Part two — Beyond Jerusalem: Lessons for the missional leader from the paradigm shifts of the Christian church
The expansion of world Christianity:
Reading the book of Acts reminds us how often ‘unwelcome disruption’ comes to the Church and though people pray against it and hope that God would never let terrible things happen- disruptive change results in a deepening and expanding of spiritual and numerical growth for the Church.
Christian history has experienced many changes, and its centre of gravity has evolved. Three of these centres have been pivotal, as they all led to a metamorphosis of the Christian interpretation:
- The first (Pre-Christendom) is when a number of unnamed men presented the Messiah of Israel to the Greeks (Acts 11:20). It reflected a massive movement of people nurtured in Hellenistic civilization to worship the God of Israel.
- The second (Christendom) is when the peoples of the north and west, who were previously thought of as barbarians — those who sought to destroy Christianity, came to faith and replaced their traditional Gods with the God of Christianity.
- The third (Post-Christendom) emerged in the 20th century, has grown apace in the southern hemisphere, and now outnumbers the northern hemisphere. This means that the majority of Christians in North America will be of many different ethnicities by 2050 — with 71 percent of the world’s Christian population residing in Africa, Asia, and Latin American.
The notion of paradigm shifts
As we come towards the end of the second decade of the twenty-first century, and in light of the current global change in growth it is useful to look back on Christianity as a movement throughout the ages to see what we can relearn about missional paradigms.
David Bosch outlines, in his seminal publication, Transforming Mission, six meta paradigms in the history of the church in the west; a telling point that the transition from one paradigm to the next has come as a consequence of, and a response to situations of profound theological, missiological, and cultural challenge, stating:
“the church is always in a state of crisis and that its greatest shortcoming is that it is only occasionally aware of it.”
The journey into a new paradigm will require a new vision to break out of the current stalemate towards a different kind of missionary involvement — with recognition of standing at a specific period or era of mission, and does not mean dumping everything generations of previous Christians have done before us.
Macro-Historical Paradigms
- The Apocalyptic paradigm of primitive Christianity. In this early period of the church, most Christians would have been Jews, and what existed was effectively Christian synagogues.
- The Hellenistic paradigm of the patristic period. The first primary cross-cultural translation of the gospel from the Palestinian and Jewish world to Gentile Hellenistic culture, and so the church had to learn new ways to adapt to its host cultures.
- The Medieval Roman Catholic period. The church in Western Europe has adopted Latin as the standard medium to study scripture. This Latin culture sought to absorb the various Germanic tribes that entered Western Europe from the middle of the 6th century onwards and was used as a uniting language of the Celtic evangelism era.
- The Protestant (Reformation paradigm). The church that emerged at the time of the Reformation acted as a bridge between the old medieval world and the beginning of an emerging modern world.
- The Modern Enlightenment paradigm. The world of the Enlightenment saw the emergence of many new denominations, new kinds of theological education, and a very different settlement with culture than that which had existed in the medieval or Reformation periods.
- The Emerging ecumenical paradigm. Bosch states that the new epoch is one which will be characterized by a new ecumenical mood. It is too early to say if he will be proved to be correct. It is as likely that the coming period will be characterized by the strength of the Pentecostal or Charismatic paradigm.
Micro (since the 1900s) Historical Paradigms
The end of Christendom. As recently as 1910, the World Missionary Conference missional premise was that they wanted to gather to decide how best to reach those lands that were not yet fully missionized. This conference was what some might call the last flourish of this type of thinking.
Thus, many writers and theologians would suggest the centuries-old concept of Christendom precluded that particular nations being Christian and others lay outside of it (these countries were not Christian), is no longer useful or relevant.
To further add to the depth of evidence against any argument for Christendom to being present in the world, we could suggest that despite Christians being more diffused throughout the world than they have ever been, there are no obvious new Christian states.
In the 20th century, there were various conferences and global gatherings that sought to address the changing, radically evolving, concept of ‘mission.’
Scott Nelson suggests six gatherings helped to shape the modern-day concept of mission by addressing the following transformational questions:
1. How Missions (WMC Edinburgh, 1910). Addressed how the countries that were not yet Christian might be ‘Christianised.’
2. Wherefore missions? (IMC Jerusalem 1928). The relationship between the ‘older’ churches and the ‘younger’ churches received a considerable amount of attention.
3. Whence missions? (IMC Madras 1938). As the distinction between Christian and non-Christian countries was, in principle, abandoned, the relationship between church and mission started to be discussed.
4. Whither missions? (WCC Amsterdam 1948). Reflected on the calling of the church to mission and unity.
5. Why missions? (IMC Willingen 1952). Advocated for the shift from achurch-centred mission to a mission-centred church.
6. What is Christian mission? (IMC Ghana 1957/58). It was decided that we should neither subordinate mission to the church nor the church to mission; both should, instead, be taken up into the Missio Dei — the Missio Dei institutes the Missiones Ecclesiae.
It is worth noting that the change of thinking at IMC Ghana initiated a systematic missional shift in World Christianity. And we have seen an outworking of this new missional thinking through various shapes and models of the missional church:
- Church renewal movement (the 1960s and 1970s).
- Church growth movement (1970s and 1980s).
- Church effectiveness movement (1980s and 1990s).
- Church health movement (1990s and 2000s).
- The Emerging Church movement (1990s and 2000s).
- Fresh Expression Movement, 2004 — present.
Interestingly my personal experience in the area of developing new Christian communities has highlighted that while paradigm shifts in how Church has previously formed over hundreds of years — the post-internet age of Christianity appears at this juncture to have much shorter and faster-evolving paradigms of mission leading to new types of churches.
We can assume in the next five years there will be new Christian communities forming in a manner that would not have been imaginable to Christians in the previous five years.
Ok, so if you have managed to get through part two without falling asleep-congratulations!
Your homework is to grab a cup of tea with others, reflect on the question below, and let your creativity go wild!
With regards to you discovering new forms of missional-incarnational life and ministry in your context:
What questions arose?
What insights arose?
What observations arose?
Part One — It might be Mission history: though not as we know it
Part Two — Beyond Jerusalem: paradigm shifts of the Christian church
Part Three –Organising for Mission
Part Four — Redrawing our Maps
Works Cited
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Brown, Brené. Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead.
Collins, Travis. Fresh Expressions of Church. Seedbed Publishing, 2015.
Dunwoody, Mark. A Spirit-Filled Life of Adventure. Montreal.
Dunwoody, Mark. The beauty of change continues: effective practices of a blended ecology of church.
“Forge Missional Leadership Training.” Forge America,
Kelley Tom. Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All.
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Roxburgh, Alan J., and Fred Romanuk. The Missional Leader: Equipping Your Church to Reach a Changing World.
SNYDER, and Snyder, Howard A. Salvation Means Creation Healed Snyder, Howard A.. Salvation Means Creation Healed: The Ecology of Sin and Grace: Overcoming the Divorce Between Earth and Heaven.
Van Gelder, Craig. The Ministry of the Missional Church: A Community Led by the Spirit.
Van Gelder, Craig, and Dwight J. Zscheile. The Missional Church in Perspective: Mapping Trends and Shaping the Conversation.
Walls, Andrew F. The Missionary Movement in Christian History: Studies in the Transmission of Faith.
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