At the Leadership Journal Blog, Out of Ur, Tim Conder has posted a great short article offering insight into the characteristics of “missional” churches. The word “missional” gets thrown around alot. (Case and point, just look over to your right and you will see it in the description of this blog!) I noticed that this article highlights a few of the values and characteristics that the church I lead (Aqueous) has been wrestling through for the past four years. For example:
(3) Missional communities are discontent with spiritual formation as primarily cognitive assent (“I believe this to be trueâ€). Instead, formation is presented as a way of life, a rhythm of being, and a rule of values. It emphasizes faithful living during the week rather than gathering for worship at a weekend event. The sharp boundary between the sacred and secular is evaporating as missional fellowships seek to hear God’s voice in culture and creation.
What I would add to Tim’s thoughts is the fact that these characteristics are tremendously easy to pay lip service to and much more challenging to actually live out as a collective people. Especially, since we have been steeped in a cultural stew of institutional comforts, deep individualism and a strong sacred, secular dualism that has created some very ingrained patterns. The journey to become a collective community of missional people is joyful but requires some very hard paddling against the dominant cultural current and not everyone wants to do this.
A blog about present and future church, contemporary culture, intercultural dynamics, and the implications of Jesus' Gospel of the Kingdom in today's context. 
Thanks for posting that article. It was very concise, without being too simplistic.
I hear certain “buzzwords” thrown about and I can get a vague idea of what it means, but I’m beginning to understand the terms a bit better and how that applies to the church and to me personally (thinking particularly of “Missional” and “Emergent”).