Part 2 in the retelling of our story from the original M.T. site shares our individual hopes for the future, as Instigators of Missional Tribe.

As Part 1 retold, Missional Tribe started with the group that the Holy Spirit led to begin it – four Boomer generation Anglo men who soon invited in three Anglo women, leading to a core group of seven with two of them Canadian and five American. That will always be the reality of our history. However, from the beginning, the imperative toward diversity, inclusivity, and activity in Missional Tribe have also been significant drivers of future change. We hope you’ll stay with us as an ongoing participant in developing this tribe’s future DNA and unfolding history!

And finally, in recounting the journey toward that future, the first seven Missional Tribe members share here their hopes for the Tribe.

Sonja Andrews/Calicirian. Missional Tribe functions as a collaborative space to gather stories, generate supportive community, and provide leadership from behind for the people who are eating, living, and breathing the praxis of missional lives. It’s a place for sharing nitty-gritty, not arguing over polished theory.

Brother Maynard/Subversive Influence. My hopes and aims for Missional Tribe are: To foster conversation for the exchange of story and mutual encouragement of one another in our various missional efforts and endeavours. To network and form community that is accepting and from which we can learn. To offer resources and ideas for the missional life. To gather and publish stories from the front lines of missional engagement.

Peggy Brown/The Virtual Abbess. Just as was begun at The Abbey, and continued at Wikiklesia, I yearn for a place where I can converse “virtually” about the challenges and opportunities I face as I answer the call of God to make disciples in an incarnational environment (responding to the vision for CovenantClusters). It is in developing these virtual relationships, learning that I am not alone as I listen to my same story being told from so many different perspectives, that I find my isolation “in real life” is assuaged and the call is confirmed.

Missional Tribe is a way to facilitate these conversations and relationships so that our isolated liminality, which offers no hope of communitas, is bridged and we can find our way through the deconstruction to the reconstruction process – forging a virtual “communitas” that is both full of collected wisdom and welcoming to the “nobodies” like me – listening one another into free speech. As a result, I can be free to speak of what God has called me to do because so many others, all around the world, have responded to that very same call. And I do not have to recreate the wheel every step of the way, because the tribe shares freely that which they have been given freely.

Linda/Kingdom Grace. The Missional Tribe site will be valuable as a place to collect and link the missional resources and material already written. However, more importantly, it will be a place to collect grassroots stories as a means of teaching, supporting, and encouraging one another in both individual and community missional expression. Hopefully, it will also become a place of connection and conversation for people who find themselves on the missional journey.

Bill Kinnon/Kinnon. Millions of pixels have been pushed across thousands of blogs and websites – discussing, questioning, telling stories about missional. But the illumination of those pixels has too often been ephemeral. Great insights have shone brightly for a moment and then been seemingly extinguished by the latest momentary brilliance. It shouldn’t be that way. And nor does it need to be. Missional Tribe is a grassroots organization committed to indexing the illumination; providing evergreen space to continue the light-giving conversations; and offering discussion space where stories can be told, ideas be illumined, and friendships be created and strengthened.

Rick Meigs/The Blind Beggar. MissionalTribe is a space where story and praxis is given emphasis over the theoretical and conceptual. It is a kinship of diverse people who practice “the way of Jesus,” a way that informs and radically transforms their very being. It is a place where the great conversations around the missional paradigm can be brought together so they are evergreen and accessible.

Brad Sargent/futuristguy. We catalyzed Missional Tribe to provide a centralized place to strengthen an otherwise decentralized movement. It offers a place for connecting people from diverse missional branches. Through questions and conversations, stories and recommendations, we hope to help this tribe cross-pollinate practices, theologies, and theories for living our faith and sharing our life.

Part 1 re-posts the “short version” history from the original M.T. site, and is valuable for demonstrating circumstances and the “spiritual DNA” present at the inception of what became Missional Tribe.

Instigating the Tribe

This Missional Tribe website grew out of relationships and ideas that were cross-pollinated by people who participated in The Wikiklesia Project (Voices of the Virtual World, 2007), Allelon’s Missional Order Project, and the Missional SynchroBlog.

As events unfolded, seven people ended up as “instigators” for this site and somewhere along the line, the name Missional Tribe stuck. Also, the name “elders” became attached to the instigator group, more from an anthropological perspective than from any of them being involved as church elders. From early on, it was clear that the group’s heart was to catalyze a conversation space and resource place that could be opened up to the many instead of “owned” by the few.

Five of the initial tribal elders participated in that initial volume of Wikiklesia: Peggy Brown, Bill Kinnon, Brother Maynard, Rick Meigs, and Brad Sargent. All five of these initial elders were also involved in the Seabeck Summit of Allelon’s Missional Order. Bill and Brother Maynard already knew each other from other settings with Allelon. Peggy and Brad knew each other beforehand from The Virtual Abbey, and they drove to Seabeck (on the Washington state peninsula) from Portland with Rick. Meanwhile, Sonja Andrews and Kingdom Grace were known to various other instigators from real-world and virtual-world connections.

All seven would consider themselves “missional practitioners,” even if they have developed gifts and passions for theology, theory, and/or strategy. The practices of being missional, probably more than anything else, shaped the initial “spiritual DNA” of Missional Tribe.

Early Themes and Events

The early history of Missional Tribe reveals some important themes about the external circumstances that created a need for a new thing, the internal values that brought our particular group of founders together, and the “providential propulsion” that aimed us toward a particular trajectory of impact. Some of the unfolding themes from the earliest days of Missional Tribe in 2008 include:

* Navigating the tension among unclear or competing understandings within contemporary Christianity about missional and other movements.

* Navigating the tensions among missional practices, theologies, and theories.

* Dealing with the paradoxical problem that many streams within contemporary Christianity are dominated by older generation Anglo males, who are by default in the positions of power; yet being missional is about embracing diversity and including intentionally.

* Searching for the best media forms currently available to keep content and conversations about missional life “evergreen.”

* Considering the classic tensions between openness and order, freedom and responsibility, creativity and control – and how they apply to a forum that focuses on welcoming both those who are beginners and advanced in their practice of missional lifestyles and seeks to encourage diverse expressions and dialogues around being missional.

If there was one event that most directly contributed to the creation of Missional Tribe, it was the “Missional SynchroBlog” of June 2008. Rick Meigs – known to many from his blogs, The Blind Beggar and Friend of Missional – issued the call for the SynchroBlog:

I have a continuing concern that the term missional has become over used and wrongly used. […] We must reclaim the term. The concept behind missional is really big and it would be terrible to lose it. I think it is time to make a bigger effort to reclaim the term, a term which describe what happens when you and I replace the “come to us” invitations with a “go to them” life. A life where “the way of Jesus” informs and radically transforms our existence to one wholly focused on sacrificially living for him and others and where we adopt a missionary stance in relation to our culture. It speaks of the very nature of the Jesus follower. (Call for Missional SynchroBlog – June 5, 2008 – The Blind Beggar)

The SynchroBlog hit the internet on June 23, 2008. According to Rick’s “Missional SynchroBlog Update” of June 12, there were 50 official participants on the list, and later, another dozen or so who did not contact Rick in time also blogged posts SynchroBlog day, or blogged links to prior posts on the meaning of missional.

What Next?

Afterward, three participants compiled tools of various sorts to help people surf the SynchroBlog. Also, once the Missional SynchroBlog had been completed, an email exchange on what to do next was started by three of the SynchroBloggers: Bill Kinnon, Brother Maynard, and Rick Meigs. This was in late June 2008.

What became this website started with the idea of a “Missional Wikiklesia” compilation book as a follow-through to the SynchroBlog. While would at least capture the material that was produced, it wouldn’t keep it “evergreen.” Content is different when it’s in the form of a conversation with the possibility of commenting, than when it’s stuck in a book or gets buried in the blogosphere.

So, what about posing new topics or questions, and trying to rediscover material already on the web, or bringing in a diversity of people and perspectives? And what could be done to help “newbees” get into the missional conversation without getting drowned by it? And for those who’d been involved a while, perhaps “peer review” of material that’s more advanced in terms of complexity or theology? The concept of a compilation quickly morphed from a static book to a dynamic website – more specifically, some type of wiki site.

The idea of something along the lines of a wiki site made sense: open source fits a more missional and participatory approach to diversity, inclusivity, and activity. The dialogue quickly expanded to be informed by current social theory, such as: Here Comes Everybody, Wikinomics, and The Starfish and the Spider. The structures and approaches more typical in the broader missional conversation seem to fit with the theories of these authors on decentralized or “leaderless” organizations.

Why Now and Who Next?

Meanwhile, more issues arose in the blogosphere, indicating that missional was still a misunderstood and misused term, and its paradigm was continuing to be pitted against attractional models and megachurches. The need was now to clarify the territory, not claim it. The three instigators soon brought in Sonja Andrews, Peggy Brown, Kingdom Grace, and Brad Sargent to round out the perspectives and push forward on the discussion.

In retrospect, it also seemed a providential time to start something. Around this same time, the Spirit was already moving elsewhere in “emerging” movements, and major changes were underway. For instance, that summer, Emergent Village was in the midst of restrategizing in anticipation of the forthcoming transition of National Director Tony Jones. And then, Scot McKnight, Dan Kimball, Erwin McManus, and others were hinting about the eventual formation of a more evangelical approach to emerging issues [which became The Origins Project]. Also, Allelon was launching its ATCs – Allelon Training Centers.

So, much was happening in wide-ranging but not always overlapping spheres of influence. But despite the positive features of these various branches in the emerging stream, they did not have full appeal to others in the missional movement. The initial process of discerning who you are as a group involves a lot of comparison and contrast to figure out what your actual critical values are – concerns that are so strong that they are hallmarks of your existence. And so, it is natural to find authors, thought leaders, and organizations with whom you either strongly agree or disagree.

In the earliest communications among founders in what became Missional Tribe, there were regular questions asked about what makes this group different … and not simply to justify our existence, but to ensure we were stewarding Kingdom resources well by creating resources not available elsewhere. And so, there were conversations about people and ministries within the Christendom and post-Christendom perspectives; within various branches in the Western Church/Kingdom (e.g., evangelical and post-evangelical, Charismatic and post-Charismatic); and within attractional, emerging, and missional movements.

It didn’t take long, though, to move from conversation to action – only about six months from the initial GoToMeeting convened by Rick at the end of July, to the Epiphany launch date planned for January 6, 2009.  Autumn of 2008 brought with it clarified goals and values for Missional Tribe, and the elders put in much effort to prepare the way for the website. BuddyPress was in beta-best, so we were one of the early users to put that open source software to work. Thankfully, it had most of the features we were looking for to generate conversations on the incarnational grid and resource this and next generations of missional disciples. In a next-to-final step before the launch, the elders drew up a demographically diverse list of two dozen invitees to beta-test the site, beginning Christmas week of 2008. And with their suggestions, the launch version of this site was set for Epiphany.

Next: Part 2 shares the hopes each Instigator had for Missional Tribe.

This post gives four FAQs from the original site about Missional Tribe’s origins in 2008 and its vision for the site in 2009, plus two addendums to bring things up to date in 2011.

When was the original Missional Tribe site begun?

This site was instigated by three people (Bill Kinnon, Brother Maynard, and Rick Meigs) in late June of 2008, shortly after the Missional SynchroBlog, a well-represented event called for by Rick Meigs in an attempt to clarify and correct the misuses of the term missional.

Who instigated Missional Tribe?

The first seven people involved by October of 2008 were as follows.

• Sonja Andrews ~ Calacirian
• Peggy Brown ~ The Virtual Abbess
• Linda ~ Kingdom Grace
• Bill Kinnon ~ kinnon
• Brother Maynard ~ Subversive Influence
• Rick Meigs ~ The Blind Beggar
• Brad Sargent ~ futuristguy

Each contributed important questions and insights to the discussion, and also shared from various areas of expertise – arts, design, media, research, technology, writing, etc. They bantered about a term to make it easier to refer to the group, and, through a series of so-so choices, eventually landed on Instigators.

Where did the name “Missional Tribe” come from?

Actually, the exact generation of the name is sort of a mystery. The original handles used for the group were Missional Wikiklesia and Missional Wiki, mostly because they were descriptive.

The first use of the term tribe in any documents was June 30, 2008, in an article Bill forwarded on how informed amateur “citizen journalists” were challenging the territory traditionally claimed by the tribe of professional journalists.

The second documented instance of tribe showed up during a July 30, 2008, conference call among the first four instigators. It was in reference to Seth Godin’s book, Tribes: We Need You To Lead Us, on “tribal marketing.” The conference call was in the morning, and later that day, Bill had registered web domains using the term MissionalTribe. Regardless of the exact chain of events that led to adapting the term tribe, it makes more sense to have a group name that involves a relational WHO (e.g., a tribe) rather than just a resourceful WHAT (e.g., a wiki).

What were the original objectives for Missional Tribe and the website?

The instigators of Missional Tribe were well aware that the initial purposes of a new gathering get morphed as time goes on, and in fact, even believed that they should. And really, there was no official “vision statement” or anything like that, until December 2008 when some kind of descriptions for the group and the resources were needed. Until then, perhaps the overall context of a need for such a group/resource were the topics under discussion, along with what specific website features to offer, than to figure out an official statement.

And so, what follows is a compilation from the many conversations and communications between July and December 2008 that shaped the creation of the original website. Words and phrases used below appeared ever more consistently as the months progressed and the context for the group/website became more clear. These common-ground concepts represent key values and purposes of the Missional Tribe site, and include some specific terms used by each of the instigators in their mid-December 2008 attempts to express his or her perspective on, The tribe …

… offers a collaborative space to connect people and generate an accepting, supportive community that intentionally seeks for diversity.

… fosters dialogue in a respectful environment and gathers grassroots stories for mutual encouragement, teaching, and support.

… focuses on serving practitioners through resources, ideas, and stories from the front lines of incarnational engagement and radical transformation.

… shares the nitty-gritty of living our faith and sharing our life in order to break anyone’s sense of isolation on this journey, especially when a virtual support network may be the only community currently available.

… creates an “evergreen” space to capture and continue the collective wisdom of those seek to pursue Christlikeness, stewarding it in ways that will keep it accessible beyond the first generation of participants.

… encourages using the website as a social space for befriending people of similar (or opposite!) interests, as a discussion space for interactive learning, and as an archive space for links and materials that might otherwise be forgotten.

… engages in discussion of any topic about the missional journey, with a minimum of gate keeping and oversight to maintain it as a safe place for all so that nothing would be off limits except for bullying or belittling others.

… celebrates both individual and communal expressions of a missional paradigm, and seeks constantly to broaden its demographic reach as a commitment to embrace diversity in Christ’s Kingdom.

Although most descriptions of who and what the tribe is were stated in the positive, there is a place for stating some of what the tribe is not, or does not do. In the tribe …

… it’s not about methods, but about a paradigm and a lifestyle.

… it’s not about polishing theory or theology in attempts to get it perfect, but about movement forward in our practice of a missional lifestyle.

… it’s not about control or ownership by the few, but about empowering each member to participate responsibly.

… it’s not about celebrities, but about the everyday disciple.

Addendum #1: What happened with the old Missional Tribe site?

The short version, from Brother Maynard: The Missional Tribe Instigators launched a website once, called – what else – MissionalTribe.org. It was intended as a kind of social networking hub for the collection and telling of missional stories. It didn’t work out as well as we’d hoped, so we pulled the plug, with hopes of doing something different. Eventually, upon realizing that all of us had grown weary of blogging daily, we decided to try a group blog. And this is it.

Addendum #2: What about the purposes behind the new Missional Tribe site?

“futuristguy” here again. I hadn’t read that list in, like, over a year. And in all our many emails and conference calls over the last few years, not much in that “mini-manifesto” has really changed in terms of overall philosophy. Where we mostly got overwhelmed was with the strategy: trying to be too much, do too much, and do-be-do so much too much too quickly. Who could possibly keep up with administrating a site with forums and blog posts and comments and spammers and etc.? And, frankly, some bloggers seemed to be more interested promoting other things than participating in a conversation.

So here we are with, overall, very similar perspectives and purposes to what we hoped for and worked toward when we launched M.T. #1 on Epiphany 2009. In this relaunch, seems we’re just refreshing the original vision on the screen. But maybe it will help if we sacrifice wide diversity in topics going on simultaneously in order to pursue some ongoing depth in whatever topic is at hand. Also, hopefully we’re wiser, doing what is reasonable stewardship given our individual life situations as Instigators, and enjoying the pace as grow-robic instead of aerobic.

Again, welcome to the reborn Missional Tribe site – and hope you enjoy the difference …

“futuristguy” here to talk a bit about this pre-Easter resurrection. I’ve served as historian/archivist for several non-profits and networks over the years, partly because I am a collector. (Okay, I admit it – I Collect Stuff.) And partly because I’m … well … a futurist! As someone interested in using tools of “strategic foresight,” it’s my perspective that understanding our possible futures depends on what’s in our historical DNA. So I thought it’d be appropriate in this post to bring things up to date a bit, for those who knew us from our previous M.T. site – which, ironically, is now empty because The Insidious Spammers attacked, wanting to sell all of us their Tiffany knock-offs, watches, and porn.

That first launch site ended up being more than we could handle … or, should I say, more than our brave administrator, The Then-Anonymous-and-Mysterious Brother Maynard, could handle. We were forced to implode in order to save the site for the future. (Sidenote: The Obi-Wan Implosion Option worked for Luke Skywalker. Hopefully it worked for us, too, preserving the work force and our force at work.)

So here we are in the midst of Lent ~ March 2011 ~ and, after discussions off and on amongst the M.T. Instigators since at least Epiphany, it seems time to relaunch Missional Tribe as a blog site. We seven ’Gators caught up during a recent conference call, and sensed the same overall needs were present within the online “conversation” about missional living in a post-Christendom era. That hadn’t changed in the year or so since we folded our M.T. #1 site.

If anything, the need for civil, serious, and slower dialogue has clarified and intensified. Since over three years ago when the seven of us connected, the general environment of the so-called “conversation” seems to have degenerated from real dialogues to diatribes. The level of inflammatory rhetoric seems to have increased on the snark-o-meter. The level of serious grappling with the topics and perhaps even learning from other blog commenters seems to have decreased on the co-sojourn-ometer. The drivenness for Christian “celebrityship” seems to have continued on the how-now-kowtow-ometer.

Is it ironic that a Tribe wants to squelch diatribes?

Is it okay that we’re disgusted with the negative tone and ill timing of so many incendiary dialogues?

Is it time for an alternative form of collaboration and investigation?

Anyway, we all feel we still have constructive things to say about missional living and about the forward movement of new collaborations, but none of us has the time to blog regularly. Maybe life circumstances lock us into doing something small and local in the Kingdom – but at least doing something. Maybe big isn’t better. Maybe there needs to be a place for people like us who can’t maintain the pace that goes on in some of the other online spaces. Maybe M.T. is meant to no longer be empty …

Next: A retrospective of FAQs about Missional Tribe’s origins, and after that, a short version of its history.