futuristguy@missionaltribe

Introduction

This post serves as a compilation of character qualities, skills, and perspectives of being a missional disciple. These are aspects I’ve perceived embodied by various people in my life. The plan is to periodically cut-and-paste here the summaries of discoveries from the Profiles of Missional Disciples category, and maybe add a few words of description to each point. And who knows, perhaps on occasion I’ll attempt to re-summarize the composite profile to see who it looks like.

Missional Metrics in Everyday DiscipLeaders -

Compositing a Profile of Christlikeness

1. From themes in the lives of Andrew and Debbie Jones, and their family, I see demonstrated that missional disciples …

• Take on situations and make a way forward so those who come along later have at least a route to follow, though not a totally paved road. They are frontier pathfinders.
• Consistently welcome people into their life, and it’s about an expansive heart more than an expensive home. They are hospitable.
• Follow the Holy Spirit’s leading faithfully in whatever place or process to which they are called, whether that is global or local, rooted or mobile. They have flexible fortitude.
• Can live creatively, frugally, and outrageously because they have embraced freedom in their followership. They exhibit joy.

2. From themes in my encounters with Rod Miles, I see demonstrated that missional DiscipLeaders who are church planters and pastors …

• Put themselves is situations of discomfort on purpose, for the ultimate purposes God designed for those people in that place.
• Implant themselves for the long haul, even with the willingness to be there the rest of their lives, if God so leads.
• Do not assume that just because they speak the same language as the locals that they speak the same “lingo.” They invest themselves in listening deeply and for a long time in order to hear and interpret their adopted community BEFORE launching.
• Stay committed to the formation of disciples who will engage in personal and social transformation. Thus, they reject what I’ve termed a “slash-and-dash” approach to quickee harvesting of supposed “converts.” Instead, it’s about long-haul discipling, and letting the people they disciple become the church’s evangelists.