From Ponderosa Mom:

** A quick note, please feel free to respond in the comments section and I will post your response and do my best to reply! -p

Ponderosa Mom Wrote:
Great stuff here! I hope I'm responding to the right post here(4/19?)Here's a question-and I hope more folks will chime in as my husband and I are trying to learn more about what God is showing us in this area-

What would the Church look like as missional and truly empowered by the Holy Spirit?

It seems like we can be a type of "missional"(at least as I understand missional so far) without the Holy Spirit. In fact we can (and do) accomplish a lot of "good" things without much dependence on God at all. Money, numbers of people and a common goal can accomplish a lot. And this is what our family has been struck by and struggling with lately.

I read this teaching by a pastor recently and the truth of it hit me like a ton of bricks. He was talking about how the Jesus said, "The Son can do nothing by himself.."Jn. 5:19 (And in the Greek the word nothing has a unique meaning--it means nothing, just like in English). Anyway, he goes on to talk about the distinctions of Jesus' humanity in that 1.He had no sin to separate Him from the Father and 2.He was completely dependent on the power of the Holy Spirit working through Him. Then what are the distinctions of our humanity as believers?--We are cleansed by the blood of Jesus and through His sacrifice nothing separates us from the Father. So there remains only one unsettled issue--How dependent on the Holy Spirit are we willing to live?

So when you talk about what is different today--and that not much is different in human needs--something rose up within me and cried out wanting to add "Our dependence on the Holy Spirit!--We really look different from the first church in that." I don't even understand all of what this means--more of a heart thing God is burning into us now.Thanks for any response to my long-winded question(where's the smiley face option here???)

My reply:
P-Mom!
I really appreciate your thoughts and questions, I hope I am able to answer at least some of it…

A short answer to your question (well not really, but there is one...):

“What would the Church look like as missional and truly empowered by the Holy Spirit?”

A truly empowered church (the Ekklessia – Called Out Ones, not the building) could “look” like anything we can imagine or have faith for. I think the only limiting factor would be our willingness to engage the Holy Spirit and see others through His eyes.

Being missional is a heart thing. It implies action, not out of performance, but out of a love for Jesus that would motivate us to love others (see John 21, the exchange between Jesus and Peter; “do you love me? …feed my sheep”). **Notice He didn’t say "teach them the four spiritual laws." Jesus used the practical to lead him to the spiritual.

According to Galatians 5.22-23, when we are empowered by the Spirit, we produce the fruit of the Spirit; love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. This fruit then produces something else… seeds; seeds produce trees that produce fruit and that fruit produces more seeds… It is starting to look like a garden before long…

In Acts 1, Jesus tells His disciples to wait for the empowerment of the Holy Spirit… they did and one of the results was that 3000 were added to them in one day. Not that we need to be into the “numbers” game, but in this instance, the numbers represent the power of the Spirit to change a man’s heart.

As the church, we need to measure success differently. Not by the size of our buildings or by the number and quality of the cars in the parking lot or by the amount of money we have in the bank. Rather, we need to measure success by the lives changed and the fruit of that changed life.

We must be dependent on the Spirit of God for everything and in everything.

So, there is a short answer to your question and I think you may already know the answer:

A missional church, empowered by the Holy Spirit looks just like you and your family engaging God where you are and where He's leading you.

If you believe God has placed a vision in your heart, I want to encourage you to look at the following scripture and as James said, "be doers of the word":

Habakkuk 2.1-3 (The Message)
The Questions
1 What's God going to say to my questions? I'm braced for the worst. I'll climb to the lookout tower and scan the horizon. I'll wait to see what God says, how he'll answer my complaint.
God’s Reply
2-3And then God answered: "Write this. Write what you see. Write it out in big block letters so that it can be read on the run.This vision-message is a witness pointing to what's coming.It aches for the coming—it can hardly wait! And it doesn't lie. If it seems slow in coming, wait. It's on its way. It will come right on time.

Keep loving people, and keep Chasing the Mission! -pete