Part Two: How Hope in The Kingdom Influences Mission
Foundations for Missional Discipleship and Spirituality
While the history of the Church often sought to create dualist practices that enforced a hierarchy of those who are ‘’closer’’ to God.
This sense of hierarchy seems hollow as at the time of this working billions are cry out in prayer for their families, neighbours, and leaders. The idea of having permission from the Church to join in God's desire to bring healing to this world might not be the most important thing on people's minds.
At the very core of the resurrection story is the access to God’s Kingdon through Jesus — no-one needs permission to acess Gods grace.
The Hodge-Podge of Everyday Life
In 2016 I asked a few of my close friends to walk around their neighborhoods in Montreal, Canada to with a view to discovering new insights and thoughts on what it means to recognise Gods Kingdom in their neighborhood.
One friend remarked that he had never intentionally just walked around his neighbourhood and not be in a hurry to go somewhere else. By undertaking this exercise over a period of time new insights and thinking started to emerge.
Remarking:
“I found this exercise increased my appetite for connection and rootedness in this neighborhood as a mission field; not to convert people, but to build meaningful relationships with the hodge-podge of people I pass by every day”.
Another friend in the research stated:
It is my hope that God’s Kingdom has an earthly realm that enables me to deal with the tough issues in my daily life and the lives of those in my social circles and that I model a lifestyle that draws others into my sphere of influence. I am aware I have no objective evidence of a God that is real, though, I do have hope in the Father's Kingdom which influences my spirituality.
This same friend remarked the following passage helps her makes sense of the craziness of everyday life and her quest to better understand the concept of Gods Kingdom:
“May the God of Hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:13)
The Divorce of Heaven and Earth
The Gospels teach that citizenship in the Kingdom of God is obtained by faith in Christ rather than by ethnic identity: the commendation of the Centurion's faith (Matt. 8:51–13), the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:33), the healing of the ten lepers, of whom only the foreigner returned to give thanks (Luke 17:16), the healing of the Syrophoenician’s’s daughter (Mark 7:26).
Luke's prime motivation with the book of Acts was to record the events that fulfilled the prophecies contained in the Scriptures.
The early church claimed the promise of Jer. 31:31–34 and understood itself to be the people of the new covenant.
Up until this point in scripture, God's people (the Jews) believed God's purposes were revealed through them and their idea of Kingdom.
In their book, Salvation Means Creation Healed: The Ecology of Sin and Grace: Overcoming the Divorce Between Earth and Heaven, Snyder and Scandrette warn that Christians must break free from restrictions that were put in place when Constantine created a divorce between heaven and earth.
This separation left a historical Christian legacy that seeks to continue to reinforce a secular/sacred divide.
This divide will only be harder to reinforce as the digital continues to empower people with information in a manner that has never been possible in our human history. In addition, as cultures, narratives continue to be more complex and meta-narrative break down — Any one form of dogma will be problematic in increasingly pluralist societies.
Therefore, the missional leader whose spirituality is grounded in God's promises can be set free from a life of fear and insecurity, by engaging in practices that recognize and proclaim all of creation as Holy.
Going forward, the simplest of practices to replicate from the early Church is for missional leaders to seek to bring about God's Kingdom in their locality, starting with their own families and friends.
Changing The Mindset
The actions of the Kingdom of God through Jesus and his disciples changed the mindset of the ancient world profoundly.
For the early Church to say “Jesus is Lord,” and not Caesar or any of his successors is a major missional mandate in itself.
Jesus laid a pattern on his followers for their own costly engagement with the world and all its issues as he prayed to his Father:
“As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world” (John 17: 18; cf. 20: 21).
With this mandate from Jesus, the Church begins to identify as a group of people who are on a common mission to make known the Kingdom of God.
As the early Christians sought to be a bridge from darkness and pain to hope and light; a new generation of twenty-first-century church leaders are seeking to draw others into the kingdom of God by acting, looking, and behaving like Jesus.
Going Down in a World that Praises Up
To understand the hope of God's Kingdom is to know that those who enter the Kingdom live both in the current age and in the age to come.
Discipleship through the hope of the Kingdom is to form Christian communities that serve as a bridge between the world of hopelessness, with its pain and injustice — to — a world of hope imbued with love and reconciliation.
The closeness of the Kingdom is revealed in the works of God, healing the sick and exercising his influence over creation, but the way these actions are accomplished shows that the Kingdom comes by way of humility, service, and self-denial, which run counter-cultural to a worldly understanding of ‘’Kingdom.’’
Importantly, disciples must not be scared of sacrificing as they go “down” (to serve the least influential) in a world that praises “up” (to power, money, and status) to virtues that may be of no value at all in the Kingdom of God.
Living out the action oriented life of Kingdom values may run in contrast to what the world, (and often the institution of the Church) values.
An Unseen Realm
Just as the Kingdoms on earth have lands, and as heaven has a realm, so too does the Kingdom of God have a realm.
This is an unseen Kingdom where God resides and reigns. Its presence explains why the apostolic preaching of the good news is geared towards proclaiming Jesus since he is proven to be the realisation of the Kingdom on earth.
With Jesus came the introduction of a different paradigm, distinct from prominent thought where the Kingdom of God was to be forthcoming in the future.
Jesus spoke of the Kingdon of God as both “what is to come” and “what is present” — using the terms “near” or “at hand” and what is yet to be revealed.
This leads to an entirely contrasting notion of time and its relation to the Kingdom. God's reign has both started and is yet to be accomplished. This biblical theme informs believers that those who enter the Kingdom live both in the current age and in the age to come.
In 2018 I conducted some research focused on how Churches and individuals were organising themselves to respond to the partnering with the Kingdom of God in their own locality by interviewing a selection of Church leaders in Norway and Germany.
These folks all identified as ‘’Missional leaders’’: Christians who primarily organise for mission through their understanding of Kingdom theology and believe their role is to join in with the work of God that is already happening in their context.
There was clear evidence that only three of the seventeen churches demonstrated a core purpose of growing a church (ecclesia), from the Kingdom being revealed in their context (Mission of God).
In conclusion: The above observations of how hope in the Kingdom might influences mission in their context presents identity questions with Church leaders as to whether their primary identity is in church leadership or as an agent of God's kingdom in all areas of their lives.
And we can assume it will continue to be a tension for a missional leader to balance the demands of everyday church leadership with their incarnational impulse to live a life of intentional presence in the lives of the people in their spheres of influence.
With regards to How Hope in The Kingdom Influences Mission in your context:
What questions arose?
What insights arose?
What observations arose?
Works Cited
Bosch, David Jacobus. A Spirituality of the Road.
Brueggemann, Walter. Journey to the Common Good.
Dunwoody, Mark. Introducing Canadian Church Planters and Denominational Leaders to the Canadian Missionary Crisis.
Dunwoody, Mark. The beauty of change continues: effective practices of a blended ecology of Church
Escobar, Kathy. Down We Go Living Into the Wild Ways of Jesus . Down We Go: Living Into the Wild Ways of Jesus.
Hirsch Alan. 5Q: Activating the Original Intelligence and Capacity of the Body of Christ.
Hirsch, Alan. The Forgotten Ways : Reactivating the Missional Church.
Hirsch Alan, Debbie. Untamed, Reactivating a Missional Form of Discipleships. .
“”Historic Models of Fresh Expressions.”” Fresh Expressions US, http://freshexpressionsus.org/2016/11/14/historic-models-fresh-expressions/.
Holt, Simon Carey. SPIRITUALITY & MISSION IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD God Next Door.
Jane, Mary. Vision: Living Under the Promises of God Study Group.
Morisy, Ann. Journeying out : A New Approach to Christian Mission. London ;
Nelson, Scott. Vision : Living Under the Promises of God.
“”One Simple Reason Dinner Church Is Trending.”” Fresh Expressions US, http://freshexpressionsus.org/2017/10/26/one-simple-reason-dinner-church-trending/.
Scandrette, Mark. Practicing the Way of Jesus Life Together in the Kingdom of Love . Practicing the Way of Jesus: Life Together in the Kingdom of Love.
Scott, Nelson. The Eight Practices of a Disciple on Mission.
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. Wright N.T. Surprised By Hope.
