Stimulus Vol 13 Issue 1 February 2005 |
Table of ContentsThe kingdom made visible: a missional theology of church Grace manifest: missional church in the letter to Titus St Imulus: The Payer of Jabez Marketplace and missional church Muse-ak: Just add water A space to occupy: creating a missional model for preaching Models and metaphors: strings and things: the universe is singing The missional shift of youth ministry: from cookie cutter to incarnational ministry Reframing Paul: furthering the conversation in grace and community Freedom and the missional church Book reviews Behind Closed Doors Derrida and Religion; Other Testaments Spirit Abroad: A Second Selection of New Zealand Spiritual Verse Being Reconciled, Ontology and Pardon Land and Place He Whenua, He Wahi: Spiritualities from Aotearoa New Zealand
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The missional Church |
EditorialThe missional church
New approaches to “mission” are a ubiquitous feature of church life in the third millennium. It would be pleasing to be able to say that this is a sign of a recovery of lost emphasis, a fresh appreciation of the heart of God. In reality of course, it is, in most cases, a defensive shift. As the church has declined in the West, anxiety levels among Christian leaders have risen. With reduced influence, aging congregations and sparsely populated pews everyone has a sense that something must be done. Hence, “mission”. But mission can be conceived in many ways. We see them all in New Zealand. What does mission mean today? Is it more evangelism following familiar patterns? Is it a radical commitment to biculturalism? Is it renewed attempts to create a “just” or a “righteous” society? (Sad, isn’t it, that various groups may favour one of these, but rarely both.)
In all this angst what is the place, if any, of the church?
This issue of Stimulus begins with the premise that the church is essentially bound to mission. Picking up one of the slogans of the last decade or so, the various articles explore what might be meant by the notion of the “missional church”. This phrase began as a call to greater sensitivity to the non-churched, a plea to relegate institutional demands and to allow missional needs to determine the shape and practice of the church. Yet there is surely more to this concept than speedy response times. Does the very concept of mission inform our understanding of what church is and is to be? This is the focus of my contribution to this collection. If we are to attempt a radical mission theology of church, what might it look like and what are the implications for the people of God? I suggest that the biblical vision presents a more active and central role for the church than we have sometimes imagined.
Nicola Hoggard Creegan explores this vision in terms of the “alternative reality” which the church offers. The church is a space in a world of bondage where true corporate freedom can be lived. This is a costly enactment of the kingdom of God, the place where all will be free. The notion of space is also taken up by Paul Windsor, who examines the implications for preaching of a missional model, linking the act of preaching to the well-known Engel scale of faith development. Paying attention particularly to the most resistant end of the scale, he describes the potential of the “abductive” approach to preaching, one by which hearers are seized – “abducted” – and taken from their world of apparent reality to the alternative reality in Christ. Here is a means by which communication can reach “beyond Sunday’s private space to Monday’s public world”.
To go beyond Sunday to Monday is also the interest of Derek Christensen in his article “Marketplace and Missional Church”. The move to recognise the whole of Christian life as mission has deep biblical roots. This “marketplace” approach too reflects a conviction that the church is to be something new, and not merely preach it. Crucially, if the ostensibly mundane lives of Christians are acknowledged as a key locus for mission then there will be flow on effects for how the church functions when it gathers.
George Wieland examines a New Testament case study of this dynamic at work. Paul writes to Titus who is at the coalface of mission on Crete. The church in this challenging context must attend to its leadership, lifestyle, language and links. Why? Because the church is to be “grace manifest” – an epiphany, an encounter with the divine. Finally, this sense of meeting God is applied by Brian Krum to the specific needs of youth ministry. However valuable programmes have proven to be, however relevant to youth culture leaders may become, they will not be truly missional unless they are incarnational. In turn the aim of such leaders is “to equip a people who illustrate and proclaim the purpose and heart of God through his Son.”
In this, surely we find a shorthand for the missional church. The church is no cosmic accident, an unfortunate experiment that the Spirit will one day abandon. It is called into being to illustrate and proclaim the purpose of God. Its life is an epiphany of the kingdom. There can and must be discussion over strategies and programmes, leadership models and budgets. But there is no space in Christian ecclesiology for debate over whether the church should do mission. In a real sense the church is mission. There is no other church than the missional church.
Martin Sutherland Douglas Maclachlan |
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THE MISSIONAL CHURCH The kingdom made visible: missional theology |
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“...to be part of the gospel imperative to transform minds and put faith in God into practice.” |
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STIMULUS THE NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF CHRISTIAN THOUGHT AND PRACTICE |