A great article at the new For the Church Website.
Here are a few excerpts:
What is a gospel-centered, missional church? Simply put, a gospel-centered missional church is one that recognizes that:
Authentic heart-transformation cannot happen apart from the gospel;
AND
Culture is not the enemy of the church; rather it is a broken treasure God has gone to great lengths to restore.
A gospel-centered church is so because the gospel is the engine that propels its mission….
A gospel-centered church is missional because it considers the needs, dreams, and hopes of culture, and engages culture in these areas as it communicates the gospel. A missional church finds the story of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection to be so compelling and life-giving that it is willing to let it shape everything it does—its methodology—in order to communicate the gospel in a way that makes sense in its cultural context.