For those of you who read this blog and don't know me, let me just state something that's fairly obvious to those of you who do - I'm a geek . . . but about obscure, mostly irrelevant things. The traditional image of Geek (notice the formal capitalization there) is someone who hovers over their computer keyboard, typing code, and taking occasional breaks to play World of Warcraft. I'm not that kind of geek. However, because I believe geeky technology - especially that of the computer variety - will continue to shape our culture, relationships, economy, justice, education, and religion, I have a few techy blogs in my feedreader.

This morning, one of them, Robert Scoble, posted a short ditty trying to define Web 2.0. In the tech world, lots and lots of people throw that term around, companies develop business strategies around it, investors throw down huge bucks for it . . . but not very many people can actually tell you what it means. A lot of people use the term in ways that make web developers want to pull their hair out, because they're so off base. Scoble gives the ol' college try this way:
Web 1.0 was about pages. URLs.
Web 2.0 was about users. Adding them onto corporate pages. Wikis. Blogs. Myspaces.
Web 3.0 is about getting rid of pages altogether. Being able to make the Web YOU want or need.

But, Scoble also links to another tech geek blogger who muses on the question. Different responses over there. Whatever the case, I've gotten the distinct impression that most web developers would say something like, "I can't define Web 2.0 for you, but I know it when I see it."

So now I come to the question: What is missional? Lots of people are using the term these days in the Church. Few could give you a concise definition if you asked them. A lot of people would give answers that seem well off the mark. A lot would say, "I can't define missional, but I know it when I see it." There are increasing attempts out there by some very smart people to define it in clear ways . . . but the ones who say, "I know it when I see it," may not even care - it's more about living into it than defining it. Ultimately, there will be people who don't "get" missional, but say the word all the time. Frustrating or not, it's still more about living into it than having some sort of linguistic power over definitions.

Labels: culture, emerging church, missiology