Part Three –Organising for Mission in a digital world that values participation
The relationship between the church and mission has always been a complex one — just ask three Christian leaders about the topic and you will get a myriad of different answers.
While it is true that the church was founded in mission, the stronger the church grew, the more that mission became only one item on a very long agenda. The more we reflect on the relationship between the church and mission, the more it becomes necessary to reflect on the following quote: —
“It is God’s mission that has a church rather than a church that has a mission” ~Van Gelder and Zscheile
As a starting point, it is useful to look at the three main paradigms that in the past the Church has used to organise itself to do mission:
The first one was in the ‘Apostolic Paradigm’ which was brought about by the early church.
The second was called ‘Christendom’ and was brought about by Christianity becoming the official faith of the Roman empire.
The third is currently emerging as a participatory ‘Missional Church’ that is rooted in partnering with the mission of God that is already happening in its midst.
It is worth noting that all of these paradigms were brought about by the Church's response to the predominant culture. What follows is a useful analysis of the history of God’s church as it has gone through three main paradigm shifts since the 4th century:
1. The Established Church
When the Church married the state in the 4th century, it caused the great divorce of heaven and earth. And Christianity entered a period of “Constantine Christendom,” where the chasm between earth and heaven could be bridged through the sacraments and mystical experience that could only be provided by the Church. This lead to a self-understanding of the Church as being God’s institutional presence in the world.
Mission was what the church did as an expression of its life within Christendom.
In such a system, the mission of the church became the attempt to thoroughly Christianise society and even on occasion to renew the church in its spiritual purity and its doctrinal understanding.
Keywords were Power and Politics.
2. The Corporate Church
Society was changing and the Chuch’s power was being called into question. It started to exist as an organization with a purpose to accomplish something on behalf of God.
The church would still be the sole vehicle to Christianise the world and have many programmes to meet different types of peoples.
While the Church began an understanding of a new organisational posture — many churches still saw this emerging paradigm of Church as yet one more strategic initiative that should be added a list of departments.
Keyword — Programmes
3. The Missional Church
Borne out of postmodernism, the Missional Church exists as:
“a community created by the Spirit that is missional by nature in being called and sent to participate in God’s mission in the world.”~Van Gelder
This participatory understanding of the Missio Dei prevents (in theory) the reductionism of God’s activity, wisdom, and presence, and concludes that all of God’s creation is under kingship — there is nothing more or less sacred.
Furthermore, the Missional Church understands that it is both a sacramental promise of the world’s future as the body of Christ while existing within the Triune God’s dynamic movement.
Keyword — Participation
Tip for reader-by spending time relecting on ones understanding of the missional church movement within the broad historical sweep of the missional church conversation will help leaders locate their current knowledge and practice within one or all three of the above paradigms.
Basic tenets of the missional church movement:
1. Missional hermeneutics: reading the bible of a God that is on mission to redeem and restore a world he created.
2. Missiology: Our study of how the mission of God is happening in the world.
3. Institutional crisis: the church not functioning very well. The church got pushed to the edge.
4. Culture has changed — Church worked for a while, but it does not work anymore. “The gospel no longer fits into people’s plausibility structure- the only way to make it sense is to live it alongside people” -Newbiggin.
5. Personal longing for a deeper faith: People want to be on a Spiritual journey and often don't value fixed doctrine.
Facets of the Emerging Missional Church Paradigm
An illustration of how the Missional church organizes itself is:
“This new image of (the missional ) Church is more dynamic, picturing not a building but a people, not a place but a movement, not an event but a community and lifestyle. This new image sees the church as created by the mission of God to live for the mission of God as the people of God in every place where God sends them to live” ~Nelson.
Kingdom-focused.
We can see parallels between the first (Apostolic Paradigm) and the emerging third paradigm (Missional Church) with regards to understanding that the kingdom is here — rather than in some distant notion of faraway heaven. This may give us some understanding as to why emerging 21st century Christians are being drawn towards alerting others to the reality that the kingdom is already here.
Participatory Leadership.
The participatory leadership model is grounded in the premise that the church is partnering with God’s mission and it is the Holy Spirit who leads Christian communities. Thus, the organisational structures of the emerging paradigm are forming around the premise that leadership is more of a behaviour than a role.
While previous paradigms of church leadership were grounded in, say:
- A priest (medieval)
-Pedagogue (Reformation)
-Profession (modern era)
Christendom assumptions proposed the leader of the church was clergy whose role was to look after the flock, often within a hierarchical structure.
The clergy were ‘set apart’ to represent Christ to their congregation (rather than informing the whole congregation to represent Christ to their neighbourhoods, through the power of the Spirit.
The (post-Christendom) emerging leader has more of a relational influence found through ‘participating’ with others on their Christian journey.
This posture connects with many Christians in the 21st century who want to be part of a Church that provides solutions to the brokenness that they perceive in today’s world,
A participatory form of Church
As God is a missionary God who sends his church into the world, this understanding shifts the agency of mission from the church to God, and most theologians seem to now agree there are four primary streams of Christianity in the 21st century ;
The Orthodox Church.
The Roman Catholic Church.
The Reformed Church.
The Missional Church.
While all streams of 21st century Christianity borrow practices from each other, a Fresh Expression could easily incorporate Monastic, Roman Catholic/Anglican, and emergent patterns and practices.
It is widely acknowledged that Fresh expressions, emerging church, church planting, and monastic movements are all part of a global movement of the ‘missional’ church.
What sets the missional stream apart is the focus on organizing itself around the concept that God is on a mission in the world, and that as a means to achieve this purpose — God is creating a much less hierarchal church whose ecclesiology is a consequence of the unfolding of God’s kingdom in one's locality.
Additionally, a paradigm shift of theological formation is beginning to happen that trains pastors and other leaders to understand themselves as ‘missionaries first, and ‘keepers’ of a distant faith second. This change of mindset will have dramatic consequences for the historical denominational churches as they strive to re-orientate their formation practices from an outdated Christendom model of formation practices.
Thus:
The evolving formation of disciples/leaders in the Missional Church paradigm will not reside too much in seminaries, but rather around the tables of Christians living out practices that seek God’s purposes.~Dunwoody
Ok, so if you have managed to get through part three 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.
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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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.
Wheatley, Margaret J. Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World.
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