The Mission Table

Renewing Congregation and Community

Stephen P. Bouman

• Publisher: Augsburg Fortress
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781451478129
• eBook ISBN: 9781451479287
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

In a time of declining mainline Protestant church attendance, Bouman reminds us that the Holy Spirit is still very much at work. It is the mission of our churches to aid God's reconciling and restoring action in the world. This conversation on mission must involve everyone including laypeople, pastors, seminarians, and emerging congregational leaders. Each chapter contains scripture, questions, and activities, allowing for group study, reflection, and action. The goal is ultimately to help every member of the church to live as signs of the God who made the world and who will make all things new.

4

The Congregation: A Table for Mission

Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

—Acts 2:46-47

In this chapter, we will go deep in seeking a biblical arc that shapes the congregation’s mission table, which connects the kitchen tables of its members at the altar table and sends its people out to new tables of God’s restoring and reconciling mission. The ELCA Book of Faith Initiative, which seeks to reconnect the church with the Bible, invites us to “open Scripture” and “join the conversation.” We open and read the Bible together around the table to be inspired, to get in touch with the passion of Jesus’ love for the world, and for wisdom guiding the aspirations we have for our lives and congregations. As a congregation begins to embrace its opportunities for mission, it can begin to develop a selection of Bible stories that have power to inspire people with God’s past faithfulness and illumine present possibilities. This is where the Book of Faith joins the mission table.

Ten Biblical Marks of a Missional Congregation

We will explore ten marks of a missional congregation that grow out of scripture’s testimony:

1. A congregation in mission is always listening.
2. A congregation in mission mentors and trains its leaders.
3. A congregation in mission nurtures communal leadership.
4. A congregation in mission faces paralysis with courage.
5. A congregation in mission reroots in its community.
6. A congregation in mission risks new things.
7. A congregation in mission makes all decisions based on its mission.
8. A congregation in mission is clear about money and relationships.
9. A congregation in mission is propelled by the resurrection of Jesus.
10. A congregation in mission is shaped by Word and sacraments.

1. A congregation in mission is always listening.

Trace the arc of Jesus and listening in the Gospel of Luke. It begins with Jesus as a boy in the temple listening to his elders in the faith. “After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions” (Luke 2:46). From the very beginning, Jesus was always listening to others, drawing out their spiritual hunger, responding with love and grace and truth. But mostly in Luke’s gospel people don’t listen to Jesus.

He reads the scriptures in his home church in Galilee, connecting his mission with the Servant Song in Isaiah. The hometown crowd won’t listen. “Isn’t this Mary and Joe’s kid? Who does he think he is, anyway?” Luke says, “They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff ” (Luke 4:29). His home congregation didn’t listen.

But people begin to notice him and are drawn to his public teaching and healing ministry in his home region of Galilee. Luke records, “Now more than ever the word about Jesus spread abroad; many crowds would gather to hear him and to be cured of their diseases” (Luke 5:15). The Jewish leaders come up from Jerusalem to check out this Jesus. They are not impressed. “Who does he think he is—the Messiah?” “Then the scribes and the Pharisees began to question, ‘Who is this who is speaking blasphe­mies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?’ ” (Luke 5:21).

Jesus has a moment when he really thinks that the disciples are lis­tening to him. “Once when Jesus was praying alone, with only the disci­ples near him, he asked them, ‘Who do the crowds say that I am?’ They answered, ‘John the Baptist; but others, Elijah; and still others, that one of the ancient prophets has arisen.’ He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Peter answered, ‘The Messiah of God’ ” (Luke 9:18-20). It seems Peter has been listening.

And one day, like a small miracle, Jesus dines with friends and someone just sits down and listens to him: “[Martha] had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying” (Luke 10:39). Mary listened, and her listening enabled Jesus to speak. What did he say? What did she hear? We aren’t told, but in the context of the deaf ears in Luke’s gospel, we can assume that Mary’s listening was a graceful thing, an occa­sion for Jesus to unfold some of his story and its passions with another human being. Martha, like the busy pastor rushing around the church and the neighborhood, had important things to do. They remain important. But maybe, like Mary’s listening to Jesus, the most important miracles in congregations have their genesis in the silence and attentiveness of human conversation.

The most effective mission strategies I have encountered have not been the ones with all the demographic bells and whistles and the embodiment of the latest process and strategic theories. They have been about congre­gations really caring and creating space and hospitality for the stories of their members and neighbors to be told. As it was for Jesus, to be in mis­sion is to listen.

In the story of Mary and Martha, we see the listening of Mary in the context of the table of hospitality that Martha was setting. Listening sets new tables by enabling new relationships, and it undergirds the mission of a church and community. Luke takes us from Mary’s listening to the next chapter where the hunger of the disciples to listen to God comes into view: “Lord, teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1).

A congregation in mission is always listening.

2. A congregation in mission mentors and trains its leaders.

I’ve begun to read Matthew 14:13-33 as a mentoring story. Jesus had just heard about the death of John the Baptist. Fully human like us, he needed to withdraw to a lonely place to absorb the news and grieve. The ebb and flow of daily life often confounds those who mourn. I remember walking out of the hospital after watching a loved one die. I hit the busy streets thinking, How can you all go about your business like any other day? Don’t you know what just happened in there?

At the intersection of his grief and the daily crush of the crowds, Jesus had compassion and listened to the people and healed their sick. Then as the evening came and the hunger of a long day took hold of the crowd he had been teaching, Jesus set a table and mentored his disciples. “You give them something to eat,” Jesus said to them (Matthew 14:16), seizing on this teaching moment. He set a table in the tension of scarcity and abun­dance, just as we come to the tables of our kitchens and congregations in the midst of that tension. He received the gifts of loaves and fishes, which came from the crowd. His example teaches: Don’t be afraid of the crowd. Attend to their great hunger of body and soul but also their giftedness. Their loaves and fishes count for something. When Jesus sets the table, gifts multiply; there is always enough.

Then it was night, and the grieving hunger in Jesus cried out for a hear­ing. We read, “He made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone” (Matthew 14:22-23).

Now let’s think about congregations, synods, and denominations and the church’s many fears about an unknown future. Imagine we are in the boat with the disciples in roiling water; the wind is in our faces; and it is “early in the morning” (Matthew 14:25), literally “the fourth watch” of the night, between 3:00 and 6:00 in the morning. The fourth watch is the bewitching hour, a time when all we fear, can’t see, and can’t control is running amuck. Now imagine this: right into the primal fear and upwind resistance and stormy terror of the unknown comes Jesus, walking on water, moving toward us.

The biblical account tells us that Peter wanted to leave the boat and move toward the Jesus future. I read this more and more as a leadership mentoring story. Jesus was never more a teacher and coach than when he invited Peter out of the safety of the boat. With one word Jesus committed to a future leader: “Come.”

A missional congregation invests in leaders and has a plan for leader­ship development. The congregation sees everything it does as opportunity for leadership development. A time of mission strategy and discernment can be an opportunity to develop the gifts and passions of people.

• Who is inviting the next generation of the church’s and communi­ty’s spiritual seekers and leaders out of the boat these days?
• Who is setting tables for their collaboration?
• Is church a place where the development of the faith and compe­tence of its leaders is the highest priority?
• Is your church a place that represents the safety of the boat or the scary, exhilarating invitation to walk on water?

Jesus said to Peter, “Come.”

3. A congregation in mission nurtures communal leadership.

In Exodus 2:11-12 we read that Moses killed an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew. The traditional interpretation of this story is that when Moses saw that the coast was clear—“he looked this way and that”—he went ahead and killed the oppressor of his people. But Hillel, a rabbi and con­temporary of Jesus, offered another opinion. He said that Moses was look­ing for help. He looked left and right, and when he saw that he was alone, he reluctantly fought and did what he had to do.

Hillel believed that the rest of the Hebrew scriptures are about this story, about the building of community so that Moses and Israel would never again be in the position where “he looked this way and that way, and [saw] no one . . .” And indeed the Passover narrative is about a motley group of slaves coming through the sea and the wilderness and becom­ing a people with a communal identity. In addition, it seems that Moses’ father-in-law, Jethro, tried to help Moses be a better community organ­izer and argued for communal leadership (Exodus 18:18-23). “Are you nuts, Moses, trying to discern the issues of everyone all at once all by yourself? Why don’t you organize with a team of leaders, each one to judge over one hundred.” Verse 24 says that “Moses listened to his father-­in-law and did all that he had said,” and over the course of their forty-year wilderness trek, the Israelites were formed into a community with a team of leaders.

Jerome, who lived in the fourth century ad, said, “Ecclesia non est quae habet sacerdotes,” which translates roughly, “There can be no church com­munity without a leader or team of leaders.” I believe that mission today will be led by teams of leaders with a deep reservoir of gifts and talents that build up the leadership of the body of Christ. Leadership takes its cue from the apostle Paul: one body, many members.

In his book Reclaiming the Great Commission, Episcopal bishop Claude Payne talks about “total ministry,” which exists where the pastoral lead­ership of the congregation belongs to the whole community and there is a commitment to the development of a strong collective of lay leaders.³ Congregations are enriched by lay leaders, many of whose leadership has been formed in the lifelong learning centers across the country, such as the various synod Lay Schools of Theology or a nationwide program like Diakonia. Some of these leaders have come out of certificate programs for youth and family ministry. I see a proliferation of such certificate pro­grams in the future: steward leadership, community organizing, lay evan­gelism, and as many others as the contexts and missional needs lead us to imagine.

In Tanzania, in even the remotest places, congregations have teams of leaders and an infrastructure for mission in place. There are local evange­lists (usually spiritual leaders who come from the community), catechists, deaconesses, social ministry organizations like dispensaries, trained musi­cians, and many other leaders. The pastor may cover several congregations within the parish, but the local church has a cadre of leaders in place to sustain and grow the ministry.

Whether in rural North Dakota or in urban situations like the South Bronx, the trend for lay and pastoral leadership will continue to be toward homegrown leaders. Immigrant congregations are sending out teams of lay leaders to begin new Latino mission starts in Florida and Los Angeles and many other places, for example. Where mission flourishes, leadership multiplies.

4. A congregation in mission faces paralysis with courage.

John 5:1-9 tells the story of Jesus showing up at the hour of worship in Jeru­salem. At that place was a pool called Bethesda, and near it, in the narthex (five of them actually), lay many invalids—blind, lame, paralyzed—on their mats. It was a kind of Darwinian system of health care—those with the means, with the help, with the right connections, resources, or friends got to the pool. One man had been lying on his mat in sight of the healing pool for thirty-eight years but was always a day late and a dollar short.

“When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, ‘Do you want to be made well?’ ” (John 5:6). Jesus noticed the suffering and helplessness. He “knew he had been there a long time.” Jesus always shows up at the place of deepest vulnerability. We hear echoes of the voice speaking to Moses from the bush: “I have observed the misery of my people. . . . I know their sufferings” (Exodus 3:7). God has noticed the suffering in our many tragedies. God wants to be in the breach with us.

But why did Jesus ask the question he asked: “Do you want to be made well?” He stood before someone chronically ill, lame, unable to walk for thirty-eight years. Why ask such a person that question? It sounds insensi­tive, almost like a taunt. You can almost hear the man grumble to himself, “Well, what do you think?”

The question roused the man to a spirited response. He was just lying there, but now he was animated, ticked. He spit out his anger: “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me” (John 5:7).

Why, indeed, would Jesus ask this man, “Do you want to be made well?” It is the only question that matters. If the man doesn’t want to be made well, he will continue to make a life for himself sitting by the side of the pool. Our pathologies can domesticate us.

All of us, sisters and brothers, are on our mats. All of us are at the many tables of the church together. Do we want to be made well? It’s the only question for congregations stalled in their ministry, timid in their stew­ardship, lax in their discipleship, stifled in their imagination about the future, afraid of the changing communities outside their doors.

It is the only question for those who have endured tragedy and resent the whole world moving on while they are stuck. “You, heart closed, turned inward, still seething, paralyzed by what happened, do you really want to be made well?”

It’s the only question for a world paralyzed by anger, sitting beside the pool on the mat of its many divisions. Do we really want to b...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Table Of Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction: Mission and the Mainline
• The Table of Creation
• From the Kitchen Table to the Altar Table
• Seeking Hospitality at New Tables
• The Congregation: A Table for Mission
• Mission Table Leadership
• Setting Mission Tables
• Restoring the Broken Table
• Notes