Incarnational

Frost describes some of the characteristics of a church that uses perspectives on mission that imitate the incarnation of God-the-Son.[1] The first of these is Identification. When Christ left the side of the Father and came to earth, he truly came in a holistic sense. It wasn’t half-hearted but complete, irreversible, and intimate. An incarnational church then reflects the same attitude in manifesting the church (which is Christ) within local communities. In this sense the church, like Christ before it, identifies with the local concerns, struggles, and pains - even the overall worldview. This is not to say the church does not subvert that worldview, as Christ subverted the worldview of the Jews in the Gospel narrative, but in subverting it neither Christ nor the church who imitates him performs genocide on that culture. It is appreciated, respected, and even indwelt within – while at the same time brought into assimilation into the Kingdom of God in terms of mission.

[1] Michael Frost & Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come, (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2003), 32-37.