MISSIONAL CHURCH

Called and Sent to Represent the Reign of God

 

The current predicament requires more than tinkering, there is a need for reinventing or rediscovering the church in this new kind of world

 

Called to be Both Relevant and Faithful

The church may fit well into its social environment, but unwarranted accommodation may cause it to lose touch with its biblical warrant.

Or the church may adhere too strictly to scriptural forms of expressing its faith…and in the process neglect to translate the biblical warrant into an incarnation relevant to the church’s current time and place.

Reformation emphasis

"marks of the true church" that such a church exists wherever the gospel is rightly preached, the sacraments rightly administered, and church discipline exercised.

PROBLEM: Church is conceived of as "a place where…"

Reformers notion

The Reformers believed that the commission Jesus left with the apostles---to disciple the nations--- was fulfilled in the first century. Therefore it was no longer required of the Church

Colonial expansion raised new questions

They encountered people who had never heard the gospel.

This gave birth to mission organizations which were later adopted into the life of the church.

But mission continued to be thought of as something that happens "over there"

 

20th Century Brought New Understanding

 

Apostolic Church

Denotes both

Foundation (represents the Apostle’s teaching)

and

Commission (re-present Christ)

This rethinking of the nature of God, church, and mission would appear to be a promising development if it were in fact evident in the operative style of today’s churches or in the conceptions that govern them.

But it is not.

 

Church: a place where...

Both those inside and those outside see the church as a place where religious services and goods are dispensed

Church as voluntary organization

Voluntary organizations live off the willingness of its members to remain in it. Gaining the loyalty of members and retaining that loyalty takes priority.

Church as organization

Attention is focused on the division of labor around the task of planning, organizing, structuring, and managing.

Managing the organization becomes the equivalent of being the church.

 

Money

Where religious affiliation is a matter of choice, churches must compete for members. This gives birth to concepts of marketing the church

 

A Contrast of Membership

Committed customers consuming religious products and services

vs..

members as those who have a communal calling to be a body of people sent on a mission

 

The Churches essence

Always embodied in some tangible, visible form that is shaped by its time and place (thus forever changing)

But what makes it the church is that its life is birthed by the Holy Spirit as the Spirit gives hearing and response to the gospel of Jesus Christ

 

The Gospel

Portrays the coming of Jesus and particularly his death and resurrection, as THE decisive, truly eschatological event in the world’s history

A community of the Gospel is "an eschatological community of salvation."

The church is defined by its origins in a gospel that casts a vision of its destiny that always draws it forward.

This definition suggests for the church a lifestyle of continual conversion as it hears and responds to the gospel over and over again.

The church must ask itself whether its forms reflect an authentic hearing of the gospel and a genuine sharing of its vision.

The Gospel is Jesus Himself

The New Testament’s Gospels narrate the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus as the action of God that both

-reveals God’s passion for the world and

-achieves God’s purpose for the world

Believing in Jesus

Also means believing Jesus about the reign of God

The Reign of God

The church should not separate the reign of God from God’s provision of salvation.

The Reign of God

Not : Built, established, extended, spread nor grown

Biblical words regarding the Reign of God

Receive

Enter

Reign of God

God’s gift and welcome are the most striking and critical features of God’s reign.

God’s reign is both a present fact and an anticipated future. (Eschatological)

Inherent in the understanding of God’s reign are also the issues of Repentance and Faith

Receiving and Entering

Actions that mark a turning form other hopes and loyalties that we may find the singular hope in the one true God

Receiving and entering the reign of God are the ways we "turn to God from idols" (1 Thes. 1:9)

Daily Life

Becomes a discipline of asking how one may move more squarely into the realm of God’s reign and how one may welcome and receive it into the fabric of one’s life this day more than ever before.

-Evangelism would move from an act of recruiting to an invitation of companionship

The Church represents the reign of God

Sign and foretaste

Community, Servant, and Messenger

Community

Servant

Messenger

Community, Servant, and Messenger

It is important to hold these three together. To look through all three lenses at once in order to see mission as a whole

 

Three Points in Conclusion

First: Churches are called to be bodies of people sent on a mission rather than storefronts for dispensing religious goods and services

Second: Churches must discover what it means to act faithfully on behalf of the reign of God within the public life of their society.

Third: Churches must learn to speak in post-Christendom accents as confident yet humble messengers of the reign of God

 

The Church

By daily receiving and entering the reign of God, through corporate praying for its coming, and longing for its appearance, and in public living under its mantle, this missional character of the church will be nourished and revived.

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