Terminology
The missional living concept is rooted in the Missio dei (Latin, "the sending of God").
In 1934, Karl Hartenstein, a German missiologist, coined the phrase in response to Karl Barth and his emphasis on actio Dei ("the action of God"), seeing God as the primary acting agent in the world and within the church. [2]
During the International Missionary Council conferences of the 1950s and 1960s, Mission Theology began to take shape. It came to public attention in 1962, in Johannes Blauw’s book The Missionary Nature of the Church. [3]
In 1983, Anglican Bishop, and missionary to India, Lesslie Newbigin published The Other Side of 1984, which looked at the close ties between Western Christianity and Western society and the loss of influence which the church had upon society around it. In 1989 he wrote that according to Jesus’s statements in the Gospel of John, every Christian has been sent by Jesus with the gospel into the community to live with those in the surrounding culture for the sake of the King and His kingdom: “The Church is sent into the world to continue that which he came to do, in the power of the same Spirit, reconciling people to God.” [4] Jesus said, “As the Father has sent Me, I am sending you” (John 20:21).
"No one can say: ‘Since I’m not called to be a missionary, I do not have to evangelize my friends and neighbors.’ There is no difference, in spiritual terms, between a missionary witnessing in his hometown and a missionary witnessing in Katmandu, Nepal. We are all called to go - even if it is only to the next room, or the next block.”" [5]
Distinctive Reasons for Missional Living
One author has written, "It is imperative that Christians be like Jesus, by living freely within the culture as missionaries who are as faithful to the Father and his gospel as Jesus was in his own time and place.". [10] This embodiment of the gospel is often referred to as "contextualization" or "inculturation."
"Both refer to more than a simple translation of the gospel into different languages and cultures in the way that one translates a history book or a science text. Rather, they point to the embodiment of the living Word in human culture and social settings in such a way that its divine nature and power are not lost. True contextualization is more than communication. It is God working in the hearts of people, making them new and forming them into a new community. It is his Word transforming their lives, their societies, their cultures." [11]
These five biblical distinctives form the foundation of a missional perspective: [12]
- The Church is sent by Jesus Christ (John 17:18; 20:21, Luke 9:2; Matthew 28:19–20; Acts 1:8)
- The Church is sent with the Cross (1 Cor 1:18, Eph 2:16, Col 2:14, 1 Pet 2:24, 2 Cor 5:17–24)
- The Church is sent in Community (Acts 2:42–47; 5:42; John 13:34–35; 1 John 3:16–17)
- The Church is sent to every Culture (John 1:14; Matthew 20:28; Acts 17:22–34; Luke 5:29)
- The Church is sent for the King and His Kingdom (Matthew 10:7; 25:34; Luke 4:43; Rev 11:15–17; Jeremiah 10:7; John 18:36)
"Jesus was the first apostle. He was sent by his Father. He, in turn, sent the Twelve. They went to people who would then take the gospel to the rest of the world. Whoever received it would understand that they, too, had been sent. With the gospel being what it is, the church as bearer of the gospel is bound to be apostolic." [13]
Gospel
Jesus Christ said that He came to earth to seek and to save that which was lost (Luke 19:10). According to Scripture, without of Jesus’ death on the cross, and the resurrection, there is no salvation, no forgiveness, and no hope; because of the cross, there is eternal life. “For the word of the cross is to those who are perishing foolishness, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor 1:18).
The Kingdom of God was central to Jesus’ message and mission. The Book of Acts ends with St Paul, under house arrest in Rome, “proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance” (Acts 28:31). Christians are sent to proclaim the gospel of the kingdom so that others may enter the kingdom. George Hunsberger conveys the idea that the Church is pointing beyond itself to the kingdom of God. The Church is not an end in itself; God has a mission that goes beyond the Church which includes the kingdom. The kingdom and the Church must never be divorced, yet they also must never be equated. In a similar way, “the reign must never be separated from the One who reigns.”. [14] The kingdom is always at the heart of the King.
George Peters notes, “If man is to be reached, he must be reached within his own culture.” [15] This principle is observed when God became a man in the form of Jesus to come to earth and incarnate the gospel. As missionaries sent by Jesus, every Christian must learn to interpret their surrounding culture, uncovering the language, values, and ideas of the culture. Missional Christians use this information to reach people with the gospel message in the context, building their own Christian community in the process and bringing the gospel together to the culture.
The Missional Church Movement
The Missional Church Movement first arose during the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century. The movement seeks to rethink and redefine the nature of the church and create a new paradigm in which churches are seen as missional in nature, instead of attractional in nature. Leaders in the movement argue that instead of churches attempting to attract people to churches through church programs, churches should instead take the gospel outside of the church and engage society with the gospel, often by being involved not only in missions and evangelism but also in social justice movements. The missional church defines itself in terms of its mission - being sent ones who take the gospel to and incarnate the gospel, which is to announce to the world Jesus is its lord within a specific cultural context.
"Mission is not just a program of the church. It defines the church as God’s sent people. Either we are defined by mission, or we reduce the scope of the gospel and the mandate of the church. Thus our challenge today is to move from church with mission to missional church." [16]
The mission of the Church is to spread the gospel.
"Missional church is a community of God’s people that defines itself, and organizes its life around, its real purpose of being an agent of God’s mission to the world. In other words, the church’s true and authentic organizing principle is mission. When the church is in mission, it is the true church. The church itself is not only a product of that mission but is obligated and destined to extend it by whatever means possible. The mission of God flows directly through every believer and every community of faith that adheres to Jesus. To obstruct this is to block God’s purposes in and through his people." [17]
Missional living is a term that is used in contrast with historical institutional churches. Church leaders as well as Christians in general have often regarded the Church as an institution, to which outsiders must come in order to receive a certain product, namely, the gospel and all its associated benefits. Institutional churches are sometimes perceived to exist for the members and depend on pastors and staff to evangelize the lost. The "missional church", on the other hand, attempts to take Christ to "the lost". Members of the missional church are personally engaged in reaching their communities with the message of Jesus Christ.
The Acts of the Apostles is the fifth book of the New Testament; it tells of the founding of the Christian Church and the spread of its message to the Roman Empire.
The Gospel of Mark is the second of the four canonical gospels and one of the three synoptic Gospels. It tells of the ministry of Jesus from his baptism by John the Baptist to his death, burial, and the discovery of his empty tomb. It portrays Jesus as a teacher, an exorcist, a healer, and a miracle worker, though it does not expound upon the miraculous birth or divine pre-existence. He refers to himself as the Son of Man. He is called the Son of God but keeps his messianic nature secret; even his disciples fail to understand him. All this is in keeping with Christian interpretation of prophecy, which is believed to foretell the fate of the messiah as suffering servant.
The Gospel of Matthew is the first book of the New Testament of the Bible and one of the three synoptic Gospels. It tells how Israel's Messiah, Jesus, comes to his people but is rejected by them and how, after his resurrection, he sends the disciples to the gentiles instead. Matthew wishes to emphasize that the Jewish tradition should not be lost in a church that was increasingly becoming gentile. The gospel reflects the struggles and conflicts between the evangelist's community and the other Jews, particularly with its sharp criticism of the scribes and Pharisees with the position that through their rejection of Christ, the Kingdom of God has been taken away from them and given instead to the church.
The resurrection of Jesus is the Christian belief that God raised Jesus from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion, starting – or restoring – his exalted life as Christ and Lord. According to the New Testament writing, Jesus was firstborn from the dead, ushering in the Kingdom of God. He appeared to his disciples, calling the apostles to the Great Commission of forgiving sin and baptizing repenters, and ascended to Heaven.
In Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God as written in the Bible's New Testament, and in mainstream Christian denominations he is God the Son, the second Person in the Trinity. Christians believe him to be the Jewish messiah prophesied in the Hebrew Bible. Through Jesus's crucifixion and alleged resurrection, God reputedly offers humans salvation and eternal life, with Jesus's death interpreted as atoning for all sin, thus making humanity right with God.
The Churches of Christ, most commonly known as the Church of Christ or church of Christ, is a loose association of autonomous Christian congregations based on the sola scriptura doctrine. Their practices are based on Bible texts and draw on the early Christian church as described in the New Testament.
A Christian mission is an organized effort for the propagation of the Christian faith. Missions involve sending individuals and groups across boundaries, most commonly geographical boundaries, to carry on evangelism or other activities, such as educational or hospital work. Sometimes individuals are sent and are called missionaries, and historically may have been based in mission stations. When groups are sent, they are often called mission teams and they do mission trips. There are a few different kinds of mission trips: short-term, long-term, relational and those that simply help people in need. Some people choose to dedicate their whole lives to mission. Missionaries preach the Christian faith, and provide humanitarian aid. Christian doctrines permit the provision of aid without requiring religious conversion. However, Christian missionaries are implicated in the genocide of indigenous peoples. Around 100,000 native people in California, U.S., or 1/3 of the native population, are said to have died due to missions.
Kingdom theology is a system of Christian thought that elaborates on inaugurated eschatology, which is a way of understanding the various teachings on the kingdom of God found throughout the New Testament. Its emphasis is that the purpose of both individual Christians and the church as a whole is to manifest the kingdom of God on the earth, incorporating personal evangelism, social action, and foreign missions.
David Lipscomb was a minister, editor, and educator in the American Restoration Movement and one of the leaders of that movement, which, by 1906, had formalized a division into the Church of Christ and the Christian Church. James A. Harding and David Lipscomb founded the Nashville Bible School, now known as Lipscomb University in honor of the latter.
A pub church is a Christian Church which meets in a public house or similar establishment. Their purpose is to exist as an authentic Christian community, but in a way which is both provocative and accessible to un-churched people. Thornton recognises that the closure of public houses has diminished community space, and this is an attempt to restore this community asset.
Missio Dei is a Latin Christian theological term that can be translated as the "mission of God", or the "sending of God".
Redemptoris missio, subtitled On the permanent validity of the Church's missionary mandate, is an encyclical by Pope John Paul II published on 7 December 1990. The release coincided with the twenty-fifth anniversary of Vatican II's Decree on the Church's Missionary Activity, Ad gentes. It is devoted to the subject of "the urgency of missionary activity" and in it the pope wished "to invite the Church to renew her missionary commitment."
David Jacobus Bosch was an influential missiologist and theologian best known for his book Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission (1991) — a major work on post-colonial Christian mission. He was a member of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa (NGK), also known by its English abbreviation DRC. On Freedom Day, 27 April 2013, he posthumously received the Order of the Baobab from the President of South Africa "for his selfless struggle for equality ... and his dedication to community upliftment. By doing so, he lived the values of non-racialism against the mainstream of his own culture."
James Edward Lesslie Newbigin was a British theologian, missiologist, missionary and author. Though originally ordained within the Church of Scotland, Newbigin spent much of his career serving as a missionary in India and became affiliated with the Church of South India and the United Reformed Church, becoming one of the Church of South India's first bishops. A prolific author who wrote on a wide range of theological topics, Newbigin is best known for his contributions to missiology and ecclesiology. He is also known for his involvement in both the dialogue regarding ecumenism and the Gospel and Our Culture movement. Many scholars also believe his work laid the foundations for the contemporary missional church movement, and it is said his stature and range is comparable to the "Fathers of the Church".
Carl Edward Braaten is an American Lutheran theologian and minister.
Christianity in the 1st century covers the formative history of Christianity from the start of the ministry of Jesus to the death of the last of the Twelve Apostles and is thus also known as the Apostolic Age. Early Christianity developed out of the eschatological ministry of Jesus. Subsequent to Jesus' death, his earliest followers formed an apocalyptic messianic Jewish sect during the late Second Temple period of the 1st century. Initially believing that Jesus' resurrection was the start of the end time, their beliefs soon changed in the expected Second Coming of Jesus and the start of God's Kingdom at a later point in time.
Darrell Likens Guder is a theologian and missiologist who is Professor of Missional and Ecumenical Theology Emeritus at Princeton Theological Seminary.
The Kingdom of God is one of the key elements of the teachings of Jesus in the New Testament. Drawing on Old Testament teachings, the Christian characterization of the relationship between God and humanity inherently involves the notion of the Kingship of God. The Old Testament refers to "God the Judge of all" and the notion that all humans will eventually "be judged" is an essential element of Christian teachings. Building on a number of New Testament passages, the Nicene Creed indicates that the task of judgment is assigned to Jesus.
The Boro Baptist Church Association (BBCA) is a Baptist Christian denomination in the state of Assam. Established in 1927 by the American Baptist Missionaries and later nurtured by Australian Baptist Missionary Society ABMS. It consists of 219 churches and fellowships with a total population 40,000 above and 18,000 plus baptized members. The BBCA has its headquarters in the Tukrajhar Baptist Mission compound in Chirang district of Bodoland, Assam. BBCA is working in partnership with Baptist World Alliance, Global Interaction (Australia), Asia Pacific Baptist Federation, Seva Bharat, Missionaries Upholders Trust, Inspire India and Tura Baptist Church in Church Plantation and community development ventures to bring transformation in the lives of people, spiritually and economically. The motto of the church is "Arise and Build" Nehemiah 2:18
Practical theology is an academic discipline that examines and reflects on religious practices in order to understand the theology enacted in those practices and in order to consider how theological theory and theological practices can be more fully aligned, changed, or improved. Practical theology has often sought to address a perceived disconnection between dogmatics or theology as an academic discipline on the one hand, and the life and practice of the church on the other.
