Picture That...Nine More Ways to Look At Mission

By Sheldon Armitage

Picture That continues the missional discussion with 9 new images and thoughts about missional living. Once again, Sheldon Armitage creates some interesting and provocative connections between everyday items such as an egg, glasses, a bike, a shoe and more to help stimulate the reader towards exploring what it really means to live a missional and effective life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Apr 12, 2011
• ISBN: 9781257587544

Book preview

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks go out to...

MATT JANES of the STM Network who is a great friend and a great promoter of Picture This. He’s the nicest guy you’ll ever meet and someone passionate about missional living.

AUDREY CHIA who made this book visually stunning and accessible. Audrey is an amazing artist with a missional focus in all she does. Thanks for stretching my thinking about life, mission and art.

GEORGE WERNER from Mission Canada who edited Picture That for me. George you know I miss you and love you...come to Europe!

ANNA my incredible wife who sacrificed so I could finally get this book done. You gave me the greatest gift and you are the greatest gift to me.

MIA AND LIVIA my daughters and two global Christians in the making. You are full of life, love and energy. We can already see Jesus at work in your lives.

JESUS, the greatest picture of God in action.

EVERYONE who read Picture This and gave me feedback for Picture That. I have enjoyed the conversations and have tried to integrate all the new and innovative thoughts and ideas that came from them.

FOREWORD

Right now, you’re holding in your hands Picture That, Sheldon Armitage’s second book on missional living.

The word missional was one of the hottest buzzwords among Christian leaders and in church circles when I came across Sheldon’s first book on the topic, Picture This: Nine Ways To Look At Mission. Picture That is a complementary continuation of his first book.

Prior to reading Picture This and subsequently Picture That, the missional life was only something I’d heard about at Emerging Church conferences, been encouraged to start living through dozens of Podcasts, and read bits and pieces about from postmodern authors in Relevant Magazine. It all sounded very exciting, but there was one problem. Nobody was talking about what I could realistically do to start living my life this new way.

On my journey into discovering more on what missional living looked like everyday, Sheldon was the first author I came across who was describing in the most practical ways exactly what it could look like. His thoughts and ideas read like recipe books for the missional life because they include the missing missional ingredients. It’s pretty satisfying stuff!

As a frequent speaker and cross-cultural trainer, I have used Sheldon’s images and ideas as the basis for several messages and seminars aimed at people wanting to engage in missional living. The reactions are always the same: I’ve never thought about missions like a jelly donut instead of a pie, but it makes total sense, and now I’m hungry!

I won’t lie to you though, missional is a tricky word on it’s own. As I sit and type it over and over while writing this foreword, my word processor underlines it each time with one of those accusatory red squiggly lines. All of the unrecognized underlined words on my screen spread doubt in my mind: If Microsoft doesn’t think missional is a word, can I really live my life this way?

Wikipedia saves the day. (If it’s on the Internet, it must be true, right?) They define the subject matter this way:

Missional living is a Christian term that describes a missionary lifestyle; adopting the posture, thinking, behaviors, and practices of a missionary in order to engage others with the Gospel message. The use of this term has gained recent popularity to contrast the concept of a select group of professional missionaries, with the understanding that all Christians should be involved in the Great Commission of Jesus Christ.

While I’m thankful for the definitions these kinds of so-called Internet authorities provide, they are not enough. Picture That is an important book because it picks up where Wikipedia and others leave you hanging. This book answers the critical Now what? question when you’re suddenly confronted with the challenge of living missionally.

Whether you are a paid professional or a student, a retiree or a stay-at-home-parent, an overseas global worker or a missionary in your home community, Picture That will add to your understanding of missional living by giving you practical ideas and creative ways to live this exciting life.

Picture That hangs meat on the missional life skeleton. It takes you from concept to realization. You’re moved from an idea to making actual lifestyle changes. Sheldon puts legs under a buzzword and gets Christians moving. It’s no longer a catchy noun; now it’s a verb. Remember Sunday School? It’s like actions to the words!

Had enough of the analogies? Keep reading. This is only the beginning!

Matt Janes

Director, STMnetwork.ca

NEW

INTRODUCTION

The intended writing style of this book is fairly casual.

Picture That (a continuation from Picture This) is designed to be another voice in the conversation about missional living. It is neither an academic piece nor research literature. There are other authors (Hirsch, Frost and Sweet to name a few) who have written more intensive and scholastic works on this subject. I would highly recommend anything written by them if you wish to pursue a more in-depth view of what it means to be missional in a post-Christian world. Picture That strives to be as accessible as possible for whatever level of experience or understanding you have regarding missional living. My hope is that this book will help launch you into further dialogue or study with the ultimate goal of creating effective missional action in our world.

If my friend CJ is right (and he would say he is),