God's Missionary People

Rethinking the Purpose of the Local Church

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• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Year: 1991
• Print ISBN:
  9780801093111
• eBook ISBN:
  9781441205728
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

The author advocates a closer identification between the local congregation and the universal church. He works through the realities of church life and denominational organizations before challenging church leaders to redefine ecclesiology.

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A New Perspective of the Local Church

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In 1980 I built a new house on the outskirts of Tapachula, a city on the semitropical, southernmost tip of Chiapas, Mexico. In front of the house I planted a small “framboyan” tree, about a foot tall. I cared for that tree: I watered it during dry season and trimmed it during rainy season; I shaped it; I sprinkled ant poison around it nearly every month to keep leaf-cutter ants away. And as the tree grew I had to fix the sidewalk because the roots pushed it up out of place. I spent countless hours caring for that tree, and it was worth it. After three years my tree was taller than the two-story house beside it, and its branches shaded the front yard, the living room, and my study. Its foliage turned the torrents of rain into a cooling mist. It provided a place to rest for many a passerby, and its bright orange blossoms fed a number of hummingbirds. The little sapling I planted was more like an overgrown weed. But I knew that out of the small seedling would emerge a tree.

Similarly, thousands of people plant little round bulbs in the fall, but they don’t say they are planting small roots or little balls—they say they are planting tulips! People who plant don’t look at what they see. They look forward to what will emerge.

The Church[1] of Jesus Christ is in many ways like a tree or a tulip. Around the world the Church has been planted small and weak and has grown to become a source of protection, of new life, and of increased health and nourishing spiritual food. For the first time in the history of humanity we find the Church spanning the globe, sheltering one-and-one-half billion people who in one way or another confess allegiance to Jesus Christ and call themselves Christian.[2] We are now at the beginning of a totally new era in the history of the world and of Christianity, a “global discipling era” characterized by “total global access to all peoples of the earth.”[3] For the first time the Church is large and encompassing enough to be the missionary people of God. The opportunity exists for the one holy, universal, and apostolic community to witness to every tongue, tribe, and nation. And as local congregations are built up to reach out, they will emerge from their sapling stage to be their true nature, bearing fruit as missionary people.

In order for missionaries, church planters, and pastors to build missionary congregations, however, they must first gain a new vision of the Church in its local setting. The sapling already has its tree nature. It lacks maturity. This new perspective is extraordinarily exciting, for it sees in our nature all that Jesus Christ said we would become. Jesus expressed this perspective of emerging when he compared the Kingdom of heaven to a mustard seed and to leaven (Matt. 13:31, 33). In both similes the emphasis is not on what is but on what can be. We must recognize that the potential will not simply pop into existence; future maturity begins with present immaturity. Something becomes a catalytic trigger to change what is. The dough does not rise without that little touch of leaven. The mustard seed does not grow into a tree unless the seed is planted.

The Church derives its dynamism to emerge from its close association with the coming of the Kingdom of God. The impelling force of the Kingdom of God moves life from the “already” to the “not-yet” through the action of God in the power of the Holy Spirit. The Church is the spiritual body of Christ in the world. It can never be more fully complete than it is as the one holy catholic and apostolic people of God. Yet the Church is called to grow toward greater fulness in its nature. In this dialectic tension between what is and what is to become, the Church’s position in the Kingdom infuses it with a unique quality to emerge as the mysterious creation of God, created not by human effort, but by Jesus Christ through the operation of the Spirit. Yet God’s mysterious creation is in fact the spiritual body of Christ, and it grows as that body through the “equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ” (Eph. 4:12, NASB). The Church, like a seed, already contains within itself the generative power necessary to become the plant of which it is seed. It will not become any other plant. But the seed’s growth demands careful planting, watering, and care so that God may give the increase (1 Cor. 3:6). Karl Barth asked the key questions regarding this perspective of the emerging church: “How far does [the Church] correspond to its name? How far does it exist in a practical expression of its essence? How far is it in fact what it appears to be? How far does it fulfill the claim which it makes and the expectation which it arouses?”[4]

The Relation of Mission and Church in Modern Missiology

During the last half century mission theorists, sociologists of religion, ecclesiologists, and mission practitioners have become increasingly aware of the urgent need for a new vision of local congregations as God’s missionary people. The call for a new congregational missiology has come from at least three different directions. First, since the 1930s missiologists have called for a closer relationship between the concept of mission and the idea of church, focusing discussion on the missionary nature of the congregation. Second, sociologists of religion have recently begun to stress the strategic importance of the congregation. Third, modern ecclesiologists since Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer have called for a new way of envisioning the church, suggesting a new paradigm which has far-reaching missiological implications for the local congregation. These three arenas of thought converge in an urgent call to create a new perspective of the congregation as God’s missionary people in a local context.

If we are to build missionary congregations in the world we must first carefully consider the relationship between Church and mission. The Church of Jesus Christ may find its fullest expression in relation to the world from within the Kingdom of God only if it lives out its nature as a missionary people. As Emil Brunner said, “The Church exists by mission as fire exists by burning.”[5] And yet, the relationship of Church and mission has been the object of much discussion with little agreement during most of this century.

Normally we do not assume that Church and mission are synonymous. We might define the Church as the one, holy, universal and apostolic community of the disciples of Jesus Christ, gathered from all the families of the earth, around Word, sacrament, and common witness. Further, we could define mission with Bishop Stephen Neill, as “the intentional crossing of barriers from Church to non-church in word and deed for the sake of the proclamation of the Gospel.”[6] These two definitions demonstrate the difference between the two concepts, something Lesslie Newbigin highlighted:

In the thinking of the vast majority of Christians, the words ‘church’ and ‘mission’ connote two different kinds of society. The one is conceived to be a society devoted to worship and the spiritual care and nurture of its members. . . . The other is conceived to be a society devoted to the propagation of the gospel, passing on its converts to the safe keeping of ‘the church.’ . . . It is taken for granted that the missionary obligation is one that has to be met AFTER the needs of the home have been fully met; that existing gains have to be thoroughly consolidated before we go further afield; that the world-wide church has to be built up with the same sort of prudent business enterprise.[7]

Thus our normal view of things tends to contrast church and mission somewhat as in figure 1.

Such a description may be a caricature; the fact remains that in the mind of many church members church and mission are seen as distinct and sometimes conflicting ideas. This has been especially true in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, where “mission” organizations too often operate quite apart from “church” structures. Such a radical distinction is disturbing because we also know that the two concepts should be closely interrelated, and it is precisely their interconnection that has been emphasized since at least the 1930s.

One of the most significant discussions of this matter occurred at the International Missionary Council (IMC) meeting in Tambaram, Madras, India, in 1938. At this meeting ecclesiological missiology was given its first major impetus. The record of this conference, The World Mission of the Church,[8] shows the delegates wrestling with the intimate relationship of church and mission.

The connection was emphasized again at the Willingen, Germany, conference of the IMC in 1952. At Willingen representatives of the ecumenical missionary movement affirmed that “there is no participation in Christ without participation in His mission to the world. That by which the Church receives its existence is that by which it is also given its world mission.”[9] This conviction has been echoed by many since then. For example, Thomas Torrance affirmed that “mission belongs to the nature of the Church.”[10] Johannes Blauw said, “There is no other Church than the Church sent into the world, and there is no other mission than that of the Church of Christ.”[11] And John R. W. Stott stated, “The Church cannot be understood rightly except in a perspective which is at once missionary and eschatological.”[12]

Figure 1
Common Conceptions of Church and Mission

Church	Mission
Institutionalized organization Based in permanent facilities Led by paid clergy Institution-maintaining orientation A haven from the world An orderly polity Structured accountability, ownership Self-serving/self-supporting Self-governing/self-propagating	Individualized fellowship Mobile; few permanent facilities Led by self-sacrificing missionaries Entrepreneurial, risk-taking orientation Out among the world Loose, ad hoc organization Unstructured indpendence, volunteerism Supported endlessly from outside Controlled and promoted from outside

Although we know that the two ideas are distinct, we are aware that it is impossible to understand one—or to be part of one—without being part of the other. On the one hand, mission activity is supported by the Church, carried out by people from and in the Church, and the fruits of mission are received by the Church. On the other hand, the Church lives out its calling in the world through mission, finds its essential purpose in its participation in God’s mission, and engages in a multitude of programs whose purpose is mission. The conclusion is inevitable: We cannot understand mission without viewing the nature of the Church, and we cannot understand the Church without looking at its mission. As Newbigin has said, “Just as we must insist that a Church which has ceased to be a mission has lost the essential character of a Church, so we must also say that a mission which is not at the same time truly a Church is not a true expression of the divine apostolate. An unchurchly mission is as much a monstrosity as an unmissionary church.”[13]

The Strategic Importance of the Local Congregation

During the 1960s the growing enthusiasm for the relationship of church and mission was reflected in the documents of Vatican Council II,[14] as well as in the World Council of Churches’ study, The Church for Others and the Church for the World.[15] Unfortunately, the activism of the time ended up making church and mission nearly synonymous, defining the Church in terms of its usefulness for social change. The Church only really mattered as it contributed to radical changes in the world. The dominant phrase became, “The Church is mission.”

But a vital component was missing, as Neill pointed out when he warned that “if everything is mission, nothing is mission.”[16] Recarpeting the sanctuary, buying a new organ, calling a new pastor, or restructuring the denomination did not necessarily translate into crossing barriers from church to non-church for the communication of the gospel.

A reductionism began to occur, especially in Europe and North America. There arose a growing dissatisfaction...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Figures
• Foreword
• Preface
• Introduction
• Part 1 Local Churches: God’s Missionary People
• Part 2 Local Churches: A New Vision of God’s Missionary People
• Part 3 Local Churches: Becoming God’s Missionary People
• Bibliography
• Subject Index
• Scripture Index
• Notes