An infection worth having

We're learning a new missions term...

It's been around for a few years and if you Google it you'll find over a million hits. Also, it's a distinctively Christian word and recently made up (your spell checker won't recognize it). We're a little behind learning it, but we're not behind doing it. Stay with me, I'll explain.

Crosswind is a distinctly 'missional' (that's the word) expression of Christian life.

Crosswind began with a few Christians who began to live like missionaries. They began to be affected by the seriousness of the brokenness in our city and they began to do something about it. Suddenly their new affection became an infection that deeply changed the way they saw their world, the church and their relationship with God. Soon they found themselves living a new lifestyle, a missionary lifestyle.

Missions was no longer a project, it was a way of life.

This bunch saw missions as something you do all the time not just in Africa or at home during the holidays. They began to engage the need in their community, getting close enough to smell and feel the poverty and pain, the brokenness and dysfunction. They sought God day after day to find solutions to the problems of their city. And they are still seeking...

Something else happened too...

When they showed back up to church it didn't feel the same. There was something very missing. And it wasn't doctrine or friends, good music or preaching. It was this new infection, this 'missional' lifestyle. These guys loved being missionaries and they deeply believed it was God who changed their lives, their hearts and their lifestyle... and the infection...

well, it's spreading.

BC