Missional-Incarnational Impulse

I am currently re-reading Alan Hirsch's "The Forgotten Ways". I read this book some years ago and was impacted by it, but this time it is blowing me away. Hirsch has made a study of the two great periods of growth in the Christian Church (the Early Church, and the Chinese Underground Church) and taken a series of principles from those times which he calls 'Apostolic Genius' and 'mDNA' (m=missional). He argues that the western Church needs to revisit these principles if it to once again become a growing, spreading and multiplying movement.

I have been particularly challenged by the principle he identifies as the 'missional-incarnational impulse'. All church efforts/projects/groups etc., need to have a missional motivation at their core. 'Ministry' (the building up of the church) only exists to resource 'Mission'. Hirsch argues that once the church reaches a state of equilibrium (stability, security, comfort, status quo) and loses the missional impulse, it is prone to stagnation - like a fish tank left to sit without its water being changed.

I wonder if a loss of the missional impulse has caused our relationship with the Bible to stagnate? Do we read the Bible for missional inspiration, or do we read for ministry purposes. The western church is fat on 'ministry' (which it consumes by the bucket load) and missionaly-incarnationaly anorexic. Is it any wonder that we find the Scriptures boring, unengaging and somehow irrelevant?