Mark Sayers has a good reflection on his experience of running a missional church here. I have reflected on the question of ‘Is the church missional?‘ in the past.
Theologically speaking the church cannot be fundamentally missional for the church is eternal and mission is not. However I do not want to diminish the importance of mission in the present context. The helpful reflection Mark brings is that mission comes out of our experience of God. I would want ot push this to say that it is as we gather and are discipled around the word of God that we then look out in mission. God helps us to see the things he is doing in Christ which then gives us a deep concern for others and God’s world.
Here is a great explanation of the missional church. You could simply put it is ‘people over programs’ but this leaves the role of churches as discipleship, and the role Christians as witnessing to Jesus in word and deed.
I have been a fan (and a friend) of Lionel’ posts for a while, here is an interesting series he is beginning on ‘the community gospel’.
Otherwise, on a personal note posts have been sparse as I have been on Holidays in Canberra and also catching up in Sydney for a week. In the next few weeks I am moving house so I am not sure how much I will be able to do.
Here is a great article from The Times on the problems in Africa and why they need Christian evangelists, not more education or aid.
An obvious question following this is, if Africa needs the Christian God why don’t we in the west?
It stikes me that alot of the problems in our society could also be greatly helped by transformed living. Half the problem is just getting all the Christians in the churches to give it a go.
A short drive from me is a church that advertises itself with the slogan ‘Church has changed!’ I find this worrying, partly because I think that it targets disgruntled Christians more than anyone else, it seems to communicate ‘this church is better than yours.’ It may be aiming at those leaving churches rather than looking to present the good news of Jesus to all the people they are in touch with.
Christianity Today has posted this interesting article; The great Evangelical Anxiety’ by Mark Galli. The issue I think behind this is how Christians are to live in western society which is becoming more and more pluralist. Do we seek to be more contextually relevant or do we seek to find the next spiritual program that will improve things? While neither of things things may be necessarily wrong they do seem to miss the core of the issue. It is easy to forget that the heart of the Christian message is not exercises, methods or programs but the good news of Jesus.
While Mark Galli may not give many answers, or even practical solutions he does point to the need to remember that the heart of the Christian message is nothing more than the amazing news of what Jesus has done.
I have been searching for an appropriate title for this blog for a while. I have now been working in Forest Hill, Melbourne, Australia for four months and this title seemed sort of appropriate. I am new to the city and am enjoying it in many ways.
While mission is local, and in practice we always deal with ‘trees’ the big picture helps us to remember the neighbours whom we have not yet met.
Similarly, in Christian churches there is an enormous amount of novelty (especially in teaching) that can capture imagination but can also sidetrack us from the big picture of what God is doing.
My main project in this blog is to reflect upon and search for the big picture of both theology (that is a biblical theology) and the culture where God has placed me.
I am convinced of the need for Christians to be involved in God’s mission in this world and aim to continually push my understanding of people and culture in order to present the message of Jesus in the most engaging way, both in words and action.
Generally, I am a bit skeptical and prefer to look behind the hype for evidence and appreciate good feedback when it comes.
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:
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”).
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.
I find myself in a traditional church which has lots of people keen on mission, while church-planting is on the agenda I see myself particularly called to work within this sort of framework rather than starting fresh. It is encouraging to read this article by Gerhard Pietersen on Shapevine:
