We continue our tour of aberrant contemporary religion.

Those of you who are beginning to get a feel for emergent now need to sample missional. Missional is like emergent, but slightly different. Think of them as those two gaudy earrings your aunt frightened you with.

There is a certain similarity, which is nice. It's something for them to fight over. It gives everyone a sense of identity and personal loyalty. People who are disgusted by fighting over pre-trib/mid-trib/pre-wrath can really tuck into the nuances of emergent/emerging/missional.

Like emergent, missional represents a shift in thinking—it might help to recall the sound of shifting without the benefit of a clutch. That kind of shift in thinking.

Here they claim to have a Missional Apologetic Manifesto. It's just a list of 25 things to help you think missionally, but we learn from it that lists can be as entertaining as a well-timed joke. Here are some sample shifts:

From programs to processes
From demographics to discernment
From models to missions
From attractional to incarnational
From uniformity to diversity
From professional to passionate
From seating to sending
From decisions to disciples
From additional to exponential
From monuments to movements

If you prefer to think in circles, there is this. I realize that some of you will check out these banalities and cry aloud to anyone seated there on the couch with you, "Hey, these bromides are fluffier than momma's bunny slippers!"

This is true.

So if you want to sink your teeth into the meat of the matter, you might try this from Reggie McNeal of Fuller Seminary. This monologue is long, meandering and disorganized, and you may think it is not worth your time.

I'm not gonna argue with you on that.

But if you want to get a feel for what captures the imagination of missional folk, it might be illustrative. Listen to Redge while bearing in mind some essential differences between Church and Kingdom. "The King is not waiting for the church to catch up." The King is moving on out ahead of the church and Jesus is presenting himself in visions to imams.

Yikes!