"God authorized and commanded me to commission you:

• Go out and train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life,
• marking them by baptism in the threefold name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
• Then instruct them in the practice of all I have commanded you.
• I'll be with you as you do this, day after day, right up to the end of the age."

It doesn't get much simpler. God sent his Son to show us the power of his love. God, who has created everything we know and see (and everything we will never understand or see) has simply asked us to trust him, depend on him, and love him to make his love the definition of our life. In return, God gives us supernatural peace in the life we know, and unending hope for an eternity we only know exists.

These amazing gifts come to us at a great price to God. But God is more than willing to pay whatever price it takes for us to be in this love relationship with him — this convenant based simply on his love and grace and our need for both.

So Christ-followers, the ones commissioned by God's Son to live in the simple reality of our God's amazing love, are to simply tell the people we love how simply beautiful and beautifully simple this relationship is, welcoming them into God's peace and eternal hope. And then we're to share with each other our new discoveries about God — day after day — a relationshp that never diminishes or even wobbles. As we do this, our relationship with God becomes deeper and more trusting and more beautiful, as does our fellowship with other Christ-followers as we experience God's reality together.

That's what it means to be "missional."

It's just too simple.

At this moment, in the waning days of 2007, many of us are buried in the distraction of complexity: an Americanized Church that has gone corporate, with pointless congregational and denominational "must haves"; a cynical culture that avoids personal accountability to any one idea or truth by "honoring" every fool's dream; and a maniac fear that through it all we personally may not get to experience all we "deserve." Some of us are drowning in our self-importance while others are starving in isolation and depression. And then there are the millions of people who are still living outside the Body of Christ....

I propose we indulge ourselves with one amazing gift this Christmas, with the gift of incarnation — God with us.

I propose that we commit to each other to take one collective "missional" breath and then another and another until we break through the debris of our current reality and rediscover God's commission (and joy!).

I propose that we follow Christ's verb and actually go meet the world, actually see the need.

I propose that we love people and welcome them and remind them of God's love again. God is with us!

It's just that simple.

Paul Detterman