Missional Church in the Biblical Story

Michael GoheenVancouver B.C.

Starting with God’s Mission

Long term purpose/intention to restore creation, all of human lifeTold in story of BibleThrough Israel-Jesus-church/SpiritMissional identity comes from role church plays in biblical story

Participation in God’s Mission

‘Fundamentally, our mission (if it is biblically informed and validated) means our committed participation as God’s people, at God’s invitation and command, in God’s own mission, within the history of God’s world for the redemption of God’s creation.’ (Chris Wright)

“God’s mission involves God’s people living in God’s way in the sight of the nations.”

- Chris Wright

Mission is not primarily about going. Nor is mission primarily about doing anything. Mission is about being. It is about being a distinctive kind of people, a countercultural . . . community among the nations.

- Howard Peskett and Vinoth Ramachandra

Two Orientations

Chosen by GodFor the sake of the world

God’s Mission and the Church

Locus or place of God’s redemptive work (foretaste of kingdom)Instrument or channel of God’s redemptive work (agent of kingdom)

Three Directions

Backward to creation: Embody God’s original intention and creational design for human lifeForward to consummation: Picture of end of history—restored humanityOutward to nations: Missionary encounter with idolatry

Formation of People

Backdrop of creation and sin (Gen. 1-11)Abrahamic Promise: Blessed to be a blessing (Gen. 12.2-3)Blueprint: 2 part plan

Exodus: Formation of a holy peopleA redeemed people (1-18)A covenant people (19-24)

Vocation: Attractive, distinctive life shaped by TorahA people of God’s presence (25-40)

Summary of Israel’s Story on the LandOn the land: On display to the nations (Visibility is “part of their theological identity”)Distinctive way of life shaped by torah vs. idolatry of nationsGod’s gifts to equip a peopleVarying contexts Tribal confederation: Holy People “in the Centre of the

Nations” A Priestly Kingdom in the Centre of the Nations Exile: A Holy People Scattered Among the Nations

Two dangers Not teaching the next generation Being absorbed into idolatry of nations

Failure

Prophetic Promise

Gathering of IsraelRestore to missional callingRenewal of IsraelPilgrimage of nationsIntertestamental period: Eclipse of missional vision

Ministry of JesusAnnouncement of the kingdomDynamic power and eschatological salvationAlready-not yet: Delay of end to gather

Gathering and restoring Israel to their missional calling12: Constitution of end-time IsraelTaught a distinctive way of lifeParticipation in Jesus’ mission of gathering (Israel, then Gentiles)Words, deeds, prayer, suffering

Central Events of Biblical Story: Renewing a People for their Missional Calling

Crucifixion: Victory of sin and the end of the old ageResurrection: Inauguration of age to comePentecost: Spirit as gift of end

Eschatological People of GodHow is the church different?

Experience power of end-time salvation of kingdomTime of gathering continuesSent among the nations (multiethnic, non-geographical people)More intentional missional activities (missionary dimension, missionary intention)

A Witnessing Community (Acts 1.6-8)

Obvious question: Now you’re going to restore the kingdom, right? (1.6)Threefold answer:Not yet (1.7)Already: The Spirit will give you the life of

the kingdom (1.8) Until then you are a community that

witnesses to the coming of the kingdom starting here to the ends of the earth (1.8)

Spirit MessiahSpirit Messiah

SinDeathEvil

Satan

Knowledgeof GodLoveJoy

Justice

AGE TO COME

Prophetic ExpectationProphetic Expectation

OLD AGE

Powers of sin death evil Satan

Power of Spirit’s renewingwork

AGE TO COMEOLD AGE

New Testament FulfillmentNew Testament Fulfillment

Already-Not yet: Time of Witness

Why the ‘not yet’?The meaning of this ‘overlap of the ages’ in which we live, the time between the coming of Christ and His coming again, is that it is the time given for the witness of the apostolic Church to the ends of the earth. The end of all things, which has been revealed in Christ, is—so to say—held back until the witness has been borne to the whole world concerning the judgment and salvation revealed in Christ. The implication of a true eschatological perspective will be missionary obedience, and the eschatology which does not issue in such obedience is a false eschatology. (Newbigin)

Threefold Witness

Witness in life (being; be the witness)Witness in deeds (doing; do the witness)Witness in words (speaking; say the witness)

Three Marks of Church: Acts 2:42-47

Devotion to apostles’ teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayer: Celebrating and nourishing kingdom life (v. 42)Life of kingdom manifested: Attractive ‘good news people’ (v. 43- 47)Lord adds to number (v. 47)

Church as Missionary Community: Nearby and Far Away

Pattern in Antioch (Acts 11, 13)

‘Evidence of the grace of God’ (11.23)‘Great number of people were brought to the Lord’ (11.24)Sent Paul and Barnabas to establish witnessing communities in areas where there was none (13.1-3)

Paul’s Pattern

Pioneer church planting (Rom. 15:23)Three missionary journeys

Build them up for faithful witnessVisits on journeysLetters

Mode of Witness in Acts

Attractive life of communitySpontaneous evangelism by common members of churchPlanting new churches

-Spontaneous Expansion of the Church (Roland Allen)

Jerusalem CouncilJewish form of ChristianityNew Gentile form emerges in AntiochSpreads in Paul and Barnabas’ journeyCrisisTorah: God’s creational design for a particular people at a particular time in a particular cultural context in a particular point in redemptive historyCouncil: “. . . not even the original, divinely sanctioned culture of God’s elect nation has the right to universalize its particular expression of Christianity.” (Flemming) Missionary encounter with every culture of world

Need for Cultural Analysis

Difficulty of situation of living amidst the nations: Danger of syncretismAll cultures shaped by idolatrous coreNeed to understand cultureRedemptive-tensionContrast community

Ending of Acts: 28 and 29?

Why so abrupt? Loose ends?

Story of Acts has not ended

Continues today until Christ returns. . . the ending of Acts is truly an opening to the

continuing life of the messianic people,as it continues to preach the kingdom and

teach the things concerning Jesus bothboldly and without hindrance (Johnson).

Mission of the church today

Being a light to the nations: Continuing the mission of Israel (Ex 19.3-6 cf. 1 Pet 2.9)Making known the kingdom: Continuing the mission of Jesus (John 20.21)Bearing faithful witness: Continuing the mission of the early church

Pastoral Ministry in the Missional Church: Nurture, Witness, and Structures

Michael GoheenVancouver B.C.

Three aspects to ministry

Nurturing our new life in ChristEmbodying our witness in the worldOrganizing the congregation for nurture and witness

Nurturing Our New Life in Christ

PreachingWorshipSacramentsFellowshipPrayerTraining parents for their rolePastoral care

Preaching

• First, preaching brings us face to face with Christ as he really is

• Second, preaching Christ invites God’s people into the true story of the world

• Third, preaching confronts the other stories and idols shaping God’s people

Preaching

• Fourth, preaching must make proclaim the gospel (proclamation) and its implications (teaching) as power of God unto salvation

• Fifth, preaching orients God’s people to the world

Missional Worship“. . . to reach this growing post-Christendom society in the West will obviously take more than what we ordinarily call an evangelistic church: it will take a missional church. This church’s worship is missional in that it makes sense to nonbelievers in that culture, even while it challenges and shapes Christians with the gospel. . . ”

- Tim Keller

Two Sides of Worship

Worship that is comprehensible enough to make sense to nonbelievers Worship that is thick enough to challenge and shape the church for mission

- Scot Sherman

Baptism as a commitment to counter-cultivation

To baptize . . . is in a sense culturally subversive: it is a commitment to cultivate and give a cultic vision . . . which is a radical alternative to the social-economic ‘cultivation system’ that is the Commodity Form. It is also, and more significantly, the incorporation . . . into the very life of a triune, covenantal, personal God. - John Kavanaugh

Lord’s Supper

Lord’s Supper: Often about benefits for individual believers rather than cultivating an alternative community nourished with the life of Christ for the sake of the world

Nurturing Our New Life in ChristFellowship: A channel of new life (Acts 2.42)Building (built up) and organic images (growth)Two foci in New TestamentGifts of the Spirit for the body ‘One anothering’

Gifts, upbuilding, outward-faceFor the sake of this upbuilding God equips the church with all sorts of gifts and powers that he places at its disposal, as also with various kinds of ministries that must further its upbuilding (Eph. 4:11ff.; 2 Cor. 10:8; 13:10; cf. Rom. 12:3, 6ff.; 1 Cor. 12:4ff., 28ff.). . . . [It is] directed toward the right and corporate manifestation of the church in the world.

- Herman Ridderbos

Three Images for Prayer

Shovel (John Calvin)Strategic position (Andrew Murray)Frontline prayer (C. John Miller)

Training parentsBaptism, covenant, Lord’s SupperFamily worship and prayerChildren and worshipPlay, quality time, activities, family traditions, befriending childrenDiscipline, personality differencesInstilling compassion, respectEducational optionsKnowing our cultureTechnology in the home

Which vision or orientation?Pastoral care in the grip of introverted and consumeristic orientationChurch as vendor of religious goods

and services serving the customerPastoral care in the grip of a missional visionNurture toward health for sake of

world

Witness of church in the world: Various themes

Understanding our cultural contextBeing a distinctive, countercultural communityTraining folk for their callingsEvangelismInvolvement in neighborhood Missions

Living Faithfully in CultureThe problem of leading a Christian life in a non-Christian society is now very present to us. It is not merely the problem of a minority in a society of individuals holding an alien belief. It is the problem constituted by our implication in a network of institutions from which we cannot dissociate ourselves; institutions the operation of which appears no longer neutral, but non-Christian; and as for the Christian who is not conscious of his dilemma—and he is in the majority—he is becoming more and more de-Christianized by all sorts of unconscious pressures; paganism now holding all the most valuable advertising space (T.S. Eliot,1946)

Analyzing Our Culture

Current religious beliefs: postmodernity, economic modernity and globalization, consumerismWay religious beliefs shape the institutions, structures, customs, life of culture

Equipping the congregation

Preaching: Encountering other storiesTeaching sessions and importance of worldviewSmall study groupsYouth ministry

Training LaityLaity play a crucial role in the witness of the church to the public truth of the gospelCongregations must find effective ways to train and equip laity for callingThis training and equipping has not really happenedMost Christians are godly, well-meaning believers who are shaped by Western storyBelievers trained for their callings are desperately needed today

Congregations and cultural callings

A congregation that nourishes new life in ChristA congregation that supports folk in their callingsA congregation that equips folk for their callings

Contextual Evangelism

• Evangelism must be contextual—that is, both relevant and challenging

“. . . there is the obligation to strive for the presentation of the Christian truth in terms and modes of expression that make its challenge intelligible and related to the peculiar quality of reality in which they live.” (H. Kraemer)

Present in the lives of people in attractive way

• Relational evangelism—time spent with people• Radical humility, love, kindness, respect, and

gentleness, untiring and genuine interest in people, their needs and dreams, sympathetic listening ear

• Dialogical rather than dogmatic approach; Refusing to offer cheap and easy answers to difficult questions; See our dialogue partners as friends and potential strugglers; Respect and compassion; Exchanging stories

Organically connected to lifeOne of the fundamental laws of all presentation of the Christian truth everywhere in the world is that this truth is vitally related to all spheres and problems of life, the most common and trivial as well as the most elevated. . . . The radically religious view of life as embodied in Biblical realism is of the same vital significance to man’s relation to his friend or fellow-villager, or to the way in which he spends his money or works his fields or accepts his material successes or adversities, as to the nurture of his spiritual life or to his religious needs and experiences in the more restricted sense of the word.

- Hendrik Kraemer

Miller: A roof and a certain Dutch church

• “Opportunity blindness”• Changing the attitude of the church and

changing the attitude of the neighborhood• Pacesetting deacons• The power of compassion

Pagans copy gospel of charity• In one of his letters, [Julian] wrote that the

sole aspect of Christianity which had impressed him was the Church’s charitable activity. He thus considered it essential for his new pagan religion that, alongside the system of the Church's charity, an equivalent activity of its own be established. According to him, this was the reason for the popularity of the “Galileans”. They needed now to be imitated and outdone. (Pope Benedict XVI)

Mission and Missions

• Mission: Total task of the church to witness to gospel in all of life

• Missions: Establishing a witness where there is none or where it is weak

• Not cross-cultural inter-church aid• Important dimension of whole mission of

church• Horizon of church’s mission

Disproportionate Allocation• “The scandal of the disproportionate

allocation of missionary resources” (Bryant Myer)

• Just over 1% of our financial resources and only about 10% of our personnel resources that are devoted to cross-cultural work actually serve the purpose of establishing a witnessing presence to the gospel in evangelised areas.

Structures and church’s calling• Structures can either enable or hinder church from being

faithful to calling• 20th century ecumenical history

1938-1952: Development of missionary understanding of church

Recognition that structures hindered the church from becoming full faithful to missional calling

Next step: Develop structures to facilitate missional identity

Blown off course by secular windsReturn to task today sometimes without depth in

theology

Structures and the Church’s calling

• “. . . every discussion of the structures of the Church presupposes a doctrine of the Church—hidden or acknowledged.”

• “. . . the structure of the church is itself an expression of the Gospel”

Structures and the Church’s Calling

• “We are saying that we have recovered a radically missionary theology of the Church. But the actual structure of our Churches . . . does not reflect that theology. On the contrary it continues placidly to reflect the static ‘Christendom’ theology of the eighteenth century.”

• “. . . highest priority must be given to bringing about those changes in the structure of the Church” (Lesslie Newbigin)

Structural Issues for Consideration

• Small groups• Missional communities• Leadership structures and training• Ecumenical structures• Budgetary issues

Next Baby Steps• Deepening your missional identity

Missional consciousnessMissionary encounter with cultureWay of life: Long term process

• Prioritizing what you will tackleWhat are you doing well?What would be difficult, even impossible to

implement at this time?Where is there possibility?What is your context?

A Contrast Community in 21st Century North America

Michael GoheenVancouver B.C.

‘They would have to sing better songs for me to learn to have faith in their Redeemer: and his disciples would have to look more redeemed!’

- Friedrich Nietzsche

Contrast Community in North America

A community of self-control and marital fidelity in world saturated by sex.

A community of truth (kind humility and gentle boldness) in world of uncertainty and suspicion.

A community that knows God’s presence in a secular world.A community of generosity and enough in world of

consumption.A community of forgiveness in a world of hatred,

competition, violence, grudges, and revenge.A community of praise in a world of narcissism.

Contrast Community in North AmericaA community of self-giving love in a world of selfishness

and self-gratification.A community of wisdom in a world of proliferating

knowledge and information technologyA community of humility in a world of arrogant self-interest.A community of patience in a world of immediate

gratification.A community of compassion in a world numbed by

overexposure to violence and tragedy.A community that uses language positively in a world of

destructive communication..

Contrast Community in North America

A community of depth in a culture of superficiality.A community of cheerful seriousness in a culture of triviality.A community committed to the important issues of our globe

in a culture of apathy and indifference.A community of self-giving in a culture of self-absorption,

narcissism, and entitlement.A community of joyful purpose in a culture ‘amusing ourselves

to death.’A community of joy in a world dominated by a frantic and

hedonistic pursuit of pleasure.A community of thankfulness in a world of entitlement.

Use of List

• Background goals for ministry—this is what we want to become

• Explicit challenge to congregation• Especially can guide preaching and

teaching• Shape one’s own life as model—

follow me as I follow Christ