There are several groups that have used theology to legitimize their practices, some very sophisticated and others, not so much. It’s not my intent to catalogue them here, yikes. Instead I would assert that theology, Biblical Theology, is the proverbial horse that pulls the cart and when either theology or practice get off track it can often be traced to getting the cart before the horse. One example: the group of rebels trying to cast off an oppressive enemy and their appeal to things scriptural to justify all manner of warfare in their efforts. One has to ask, is it experience forming the theology or theology controlling the practice.  Which comes first? Theology or practice? In fact what holds the trump card when it comes to truth, our experience or biblical truth. Yeah I know, it’s not as simplistic as I’m making it sound, but let me know what you think.

Oh, by the way… read Yancey’s book, it worth the time.

Jeff.

I’m writing this as 11 people from Crossroads are about to leave on a jet plane for Mexico.  Now before you think that I’m suggesting that this is a motley group, or that they are hero’s about to save the world from some impending doom, let me explain.  We are a somewhat motley group, each with imperfections, each with our own fears, and yet together capable of something noble.  However, the real hero’s here are the people we will be working with.  The local pastor we work with and his church have been working hard to bring people to Christ and thereby avoid certain disaster. He, along with several from his church, and a group from a nearby village, who have only recently been established in their faith, will be joining us in our medical/dental and ministry work.  The village we are going to has no evangelical church and but does have some catholic history.  The first time this Pastor went to this village they stoned him, yes you read correctly, stoned him just like the apostle Paul.  He has since been welcomed to the village and our team will be arriving with that villages blessing.  It is our hope that as a result of our efforts the Pastor and the missionaries that work with him will have greater success in establishing a church in this village. As a church we hope to develop a long term relationship with this group bring blessing to both them and Crossroads.

Perhaps you’ve never thought of the gospel as condemnation, nor did I really until recently.  Often, when you use the word gospel, the words “good news” comes to mind, appropriate since that’s what it means, or at least something fairly positive.  However, you only appreciate the biblical message of good news when you put it in contrast with the bad news, or as I’m suggesting, of condemnation.  It seems to me that the first three chapters of Romans argue this point. Humanity is condemned because it suppresses the truth as expressed in creation, our own consciences, and that of biblical truth.  In the end there is not distinction, gentile or Jew, both stand condemned or as Romans puts it, “there is none righteous.” So before a single word of good news is spoken Paul demonstrates our need for it. Do you ever stop to just remind yourself where you were before Jesus, before you knew there was good news?  Even if you have grown up in a churched environment, you’re in the same boat.  Certainly if you have grown up in church you have advantages, much like the Jew who has the scriptures. At the end of the day however, regardless of the background, there is none righteous.  Once we understand just how much trouble we are in, then the good news satisfies the human heart. 

Romans 3:21-24.  But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. ²² This righteousness is given through faith in^[a] Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, ²³ for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴ and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

Chris Wright, The Mission of God, argues for this vary thing. He goes on to suggest that the scriptures as a whole tell one story, a grand narrative if you will, which is bound together by the one theme, the mission of God.  This mission of God captures both Christ and His mission as part of an eternal plan with very specific ends in mind.  For example, the selection of Abraham. Some would like this to be all about election, but it’s part of the mission of God to redeem and restore His creation for His glory.  The calling of the nations comes from the Jewish hope of a messiah, that hope can be traced all the way back to Adam and Eve but in Abraham we are give the promise of a blessing to all the nations. Abraham was chosen for the nations, guess if you’re going to start a movement you begin with one and it spreads to the many. Next we need to chat a bit about Grand Narratives, aparently there are some who think that such concepts are not worthy of attention… hmm.

For example, is it important to know what the original author was trying to convey or is that irrelevant to the interpretive effort? The way you answer that question may have a big impact on what you believe the text is actually saying.  I find it fascinating that on resurrection day, as recorded in Luke 24, Jesus gives two hermeneutical lectures. The first lesson is to the disciples on their way to Emmaus and the second to the disciples in the upper room.  In Luke 24:17 we read, then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures. Later in verses 44-47 Jesus again orients the disciples so that they read the bible a certain way.  First, everything that is written about Jesus had to be fulfilled, (Vrs 44) then he says, this is what is written. In other words Jesus is saying that when you read the Scriptures (the Old Testament in this case) you will find there things written about me.  However, this is not all you find.  You will also find there are things written about the gospel and it’s proclamation around the world. So on resurrection day Jesus stops to help the disciples understand that the scriptures are to be understood in light of Christology, who and what Jesus is, and Missiology, the expanding Kingdom of God. I would say that we have done a good job at reading the bible with Jesus at the center of it all, but what about mission?  After all in Luke they receive equal footing.

            Someone is bound to say, “Are you not finding these things in the bible because you go their looking for them.” In other words, am I not reading into the bible what I want to find and twisting things to make them fit my preconceived ideas. Certainly this has been true with many approaches to the bible.  For example, feminism. Certainly the bible has something to say about women’s rights, their dignity in creation, their divine responsibility to be fruitful and to subdue the earth. However you cannot say the bible is all about feminism, or marriage for that matter, liberation, agrarianism, or worship. You can however say that the bible is all about mission: God’s. So what is the difference when we come to mission?  Simply put, the bible says so.  Let’s look at Luke 24:44–47 (NAS).

  44   Now He said to them, “These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.”

  45   Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures,

  46   and He said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day,

  47   and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

Note verses 46 and 47, what are the two things it says the scriptures speak of? Christ, his death and resurrection, and the preaching of the gospel to all the nations; mission. 

            I will spend some more time on this but I want to speak to a challenge that will be raise right off the bat.  Someone will say you’re taking one passage of scripture and using it as a principle to interpret the bible: is that appropriate?  My question in return would be, how many times does the bible need to tell us something before it becomes authoritative? 

Have a missional day!

In this sense, the teacher who trains at the seminary and equips for mission is being as missional as the person in the field.  The auto worker who strives to make Christ visible at work and his pastor are both missional.  What I find interesting here is that a missional perspective begins to blur the lines between secular and sacred.  For example, two kids head off to university with plans of being medical professionals and upon graduation one of them is heading to Haiti with a mission agency and one is heading to sick kids in Toronto.  Somehow the one who is going to Haiti is paraded in front of the church as a “missionary,” we pray for them and invest in their language and cultural training. The one going to Toronto is more or less thought of as a secular worker and even though you can’t go you can send money to support the real work of missions.  Funny, seems to me the only difference between these people is geography. Both a missional mandate to participate with their expertise in God’s mission to redeem and restore his creation and all that entails. Next time I’m going to write about the grand narrative stuff… and how that relates to mission.

Much of the scholarship that is concerned with the Mission of God points as far back as Augustine and his work on the Trinity,[1] then, quickly turns its attention to the World Missions Conference held in Willingen Germany in 1952. The conference concluded with the following sentiment:

The Missionary movement of which we are a part has its source in the Triune God Himself. Out of the depths of His love for us, the Father has sent forth His own beloved Son to reconcile all things to Himself, that we and all men might, through the Spirit, be made one in Him with the Father in that perfect love which is the very nature of God…. We who have been chosen in Christ, reconciled to God through Him, made members of His Body, sharers in His Spirit, and heirs through hope of His Kingdom, are by these very facts committed to full participation in His redeeming mission. There is no participation in Christ without participation in His mission to the world. That by which the Church receives His existence is that by which it is also given its world-mission, As the Father hath sent Me, even so I send you. [2]

Though the term Missio Dei or Mission of God was not used in this conference, it occurred in a subsequent report by Karl Hartenstein in which he says:

The sending of the Son to reconcile the universe through the power of the Spirit is the foundation and purpose of mission. The missio ecclesiae comes from the missio Dei alone. Thus, mission is placed within the broadest imaginable framework of salvation history and God’s plan for salvation.[3]

Others report on the statement by Hartenstein with a slightly different nuance:

Mission is not just the conversion of the individual, nor just obedience to the Word of the Lord, nor just the obligation to gather the church. It is the taking part in the sending of the Son, the Missio Dei, with the holistic aim of establishing Christ’s rule over all redeemed creation.[4]

Reactions to Willingen were diverse but generally moved in two directions. Both begin with these statements made at the conclusion of the conference. The first follows closely to Hartenstein. Hartenstein does not negate conversion or obedience to the Word but rather broadens the meaning of mission, something most favourable in the modern scene. Richebacher observes that Hartenstein’s work was equal to the sentiment of the conference. Whether or not Hartenstein had in his mind the work of Augustine is hard to tell. However, he is generally labelled as the one who, since Willingen, has coined the phrase Missio Dei.[5]

The other stream that emerged did so a little later in the 1960’s. J. C. Hoekendijk became representative of the notion that the church was but one among many forms of God’s mission.[6] He suggested, “when one desires to speak about God’s dealings with the world, the church can be mentioned only in passing and without strong emphasis.”[7] For Hoekendijk the church is only the church to the extent that it lets itself be used as part of God’s dealings with the world. Hoekendijk held that the Missio Dei is the effort to establish shalom or peace. Any endeavour, which brings this about, regardless of a salvific goal or for that matter even in the absence of Christian thought, serves the mission of God. He concludes, “church-centric missionary thinking is bound to go astray, because it revolves around an illegitimate centre”[8] namely the church. This parting of the ways in defining the mission of God comes because of the way in which each stream of thought understands the Kingdom of God.[9]

If the description of the Kingdom of God is aligned with Willingen it becomes the expression of God’s work in salvation history and the church’s participation in that as the institution charged with fulfilling that mission. However, aligned with the latter group, the Kingdom of God refers to the rule of God in human history. “The function of mission has been changed from the particular saving activity of God in Christ Jesus to a principle of goal oriented progress.”[10] The former sees the Mission of God as salvific whereas the latter sees the Mission of God as the secular advancement of humanity due to God’s rule over it. These two polarized views mark the landscape to this day. However, within the work of Willingen I and Willingen II there is room for explicit evangelism and social action. Chris Wright in his presentation at the 2009 National Pastors’ conference in San Diego spoke about the love of God being expressed in mission, a mission concerned with both redemption and social action.

My conclusion is that when we speak of the mission of God we are speaking of God’s purposeful actions to bring about the redemption and restoration of his creation for his glory. I believe it is this mission that bible bears testimony to. I also tend to agree with the original sentiment of Willingen that suggest social action when subserviant to the redemptive efforts of God is most appropriate.

Next time I’ll take a look at what I mean by the bible bearing testimony to God’s mission and how that influences what we call mission.

Blessings.

[2] As cited by Richebacher, “Missio Dei,” 589, from the official International Missions Committee minutes (Appendix A. p. 54).

[3] Richebacher, “Missio Dei,” 589.

[4] Engelsviken, “Missio Dei,” 482.

[5] The conclusion is supported by Gruder, Wright, Englesviken, Richebacher, Hunsberger, and a host of others.

[6] Richebacher, “Missio Dei,” 591. See also Engelsviken, “Missio Dei,” 487–88.

[7] Richebacher, “Missio Dei,” 591.

[8] Engelsviken, “Missio Die,” 488.

[9] Engelsviken, “Missio Dei,” 483.

[10] Richebacher, “Missio Dei,” 593.

First of all, missional is a word… surprise! Missional is to mission what fictional is to fiction, says Chris Wright, an author worth reading on this topic. In other words, when we use the word missional we are speaking about things that share the attributes and values of mission.  Here is the rub… whose mission.  Are we talking about some local churches evangelistic efforts or their short term mission’s trip?  Is that what mission is? Let me say that in my humble opinion it is that but it is so much more.

Whose mission is it, in a word, God’s?  So the question is; what is the mission of God.  For something to be truly missional it will have to flow out of that mission.  I suppose one could argue that regardless of whose mission it is the relationship between mission and missional is the same, and that would be true.  However, if we are speaking biblically it is essential to begin with God’s mission. Before I declare what I believe that mission to be let me say that whole of the bible is a testimony to God’s mission.  From Genesis to Revelation you have a story that presents to you a missional God, one who has an end in mind and everything He does serves that end. You will note that I used the term, a story.  The bible, from cover to cover, is one story or a Grand Narrative if you like, of a God who is on a mission.  The Bible’s very existence is testimony to God’s mission, he literally hangs sign posts all over it saying “see what I am doing”.  More on this next time.