WE BELIEVE IN RECENTERING THE
MISSIO DEI IN THE PASSIO DEI
Passional Church is a Movement
God’s nature is the self-emptying (kenotic), other-oriented, and sacrificial love fully displayed in the crucifixion. The passion of Christ expresses God’s inhabitation of human vulnerability and suffering.
The passional church movement offers a corrective to the ways the missional church conversation has gone astray.
Missional describes what God does, passional describes how God goes about it. We get to participate in the mission of God, but we must do so in the way of Jesus.
Missio Dei (Latin for “mission of God”) understands mission as an attribute and activity of God, and furthermore the church is missionary by its very nature.
Passio Dei (Latin for "passion of God") is grounded primarily in the incarnation, suffering, crucifixion, and death (passion) of Jesus.
Mission has at times become disconnected from the compassion of Christ.
The great commandment (love God and neighbor) comes before the great commission (go make disciples). We wonder if at times the church has gotten this backwards.
Overemphasis on orthodoxy (“right opinion/belief”) or orthopraxy (“right practice”), or orthokardia ("right heart") while disregarding orthopathy (“right pathos/suffering” i.e., experience of God), can and has caused harm.
We cannot rightly emphasize sanctification (humanity re-conformed to the imago Dei, image of God) as the ultimate completion of the missio Dei (the mission of God) unless we embrace the kenotic way of Jesus, passio Dei (passion of God).
Pathos includes thinking, feeling, and behavior, but grounds it in compassionate being with. It's about normalizing the experience of Jesus’ passion in our own missional approach.
We want to remind the church that mission flows from the loving heart of God. Its origin is the compassion of God.
We are calling for a theological paradigm shift.
We are empowering a revolution in the practice of ministry and the formation of leaders.
The Passional Movement seeks to...
REAWAKEN A THEOLOGY OF COMPASSION
REDISCOVER THE PRAXIS OF JESUS
RE-FORM EMOTIONALLY HEALTHY JESUS-LIKE LEADERS
REFOUND CONGREGATIONS IN THE COMPASSION OF CHRIST