The morning main session speaker at the 2007 Exponential Conference was Ed Stetzer.  Ed’s passion is helping church planters and established churches in becoming missional as outlined in the Bible. Unfortunately many pastors and churches have no clue what it means to be missional. Missional is at the center of the heart of the church in the New Testament.  Don’t misunderstand what I just said. The centrality of the NT is Jesus, the cross and his resurrection. What I said was being missional is central to the life and purpose of the church. Missional means being able to read the culture and encounter and engage that culture.
Below are my notes I took from Ed’s talk this morning.

How do you live out the missional mandate?

Acts 16:7-10
Missional:  to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10) Fundamental to Jesus mission.
Come over to Macedonia and help us.

1. Come over to Macedonia
Forty times Jesus reminds that he has been sent
Need to recognize that culture matters.
*Go into your community not someone else’s
* Bring Christ in to your community not the church

2. Help
The preaching and proclamation of the gospel
2 Corinthians 5:11-20
*Christ’s love compels us
* All of this is from God
The help Paul is talking about is help that will changes a man’s life.
Be. Do. Tell.
Be Jesus. Do Jesus. Tell Jesus.

3. Us
Talks about a lost world.
Lost people matter to God.
Missional has to be tied into the seek and save.

This afternoon I will be attending a session on leveraging vision with Shawn Lovejoy.