engage

Facilitating Believers to Become Missionally Engaged

The Significance of Missional Engagement

Missional engagement follows the example of Jesus by living out Christlikeness within different groups of people in the community.  Christians do this in culturally accepted ways without violating Biblical truth.  Just as Jesus crossed cultural "road blocks" to build relationships with non believers, so today Christians need to follow his example by becoming "incarnational" as well.  Three actions will be needed to engage the places, peoples and participants in the community:

• Become indigenous -- live among the people we are trying to reach, learn their culture, adapt to them culturally and serve their needs
• Become relational -- be willing to invest time in building relationships with others
• Make disciples -- in the context of relationships, mentor those who would follow Christ also.

Engaging Places

Because relationships are so important in missional engagement, spending time hanging out with people is a per-requisite to building trust.  Certain places in the community are locations where people hangout on a regular basis.  Find a place and invest in the lives of others.

Engaging Peoples

Internationals, immigrants and refugees are on the move worldwide.  These foreign-born peoples bring their language, culture and worldview with them.  However, the longer they live in their new location they begin to adapt to new ways of living.  Along the path there are many ways of serving them and providing assistance as they make adjustments.

Engaging Participants

Many people hang out in specific locations because of their commitment to participating in a specific activity.  These provide great opportunities for Christians to serve their community - finding needs and meeting them.