What Kind of God?

Reading the Bible with a Missional Church

Wells

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781532614729
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

How does a missional mindset or perspective impact the way we read Scripture?How does the Bible speak to and through a missional disciple?And seriously, what kind of God is God?A missional reading of Scripture is pivotal to helping the church find its way back to its true vocation and to helping newly forming missional communities follow the triune God revealed in Jesus. To the extent that the church is absorbed with itself and its own comfort and agendas, it has forsaken the God revealed in Jesus, whom we claim to follow. The mission of God will lead us to confront the injustices in our society, shed light on the lies we tell ourselves, and name the sickness in our midst.Reading the Bible with (and as) a missional church means we approach the Bible with the assumption that God is actually up to something in this world, that we are all called to play an active role in that something, and that the Bible is the story of that something.What kind of God is God? We invite you to read with us, and see for yourself.

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What Does It All Mean?

Within this story, as narrated or anticipated by the Bible, there is at work the God whose mission is evident from creation to new creation.

This is the story of God’s mission.

—Christopher J. H. Wright1

Missional.

For many, the word missional has become like the latest hit song on a pop music radio station: love it or hate it, you can’t go ten minutes without hearing it . . . and you catch yourself singing along unconsciously. Or perhaps Apple secretly owns the word. It shows up in front of nearly everything—in the way of their lower-case “i.”

Speaking of which, yes, there is an iMissional.org.

Everywhere we look folks are slapping missional on programs that used to be called emergent, contemporary, progressive, or whatever screams relevant and cutting edge. Sometimes it almost seems the word has no real meaning at all—it’s just the latest buzzword.

The Missional Wisdom Foundation does not believe that is the case. At the very least, that is not how we’re using the word.2 Missional refers to something meaningful and important for the church. Like the gospel itself, the word missional refers to something robust and complex, but also incredibly simple.

The simple definition of missional is “sent.” To use the label missional church is to suggest that the whole church exists as a community sent with God. Missional should be an unnecessary and redundant descriptor, and we long for a day when it makes sense to simply stop using the word. However, at this moment, it offers the church a vital reminder of its calling, purpose, and identity. It is “helping the church be the church.”3

Beginning Our Journey of Discovery

This opening chapter provides context, background, and a description of the book’s project. For the sake of clarity, we will define and briefly unpack how we’re using terms like missional, and the mission of God, and even give some specific explanation regarding a missional hermeneutic (which, if you don’t know the term, just means our method for reading and interpreting the Bible).

We have often been asked how a missional mindset or perspective impacts the way we read Scripture. Sometimes people want to know how we interpret a particular passage or how we believe the Bible might speak to a specific issue in the contemporary landscape. Some people are curious about the efficacy of the missional perspective. Others have doubts about its validity. And then there are those who still aren’t sure what missional actually means. And yet, in one way or another, they are all wanting to know what it means, and how the Bible speaks to and through a missional life.

Often, the search to understand is a search to define—with specifics and details, including concrete lists and examples. The Enlightenment and modernity have convinced us that we can understand anything with enough information. To truly know that which we are studying, we simply need to break it down to its most basic components. We find truth by analyzing the individual pieces of the puzzle.

This strategy can yield tremendous insight and discovery in the right context. It is certainly helpful for reverse engineering an unfamiliar machine or new technology (provided that the person doing the dismantling is somewhat familiar with how machines function). And yet, for all the benefits we have gained from the Enlightenment, its core assumptions are insufficient on their own. There is more to understanding than merely analyzing, cataloging, and blueprinting.

When a largely abstract concept is reduced to specific expressions and detailed lists, the discernment process can be short-circuited. We are tempted to forgo the time-consuming process of discerning the specifics of our own context, in favor of replicating what others have done.

Following a generic plan may seem like an efficient and responsible way to be more collaborative and avoid the isolationist tendency to “reinvent the wheel.” However, if we aren’t careful, we miss the vital fact that what made those specifics successful was the situation in which they came to fruition; successful actions are often an outcome and expression of a process of deep discernment within a particular context.

From this perspective we begin to see that the define-and-prescribe approach is not an efficient path to understanding at all. It can narrow our vision and inhibit critical and creative thinking. This approach can inadvertently cause us to become attuned to—and consequently, limited by—the details provided rather than teaching us how to look for evidence of God at work around us. It may take more time initially, but we will be better served by participating in and learning from the process itself—more so than the specific product it generated.4

In our experience, one of the best ways to shift the emphasis from the product to the process is found in the adage, “Show, don’t tell.” That is why, as often as possible, when we are asked what a missional stance looks like in practice, our response is simply, “Come and see.” In this way, we invite people into an experience; into the midst of a process that transcends any particular outcome or product.

That is precisely the invitation we offer with this book:

Come, read with us, and see.

Missional, the Mission of God, and Why Anyone Should Care

We do believe those who are committed to (or even just considering) missional and incarnational5 approaches to faith should wrestle with the biblical and theological principles behind them. To be sure, the missional posture leads to very effective ways of “doing church” and being a disciple. And yet, effectiveness is not our primary motivation for embracing a missional approach to faith, because in the most basic sense, missional isn’t about what we do at all—at least, not initially.

Missional is first a theological, rather than pragmatic, strategic, or marketing concept. It is rooted in our encounter with the Trinitarian God, modeled in the text of Scripture, witnessed in the life of the early church, and evident throughout our history.

Theology is the practice of thinking about, contemplating, and exploring our understanding of God. So, when we say this is a theological issue, our claim is that to speak about something as missional is to say something about God—not just the strategies, practices, or attitudes of Christians.

The mission we refer to in the word missional is God’s mission, not ours. The one who created this world and everything in it is also the one who has come near to reconcile, heal, and restore. The missio dei, or mission of God, is a phrase that points to everything God is doing to redeem and reconcile creation, and missional refers to our existence as people who have been called together and sent out to join in the mission of God.

The mission of God leads us to confront the injustices in our society, shed light on the lies we tell ourselves, and name the sickness in our midst. These issues exist in every context, so every context is an appropriate place to address these issues. This means, wherever you are, you are already in a place where the mission of God is at work. Every place where people live and move and have their being is a place where people are loved by God and should be loved by the people of God.

None of these contexts should be abandoned by the church.

The call to discern the specifics of God’s mission in our own context is in no way a free pass to remain tucked away in our comfort zones and relative security. Rather, it is a reminder that “if real life with God can happen anywhere at all, it can happen here, among the people whose troubles are already evident to us.”6

Of course, this assumes we’re paying enough attention to the people we are among that their troubles are evident to us and that ours are to them. We must not be content to ignore those troubles or shake our self-satisfied heads in judgment of people who have clearly brought their troubles on themselves.

Some of us will need to resist overlooking the troubles plaguing individuals and families in our seemingly boring, suburban, “nothing to see here” neighborhoods. If we desire real life with God, we are encouraged to cultivate real life with the people around us. This is, of course, difficult to accomplish if we know nothing about the people around us.

The Epworth Project, a ministry of the Missional Wisdom Foundation, demonstrates one way in which people are attempting to pursue real life with God by cultivating community with others. Dr. Elaine Heath was inspired to start this experiment in intentional Christian community after numerous seminary students approached her expressing a frustrated longing for a deeper experience of both ministry and spiritual formation. In the Epworth Project, residents are invited to spend a few years cultivating and living in missional, monastic community with others. People in these houses live under a communal rule of life and commit to engaging the mission of God in their local community. Some of these houses focus on ministry with the homeless or the working poor. Others are engaged in life and service alongside refugees and struggling minority populations.

There is not, however, a predetermined list of topics or issues from which Epworth houses are expected to choose their ministry focus. The specific mission of a house is determined by the residents, as they pa...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Abbreviations
• Foreword
• Preface
• Chapter 1: What Does It All Mean?
• Chapter 2: Genesis 1–2: The Community of Love
• Chapter 3: Who Are We?
• Chapter 4: Isaiah 56–59: Who Will We Become?
• Interludes on Jesus
• Chapter 5: Philippians 4:4–9: Think about Such Things
• Chapter 6: Revelation 21:1—22:5: Now Among the People
• Chapter 7: Little Children and One Fat Ox
• Bibliography