Traditionally, Christians have seen mission as a either a special event (eg, a one-week series of meetings, or a conference) or as a full-time job for a few individuals (eg, sending a missionary to a foreign country for several years to convert new people to Christianity).
The Missional Church Movement, a church renewal movement based on the necessity of missional living by Christians, gained popularity at the end of the twentieth century, mainly due to the publication of “Missional Church” by Darrell Guder in 1998, and advocates like Tim Keller Advocates contrast missional living in ordinary life with the idea of a select group of "professional" missionaries, emphasizing that all Christians should be involved in the Great Commission of Jesus Christ.
[1] The missional living concept is rooted in the Missio dei (Latin, "the sending of God").
In 1934, Karl Hartenstein, a German missiologist, coined the phrase in response to Karl Barth and his emphasis on actio Dei ("the action of God"), seeing God as the primary acting agent in the world and within the church.
[2] During the International Missionary Council conferences of the 1950s and 1960s, Mission Theology began to take shape.
It came to public attention in 1962, in Johannes Blauw’s book The Missionary Nature of the Church.
[6] The Reformed Theological Seminary in the US sees it as “live as a saint, one of the Lord … to live as a sent one, to think as a sent one, to write as a sent one for the sake of God’s glory, the edification of God’s people the church, and the salvation of the lost, across the street and around the world.”[7] The Missional Challenge workshop sees it as “embodying the mission and message of Jesus and seeking to be Jesus to everyone everywhere.”.
Rather, they point to the embodiment of the living Word in human culture and social settings in such a way that its divine nature and power are not lost.
“For the word of the cross is to those who are perishing foolishness, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor 1:18).
George Hunsberger conveys the idea that the Church is pointing beyond itself to the kingdom of God.
The mission of God flows directly through every believer and every community of faith that adheres to Jesus.
Institutional churches are sometimes perceived to exist for the members and depend on pastors and staff to evangelize the lost.
Members of the missional church are personally engaged in reaching their communities with the message of Jesus Christ.