As Advent moves us toward Christmas, we find ourselves immersed in familiar rhythms: carols, candles, nativity scenes, and Scripture readings proclaiming “unto us a child is born.” It’s a season of joyful worship and remembrance. But it’s also an invitation. It’s a summons to reorient our lives and communities around the one at the center of the story: Jesus Christ. Not just to celebrate Him. But to be formed by Him. To become like Him.
In this sacred season of Incarnation, it’s time to ask whether our current frameworks for church and discipleship are sufficient. And for me, that question begins with a word I’ve leaned on for years: missional. I think it’s time to let it go. Not because mission no longer matters, but because Christoformity gives us something deeper. Something more faithful. Something that leads us not only to speak of Christ, but to actually resemble Him. And isn’t that what Advent and Christmas are calling us to?
When “Missional” Loses Its Meaning
The word missional was born out of good intentions. It reminded churches that we don’t exist for ourselves. We’re sent into the world just as the Son was sent by the Father. Missional thinkers emphasized incarnation, community, justice, and kingdom witness. These were welcome correctives to self-centered ecclesiology.
But in recent years, missional has lost its edge. It’s been overapplied, underdefined, and quietly co-opted by marketing, branding, and strategy. What began as a theological recalibration has become a buzzword. Now we have missional coffee shops. Missional leadership pipelines. Missional outreach metrics. And behind it all, a subtle drift toward doing rather than being. If everything is missional, then nothing is.
Christoformity: A Better Vision for the Church
Enter Christoformity, not a word of strategy but of formation. Christoformity is the process of being shaped by the full life of Jesus Christ, His holiness, mercy, justice, faithfulness, relationships, oneness with the Spirit and Father, and yes, His suffering and resurrection. It is not reduced to a single event like the cross or a task like evangelism. It encompasses the entire pattern of His life.
Christoformity is not merely the imitation of Christ’s suffering; it is the integration of His whole life into the fabric of the believer’s and the church’s identity. In other words, to be Christoform is to become the kind of people who reflect Christ, not just talk about Him. That’s why this shift matters.
Advent as a Season of Reorientation
Advent is a season of waiting, but not passive waiting. It’s a time of watchfulness, preparation, and transformation. It’s a time to remember that Christ didn’t come just to save us from something, but to form us into something, a people shaped by His truth, His love, His holiness, His character. Christmas invites us not merely to marvel at the Incarnation, but to ask whether our lives as the body of Christ are incarnating Christ. That’s why Christoformity fits this season far better than missional. Because Christmas isn’t about strategy. It’s about God-with-us. And our response is not a program, but a life reoriented.
Faithfulness Over Obedience
Alongside this shift, I’m also moving from the language of obedience to the language of faithfulness. Obedience is biblical, but it can easily become legalistic or transactional. Faithfulness, on the other hand, speaks of enduring loyalty, covenant trust, and relational devotion. It’s not about compliance but commitment. Not rule-following, but life-giving allegiance to Christ. Christoformity is faithfulness expressed in the way of Jesus.
The Early Church Got This Right
The post-apostolic church didn’t describe itself as missional, but it lived in profound continuity with the New Testament vision of a church shaped by the life of Jesus. When we read the writings of the Apostolic Fathers, leaders like Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp of Smyrna, and the author of the Didache, we encounter a community deeply concerned not with strategy or survival but with faithful formation. What they modeled wasn’t activism. It was Christoformity.
Across their writings, six recurring themes emerge. These are not random emphases. They are Christ-shaped realities. And taken together, they provide a rich vision of what it meant to be the church in continuity with the apostles.
Doctrine
The early church was unshakably committed to affirming the full identity of Jesus Christ as both divine and human, the eternal Word who had become flesh. Their theology was not abstract speculation. It was a defense of the gospel’s core: Jesus Christ is Lord. Their emphasis on the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the resurrection grounded everything else. For a Christoform church, doctrine is not an intellectual exercise but the lens through which we see and follow Christ faithfully.
Identity
For these early Christians, to be in Christ was not just a spiritual status. It was a new way of being in the world. Their writings reflect a constant concern with what it meant to live as citizens of heaven, to embody a distinct moral and communal identity that flowed from union with Christ. Christoformity here means that the church does not take its cues from the culture but from the pattern of Christ’s own life.
Justice
Justice in the early church wasn’t political activism. It was faithful witness to God’s justice revealed in Christ. This meant caring for the poor, protecting the vulnerable, and living with integrity in a corrupt society. They resisted favoritism, exploitation, and envy, because they understood that the God who justifies also calls His people to enact justice. Christoformity includes doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly because that’s what we see in Jesus.
Leadership
Early Christian leadership was not about authority for its own sake. It was about stewardship, humility, and imitation of Christ. Bishops, elders, and deacons were expected to be examples of godliness, not managers of religious enterprise. The pattern of leadership was flexible, adapting to local contexts like Rome, Asia Minor, or Philippi, but always focused on servant-hearted faithfulness. Christoform leaders were recognized not by charisma but by character.
Liturgy
The church’s gathered worship was not entertainment or performance. It was a reenactment of the gospel story, centered on the breaking of bread, thanksgiving, baptism, and the reading of Scripture. The Lord’s Day was not just a calendar appointment. It was a communal act of remembering and reorienting around Christ. Through these rhythms, the church was continually shaped into His likeness. Christoformity understands liturgy as formation, not ritualism.
Proclamation
Proclamation for the early church was not merely verbal evangelism. It was the public demonstration of Christ’s life in community. The gospel was to be lived as much as it was spoken. Their apologetic was often simple: look at how we live. Watch how we suffer. See how we love one another. Christoformity turns mission into witness, not a sales pitch but a visible life of truth, grace, and holiness.
Together, these themes paint a picture of a church not defined by tactics but by transformation. The early church didn’t build its identity around strategies, buildings, or structures but around the person and pattern of Jesus. That’s Christoformity. That’s what made them compelling. And that’s what we need today.
A Christoform Christmas
So this Advent, I’m letting go of missional. Not the heart behind it, but the word itself. And I’m turning toward Christoformity. Because in a season that celebrates the Incarnation, I don’t just want to be inspired by Christ. I want to be formed by Him.
So here’s the question I’m asking, maybe you want to ask it too: are we becoming the kind of people who actually resemble Jesus? If the answer is unclear, the path forward is not more strategy. It’s more Christ.
Let this be a season not just of songs and services, but of reorientation. Let us slow down, pay attention, and let the life of Jesus reshape our own. Let this be the Christmas where we don’t just remember Christ’s coming, but respond by becoming like Him. That, more than anything else, is the hope and power of the gospel.
Want to explore more?
The Letters to Churches unpacks how the early church pursued Christoformity across every dimension of life and witness. Follow along and discover what it means to reflect Christ in doctrine, leadership, liturgy, and love.
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