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What is Missional College Ministry?

Missional is a pretty trendy word in churches these days.  I’m not much for trends, but the word captures what we want to be as a ministry.  When we use the word missional, we simply mean that we strive to live as any missionary would anywhere in the world.  That is, we are on mission with God to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ wherever we go.

The foundational verse for our understanding of this missional living is John 20:21.  Jesus says to his followers, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” This becomes the catalyst for how we view our daily lives, the places we go and people we encounter.  Because Jesus has sent us, we are now on mission everywhere we go, the same mission he was sent on by the Father, the mission to reconcile dead sinners to himself through the gospel message of his life and death and resurrection.

We try to fulfill this mission in the context of college life.  Students are sent by Christ to their campuses, dorms, classrooms and workplaces to live with gospel intentionality.  Mission isn’t something reserved for a select and specially called group of super-disciples.  It also is not something to be taken up once college is over.  It is for right now, on your campus where Christ has sent you.

We also know that missional living is not easy.  Even Paul, the greatest missionary in history, understood this.  That is why he asked for the church at Ephesus to pray, “for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak.”  This missional thing isn’t something that we can accomplish on our own.  We need other believers.  We need community.  We need the church.  That is why, as a Missional College Ministry, we gather together to encourage, challenge and pray for each other, and we look for ways to be sent together to live on mission wherever Christ leads.

It isn’t a perfect process. It’s more of a journey…and we stumble…a lot, but we believe it is faithful to Christ’s call upon our lives, and so we go together expecting him to show up in power.

Gather & Send

Our events & activities are divided into two categories; categories we believe should characterize every ministry or church.  Sometimes we “Gather” and sometimes we are “Sent” and both are commanded in scripture.  These two are also connected to each other.  We gather in order to equip, encourage and pray for the sending.  Our experiences of being sent inform, energize and focuse our gatherings.

In our experience, today’s believers naturally get out of balance toward the gathering side of things.  We are trying to remedy that in our own lives and ministry and so intentionally keep our gatherings to a minimum.  We want to make space for the Holy Spirit to lead in sending us out.

Gather:

Weekly

• Sunday morning Lifegroups @ 9 am in the Spring*.
• Sunday nights after the evening service @ Tommy & Anna Lisa’s house.
• Thursday night prayer @ 8 pm.  A student initiated,  student led time of prayer for your witness in your world, on your campus, at your workplace. Email Tommy for directions.

Monthly

• GATHERED: @ 8 pm in the Spring*. Modeled after the early church as described in Acts 4:31, this is a time where we come together to worship in song, scripture and prayer for the Holy Spirit’s leading.

* The Spring is the beige church building next to Powell Elementary School.  We meet downstairs on Sunday mornings and upstairs on Wednesday nights.

Send:

Weekly

• SENT: We try to create opportunities every week to practice missional living together.  We post those weekly opportunities above, on Facebook and on Twitter.
• LifeOnMission: This is where you can find suggestions on how you can begin to live missionally today.  New ideas are posted every Monday.

Special Opportunities

• Spring Break: Mission trip to Cleveland Ohio the week of March 19.
• Summer: Missions opportunities abound as we join in with all of the church’s mission trips.  There are also opportunities for summer-long missions.

Resources

Bible Reading Plan: This is a great tool to read through the whole Bible year after year.

www.navpress.com/uploadedFiles/15074%20BRP.dj.pdf

Leadership

Tommy & Anna Lisa Jones

We have lived in the Knoxville area since 2005.  We moved here with one little girl who was 3 months old at the time.  Caroline is now 7, and is joined by Gracie who is 4, and Max who is almost 2.  We transplanted here from Texas where both of us went to college.  Anna Lisa is an OB/GYN at a practice here in town and I graduated from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in December of 2010 with a Masters of Divinity.

We love the college experience!  God worked in both of our lives during those years and we look back on them fondly.  There really is no other period of life with the same combination of freedom, energy and potential.  That is why we are so passionate for college students.  I believe that college students who become engaged in God’s mission of making disciples to the ends of the earth can and will change the world for years to come.  Often times, the college experience sets the course of a persons life well into the future, we desire for that course to be one which glorifies Christ and reaches the world.