. Or where there was such integrated collaboration that by the time a web page or post on behalf of the tribe was done, you hardly knew any more who’d started or finished it because everyone had carefully and joyfully contributed to the process! Church as it should be … indeed.

I am convinced this was “a God thing,” and done in response to a move and call of the Spirit. It’s been a wonderful pre-launch period, and I have every confidence that the set-up will encourage participation by many people for years to come.

Missional Tribe

And so – check it out, enjoy the conversation, and welcome to Missional Tribe! P.S. it’s still in beta mode, so help us out with feedback on glitches, and how to make the site more helpful to you in your journey of embodying a missional lifestyle.

Below is the official press release for the launch of this site.

Missional Tribe – Not Just Another Use of the Word “Missional”

missionaltribebetagraphicDo a Google search on the word “missional” and you’ll get 1,200,000 hits. Search “missional” at Amazon and 1,238 missional products appear before your very eyes. It’s the Western Church word of the moment. The key to all that ails the church. The promise of a bright future – beginning with a bold tomorrow. That is, if we only knew what it meant.

This recent quote from a church website accurately demonstrates “missional” confusion.

We have made a commitment to being a Missional Church, reaching into the community and inviting people to come and experience what we are doing. We should have “standing room only” Services every Sunday. There should be a buzz in the Community about [church name removed] and all the wonderful activities available for most people’s needs and wishes.

Well, not so much.

Last June (2008), in response to this kind of confusion, Friend of Missional’s Rick Meigs challenged the blogosphere to respond to the question, “What is Missional?”

“I have a continuing concern that the term missional has become over used and wrongly used.

“I think it is time to make a bigger effort to reclaim the term, a term which describe what happens when you and I replace the “come to us” invitations with a “go to them” life. A life where “the way of Jesus” informs and radically transforms our existence to one wholly focused on sacrificially living for him and others and where we adopt a missionary stance in relation to our culture. It speaks of the very nature of the Jesus follower.

“To help reclaim it, I propose a synchronized blog for Monday, June 23rd on the topic, ‘What is Missional?’”

50 bloggers responded with their understanding of the word – and a lot more conversation was generated both in real life and on the web. Brother Maynard did a great summary of the missional excitement. There was a sense of accomplishment – the 50 people and the hundreds of commentors had refocused the word missional.

But then each blogger wrote other posts – dislodging their Synchroblog posts from the lead position. Soon these posts disappeared from the front pages of 50 blogs – only accessible if one knew exactly what you were looking for. The sense of accomplishment was ephemeral.

A few of us who had met face-to-face at the Allelon Missional Order event in Seabeck, WA in October, 2007, talked about the best way to keep those posts and ideas evergreen. We’d also been part of the Wikiklesia Project: Voices of the Virtual World. Perhaps a book would be effective. By the fall, seven of us were in ongoing conversation around how best to serve the “missional” mission – Sonja Andrews, Peggy Brown, Kingdom Grace, Bill Kinnon, Brother Maynard, Rick Meigs, and Brad Sargent.

Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody and Seth Godin’s Tribes helped to inform our discussions. Missional Tribe’s first iteration was as a Wiki. Then the mini “blogstorm” around Out of Ur’s Dan Kimball missional results post convinced us that what the conversation needed was a place to discuss, share stories, watch videos, ask questions, and grow together. Where all of this can easily be tagged and indexed for rapid access in the future. The Missional Tribe social network was born (www.missionaltribe.org).

Less than two months after the decision to launch a social network, the beta of the Missional Tribe site launches today – Epiphany, on the church calendar. We would like you to join us in being a part of this non-hierarchical network.

From simply reading and commenting on posts and in the Forums, to creating your own Missional Tribe blog or posting a video – Missional Tribe is a place to track and expand the missional conversation – as we follow the Lord back into the neighborhoods where he has strategically placed each one of us.

To become involved, join the tribe at www.missionaltribe.org.