Seeing the Forest… from the trees

One of the things I am wrestling with is the relationship between missiology and ecclesiology, or more simply, how does God’s mission shape the nature of the church.

This is far from a simple question. From my missional friends I have been encouraged to think that we ought to let our understanding of Jesus shape firstly how we engage in mission and then, from the new community of believers, we should then develop how we do church. This argument is in part reactionary, assuming that the church has been operating in an imperialistic mode, where we have a set of distinctive practices that define the way we run our church and as we move around we perform the same set of things regardless of the context we find ourselves. While this is clearly a caricature of the diversity of church practice it does contain an element of truth. The reality is that we do live in a post-christian culture and if churches are to reach out effectively they need to do more than sit in their buildings.

What is meant by missional varies greatly depending on who is claiming it. At its basic definition Missional is the adjectival form of the word ‘Missionary’, but some of those who are using this term are attempting to make it more technically specific.  The diversity in views here can be seen in part through the Missional Synchroblog which gathered 50 different perspectives on this term. Brother Maynard summarises the results of the Missional Synchroblog, Being missional is holding to two central features:

1. The church’s purpose is to be mission-shaped, meaning that all that it is and does reflects upon and is born out of its single mission, the Missio Dei (“God’s mission”).
2. The church’s ministry is to be incarnational, not only corporately but individually as well.

The point of this definition is to assert that Missional churches have a different character to more established churches. While church planting is a very necessary part of church growth strategies the problem is that we then ignore the needs of more established churches. Under this description it is possible to have non-missional churches which still have significant numbers of missional Christians within them.

The danger of missional churches is the potential to show a lack of love to ones brothers and sisters in Christ (1 Jn 4:20). What I mean is that by categorising the older and less fashionable memebers of our churches as those operating in a ‘Christendom’ mode of church we can actually be hostile or apathetic to those who we ought to love and all in the name of being missional. I suspect that this a pragmatic approach that aims to see mission as the priority but fails to see the bigger picture. 

For myself I think there can be much value in traditional churches (and yes I work for one), but Christians also ought to continue to plant new churches, and renew older churches where possible. I certainly encourage indiviuals to be missional but I would say that being missional is only part of the agenda for the church. The central focus of Church is to gather people to be united in Christ. Sometimes this involves more of a pastoral and discipling ministry than one that is focused on mission.

While all Christians ought to be involved making disciples (Mat 28:19)  at one level or another to say that all must live ‘incarnationally’ is going beyond what the Bible says. Yes we are called to be like Christ but to incarnate ourselves is beyond our capacity, and to be honest I can’t work out what this means in the context I’m in. How do you incarnate yourself to chinese people living around you when you are not chinese? For Christ to become incarnate was to leave the Father’s side and although he is divine he became fully human. To compare our mission to this is a bit of stretch. Furthermore I think when we use this category as an analogy for our mission we often end up becoming pragmatic and forget that the way we do things is also incredibly important. Holiness and love in our approach is just as important as the ends we are aiming for. 

Christians are more like Christ’s ambassadors than incarnations of him (2 Cor 5:14-21). Here it is the resurrection rather than the incarnation ought to shape our thinking about Christian mission.  In this sense we are to be like Christ and aim to present him in word and deed.

For the pragmatists, you’re right, all of my thinking here does not make much practical difference in how you do mission but it does attempt to reflect on some weaknesses of the present discussion. I remain skeptical that being Missional is the answer to the problems of churches, although Churches certainly need to make mission a significant priority. If we don’t prioritise mission it slips off the agenda and modern laziness and apathy let churches retreat into themselves rather than serving God’s mission. 

One of the things I am working through is the theological importance of the resurection for mission. 

Any thoughts?