mDNA - vision and communitas
Continuing our look at mDNA - communitas not comminity and how it applies to Northern Community. The other posts in the mDNA series are here
Vision
In Treasure in Clay Jars, Darrell Guder remarks:
The missional church understands its calling as witness to the gospel of the in-breaking reign of God and strives to be an instrument, agent and sign of that reign. As it makes its witness through its identity, activity and communication, it is aware of the provisional character of all that it is and does. It points towards the reign of God which God will certainly bring about, but knows that its own response is incomplete and that its own conversion is a continuing necessity.
Guder goes on to say that the missional churches
…are convinced that they are on a journey, in the wilderness, on a pilgrimmage, moving towards the promised land. They know they are not the church envisioned in the New Testament but they want to discover its defining meaning for their vocation today. They readily admit that they don’t know what the biblical kingdom of God looks like, but they want to find out and are on the path of exploration, and often discovery.
If a faith community lives with this vision, then the power of communitas will be experienced. At Northern our vision statement is ‘to be the hands and feet of Jesus in the Northern suburbs’. This is our motivating desire in planting congregations and missional teams. There is such a diversity of needs and people present in the northern suburbs that we need to respond in many different ways. This vision ‘to be the hands and feet of Jesus’ is a powerful element in creating communitas. Our church is missionally orientated towards achieving this vision, though it will never be fully realised. It is the vocation of the kingdom and thus is a unifying and motivating common purpose.
Communitas occurs when ‘enactment on behalf of a powerful goal alters the function of reality’. The function of reality can be altered by an all-encompassing vision of the whole organisation or may be changed through multiple teams each pursuing different aspects of the overall vision and goal.