Origin and Description of the Term
Although the term “missional” was used beforehand, the concept was not popularized until the writings of Lesslie Newbigin in the 1990’s. Newbigin was a British missionary to India, and as many missionaries before and after discovered, he had to struggle with presenting the gospel over the cultural divide that he faced. This was expected on the missions field, but when Newbigin returned to the United Kingdom, he realized he faced the same problems there. Thus, the missional approach owes alot to lessons learned on the mission field.
Perhaps the best brief description of missional comes from Rick Meigs:
Missional is a helpful term used to describe what happens when you and I replace the “come to us” invitations with a “go to them” life. A life where “the way of Jesus” informs and radically transforms our existence to one wholly focused on sacrificially living for him and others and where we adopt a missionary stance in relation to our culture. It speaks of the very nature of the Jesus follower.
What it Means in Practice
From the above definition, it might seem that a church “being missional” is only a semantic distinction, but it does lead to important differences. They are rather hard to identify though, since it’s more of a mindset change than the establishment of programs. Other people have covered it better than I could, so I”ll point people to http://friendofmissional.org/ for examples.
Of Emerging and Missional
Most emerging churches have a commitment to the missional idea. Some combine the terms, referring to themselves as an “emerging-missional” church (this is apparently more common in Australia and New Zealand). Not all missional churches are emerging churches though. Some (perhaps many) churches who hold to missional ideas do not consider themselves to be emerging churches and show few of the other emerging impulses.
It’s the missional impulse the has drawn me most into the ideas of the Emergining Church (but not the only one). It is by far the one that will most resonate with those in traditions outside of the emergining church. Both Driscoll and Keller are examples of how it has begun to influence Reformed thinking, yet even with the missional impulse there is opposition to it as it’s seems to Emergent for some.