Missional language does not do justice to the joy, mystery and fullness of life Christ invites us to share with the Triune God. 

Mission often paints mental pictures of a task to complete, more than pictures of a life to live.  Like the Blues Brothers on their "mission from God," anything that did not obviously contribute to the completion of their mission was treated without respect.  So when we see individual conversion, or serving marginalized peoples, or saving our planet as THE mission then everything else plays second fiddle.  Because of this subtle singularity communicated through missional language, dualism is reinforced.  This dualism suggests, "missional is important, everything else is less important."  Church work is important - web design is less important; working in a homeless shelter is important - working at the holiday inn is less important; working to save the rain forest is important - doing yard work at home is less important. 

We don't believe that God is more concerned with what we do than who we are; God has always been interested in us as whole beings.  Generally we say we believe that what we do is inextricably linked to who we are and vice-versa.  A thoughtful reading of most missional texts will reveal that mission naturally flows out life with Christ (see Jones, Newbigin, Mead, Bosch, Guder, to name a few).  So why choose language that inadvertently emphasizes task completion? 

Often church and organizational leaders like to stress a singularity of mission so that they can encourage more Christians to attach themselves to the leader's vision or mission.  This is a great way for leaders to get their pet projects done, to make a name for themselves, grow large ministries, and of course bring honor to God.  The much harder thing for a leader to do is to help the people in their relational networks uniquely express Christ.  That kind of unique Kingdom service may be hard to take credit for.

At this time I have chosen the language of incarnational living instead of missional living.  The language of incarnational living more meaningfully emphasizes living Christ in and through his followers in any and all relationships, situations, and cultural contexts.  It places the mystery of life with Christ at the center of each follower's life and each faith community's life together. 

Incarnational living invites all Christ-followers to flesh-out their uniqueness, encouraging the totality of their being to be seen as a reflection or embodiment of Christ.  When people and their subsequent communities see their "being" as inevitably making the invisible Christ visible through their lives, then every interaction, every act, every moment of stillness becomes a Christ moment.  This explodes the singularity of mission; now life becomes mission in a holistic sense.  Mission is inevitable when Christ is incarnated, but without incarnation mission looks a lot like busy religiosity. 

When Christ is incarnated through you and me, we will be looking for ways to empty ourselves in the service of the Father by serving others as the Holy Spirit guides us.  We become active participants in a Divine dance through which all of creation is being reconciled to Christ.  This is a dynamic faith process that will always find unique expression through each follower of Christ and each cluster of Christ-followers.  So much so that one person incarnating Christ out of their uniqueness may appear to be in direct conflict with another person incarnating Christ out of their uniqueness - but fear not, God is big enough to handle such occasional difference. 

Of course there is not a genuine dichotomy between these two phrases.  Mission is always lived out of our being and incarnational living always results in doing.  Every person (Christ-follower or not) and every organization is missional, and the more purpose driven in the execution of their mission the more they are viewed as successful.  There is nothing uniquely Christian about being missional.  Christ-followers may espouse a mission that serves God and others - but we are not alone in such selfless service, nor are we entirely selfless.  What does set Christian mission apart is that Christ is lifted high, He is made visible.  What makes mission Christian is that Christ is incarnated.

I choose to emphasize incarnational living precisely because only in and through the living Christ is "mission" Christian.  Don't waste your life living missionally and trying to get others to live missionally; live Christ and life in its fullness is yours, live Christ and the hope of purpose is yours, live Christ and mission… well it's simply inevitable.