Beyond the Local Church

How Apostolic Movements Can Change the World

Sam Metcalf

• Publisher: IVP
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9780830844364
• eBook ISBN: 9780830898893
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

• 2016 IVP Readers' Choice Award

Many people have given up on the church. But that doesn't mean that they've given up on God or Christianity. In many cases, it was merely that local church congregations were not the best context for missional people to live out their sense of God's call.The good news is that God is raising up vibrant movements of Christians in a vast array of vocations around the world: disciple-making ministries, missions, relief and development, social activism, advocacy and much more. These are all strategic ways to live for the kingdom—in venues beyond the local church.Wherever movements of the gospel have occurred, visionary people and apostolic structures have been essential. Mission leader Sam Metcalf shows how God has always worked through entrepreneurial individuals and organizations that launched out in fresh ways. He gives biblical and missiological foundations for missional movements, showing that what has often been called "parachurch" is an equally valid manifestation of the church. Affirming the strengths of apostolic personalities, Metcalf shows how they can be deployed to cross cultural barriers, renew secular societies and transform the nations with the power of the gospel.God may be inviting you to join what he is doing around the world. Answer the call and discover how God can use you beyond your imagination.

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The Power of a Balanced Anatomy

The biblical genius and design for apostolic structures and movements

The mission of God is limited, because the models by which it can happen have been restricted.

George Lings

We believe in one holy, catholic and apostolic Church.

Nicene Creed

He was the pastor of a local church which had been generously supportive of several people serving around the world with Church Resource Ministries (CRM), the organization that I lead. But he was grappling with the question of where his responsibility to those people ended and where ours, as the mission entity with whom they served, began. It was a good struggle and one common to many who sincerely want to affirm and support those within their congregations whom God has set aside and called to be sent ones—apostolic people, those who traverse social, cultural, linguistic or geographical barriers for the sake of the good news of Jesus.

As we talked over lunch, I cautiously began to lay out the distinctives, as I see them, between local churches and ministries like ours, and what I felt healthy interdependence between these two forms of church would look like. Some of that was easy because we both had a profound commitment to mission and to what God wants to do among the nations. But unfortunately, he had few categories for ministry outside, or not under the control of, the local congregation. Apostolic people and structures that operated outside of his local church were not really a legitimate part of his ministry paradigm.

The more we talked, the more the dissonance bubbled to the surface. Finally he blurted out, “I always suspected there were people like you in the missions world, but you’re the first one I’ve ever heard openly say such things. You really think that you and what you do is as much the ‘church’ as what we do? Where do you get that from in the Bible?” He went on to suggest that it might be a good idea for me to get together with a respected theologian at a nearby seminary with the hope that my theology could be better informed.

This particular encounter haunted me afterward. Here was a faithful, conscientious pastor practically begging for some type of biblical justification for what I considered a healthy, balanced ecclesiology. I think he genuinely wanted to validate those from his congregation who had chosen a missional vocation, but no one—in seminary or afterward—had ever given him a cogent rationale for such a structure.

The Two-Structure Paradigm

During the latter half of the twentieth century, Ralph Winter was one of the iconic giants of the mission world. After earning degrees from Cal Tech, Columbia, Cornell and Princeton, he and his wife, Roberta, cut their teeth as missionaries in Guatemala, where they pioneered TEE (Theological Education by Extension), a concept which has been emulated around the world in the years since.

After a decade in Guatemala, Winter became one of the core of eminent missiologists recruited by Donald McGavran at Fuller Theological Seminary, where Winter would directly influence over one thousand missionaries, particularly through his groundbreaking course “The History of the Christian Movement.” He went on to found a number of organizations, including the U. S. Center for World Mission, which spearheaded the concept of unreached people groups and has had a far-reaching influence on global missionary priorities that continues to this day.

One of Winter’s most important contributions to missiology was a seminal article first drafted in 1973, titled “The Two Structures of God’s Redemptive Mission.”1 In this broad historical overview, Winter outlines—as only he could do—the grand themes of God’s redemptive activity, and pulls all the pieces together in a way that makes sense of centuries of missionary history. It is the best historical treatment of a fully-orbed missional ecclesiology I’ve ever encountered. It explains how the design of God, from the time of the New Testament forward, has been to work through the local church and the church in its missionary form.

When I was at Fuller for graduate studies and came across Winter’s article, I was astonished. No one had ever explained any of this to me. I’d never heard it before. It was as if the lights all came on, and I was granted a license of legitimacy for ministry that I had never previously experienced.

Winter makes the case that God has chosen to work throughout all of history through two primary redemptive structures. Winter gave these two structures anthropological titles. He labeled the church in its local, parish, diocesan form (what I have referred to as the left foot) a modality, and he labeled the church in its task-oriented, missionary, sent form a sodality (what I have called the right foot). Both are the church. Both are necessary.

These terms are understood and used in Roman Catholic circles and are occasionally used by Protestants too, such as Yale historian Kenneth Scott Latourette in his landmark work The History of Christianity.2 But for the most part, no one can seem to remember which one is which, if they know of them at all. In this book we’re using practical analogies, like left and right feet, to help distinguish these complementary parts of church anatomy.

While there are many implications that can be drawn from Winter’s article, I believe three are particularly profound.

1. The church in its apostolic, missionary form is just as equally “church” as the church in its local, parish form. God never designed or intended either to do the work of the other.
2. The evidence from history is abundant that whenever these two structures work cooperatively and interdependently, the Christian movement thrives and moves forward. When one structure dominates or attempts to control the other, the movement suffers.
3. Apostolic leaders thrive best in structures uniquely designed for the fulfillment of their calling, and these leaders must have access to such structures in order to reach their God-given potential. When pastoral or denominational leaders mistakenly assume that such apostolic structures have no validity or are subject to their control, everyone loses.

Comparing Modalities and Sodalities

The following chart is a helpful way to compare and contrast these two expressions of the church. While there are right-footed structures that are not apostolic (described in chapter five), my interest here and throughout this book is in those structures that are apostolic in nature, where apostolic gifting flourishes.

Table 1.1

Left Foot Structures (Modalities)	Right Foot Structures (Sodalities)
The church local Diocesan, parish form Structured primarily for nurture, care Conserves new ground “First decision” people Ministry generalists Multi-tasks Inclusive Pastors and teachers thrive Resources for sodalities Connectional Occasionally multiplies Five generation life cycle Primarily near neighbor missionality (E-0)3 Builds, establishes and preserves	The church mobile Missionary form Task-oriented, mobile, flexible, lean Takes new ground, crosses barriers “Second decision” people Ministry specialists Narrow focus Exclusive Apostolic leaders thrive Creates modalities and new sodalities Can be trans-denominational Expansionistic Extended generational life cycle Cross-culturally capable (E-1 thru E-3) Inherently entrepreneurial

A variety of analogies—besides left and right feet—can help illustrate the distinction between these two structures. One simple way to see it is to consider the contrast between settlers and pioneers. Pioneers go somewhere. They explore new territory. They cross barriers in their efforts. Pioneers imagine what could be and are motivated by the new and unknown. This idea is captured in the famous introductory lines to every episode of Star Trek:

Space: The final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: To explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations; to boldly go where no man has gone before.

Settlers, on the other hand, are those who conserve the fruit of exploration. They establish. They put down roots and build. They ensure that what has been accomplished is preserved for themselves and for future generations.

The values and mindsets of pioneers and settlers are quite different. Inevitably, they hold different values that can conflict. As George Lings says, “To the adventurous the word settler is as attractive as mud. To the systems person, pioneers are a nightmare.”4 Each function calls for different abilities and different skill sets. Each calls for a different structure in which such abilities and skill sets can be effectively lived out. But both are valid. Both are important. Both are necessary.

The two structures distinction can be seen in an array of other areas of life. There is a difference between a classic entrepreneur who starts a business and the business manager who builds and maintains it. There is a difference between a pioneering medical researcher and a family doctor. There is a difference between a soldier who serves in Special Forces and one who serves in the regular army. Throughout most human endeavors there are distinctions between specialists and generalists and social structures that uniquely accommodate both. It is no different for the church—the universal earthly expression of those people committed to Jesus.

I wish there were a better vocabulary for explaining the distinction between sodality and modality. Others have tried various terms, but they really haven’t stuck: sent church versus gathered church; pioneers versus settlers; specialists versus generalists, etc. But in our era and for those immersed in the missional task of the Christian movement, Winter brought clarity to these foundational concepts. George Lings writes:

I resisted the language for years, because I did not understand it and found it opaque. The words conveyed almost nothing to me, except my sense of incomprehension. Having been enlightened, they are now a central part of my understanding of mission and church and I deeply regret that the terms are not more accessible. I have thought for some years about how they could be improved, and am open to offers, but all alternatives put so far by others seem only partial or even a step back.5

Ralph Winter’s “Two Structures” article is primarily an argument from history. He does not devote much time to an exegetical or biblical justification for the distinction between these two God-ordained structures. He does little to extract the paradigm—and particularly the legitimacy of the apostolic structure—from Scripture.

I think that is understandable, because to the Jewish mind of both the Old Testament and the early stages of the Christian era, such structures would have been givens. There would be little need to justify their existence. But that is no longer the case in our day, and it is particularly not the prevailing worldview within Protestantism. So can we show some biblical justification for this missiological paradigm? Can I satisfactorily answer the question my pastor friend asked in the conversation at the beginning of this chapter? The answer is an unequivocal yes.

The Old Testament Evidence

While the New Testament provides more fertile ground for understanding these concepts, there are examples of functional equivalents of apostolic, missionary structures woven throughout the Old Testament and the intertestamental period. Granted, they may be more implicit than explicit, but they are not obscure.

An early example in the Old Testament of individuals operating outside the religious establishment is the Nazirites. These were men or women who voluntarily took vows as an indication of being separated or consecrated as holy to God (Numbers 6:8). In the Halakha (the Jewish law) there is a rich tradition regarding Nazirites, and there are sixteen uses of the Hebrew word nazir in the Hebrew Bible. There were actually grades or levels of Nazirites and some variation in what it meant to be a Nazirite in different times. We find examples of Nazirite vows in Judges 13:5 (Samson) and 1 Samuel 1:11 (Samuel). They are also mentioned in Amos 2:11-12.

Nazirites appear in the writings of Josephus and the rabbi Gamaliel, and are referred to in 1 Maccabees 3:49. In modern Hebrew, the word nazir is used for monks—whether Christian, Buddhist or other non-Jewish religious expressions—as those who have been set aside for specific, holy purposes. Luke 1:13-15 suggests that John the Baptist was designated a Nazirite from birth.

Another example of a structure that accommodated such set-aside people in the Old Testament is the schools or bands of prophets started by the prophet Samuel and described in 1 Samuel 19:19-20. While prophets walked an unpopular road, the structure for living out their prophetic calling and apprenticing other prophets flourished in the days of Samuel, Elijah and Elisha, and throughout the Old Testament.

These “schools” were bands of men who lived together for instruction, worship, training and service (1 Samuel 10:2-11; 19:19-20; 1 Kings 18:4; 22:6; 2 Kings 2:3-5; 4:38; 6:1). Some commentators actually refer to these as prophetic “orders,” and their influence was felt from the time of Samuel through the Babylonian exile. There is reference to these bands living in Ramah, Bethel, Gilgal, Jericho, Carmel and Samaria, where it is inferred they resided in their own buildings with their own clear sense of community and mission. There was study, worship and tasks for others and for God, all overseen by defined leadership (Samuel, Elij...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword by Alan Hirsch
• Introduction
• 1 The Power of a Balanced Anatomy: The biblical genius and design for apostolic structures and movements
• 2 Limping or Leaping Through Time: The encouragement of apostolic missionality in history
• 3 Mother Teresa Wasn’t a “Para-Catholic”! Why parachurch is a dirty word
• 4 So What Is “Apostolic”? The oft-neglected essential to authentic missionality
• 5 Holy Discontent and Sanctified Ambition: The apostolic imperative of Ephesians 4
• 6 Setting Visionaries Free: Pioneering as a second decision entrepreneur
• 7 Finding Second Decision People: How to engage and release apostolic leaders
• 8 Running Together! The exponential leverage of interdependence
• 9 Movements of God: The extraordinary results of apostolic gifting lived out in apostolic structures
• 10 The Momentum of Movements: To kill or to multiply, that is the question
• Conclusion: Be a history shaper
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Praise for Beyond the Local Church
• About the Author
• More Titles from InterVarsity Press
• Church Resource Ministries (CRM)
• Copyright