“The missional church proclaims the good news that God is actively engaged in the world and that God is ready and willing to use us to accomplish God’s purposes. This is a tremendous privilege! Obviously, God could accomplish what ever God wants without our assistance, but God has chosen to use us as agents for God’s mission, and that means (among other things) that our lives can really count for something. We can have lives that are truly abundant, to use the Johannine language (John 10:10); we can have ‘eternal life’ (John 3:15, 5:24), which for John means not only eternally long (everlasting) but also eternally rich (meaningful, profound, and fulfilling).”
Mark Allan Powell, professor of New Testament at Trinity Lutheran Seminary, Columbus, OH, from “Stewardship for the Missional Church” in Rethinking Stewardship: Our Culture, Our Theology, Our Practices (Word and World Supplement Series 6)