Doing Mission? Or Being Missional?

Pastoral Perspective — On the Purpose of the Church  Rev.Espiritu.net

Doing Mission?  Or Being Missional?  

In his book Missional Church, one of my professors at Princeton Theological Seminary, Darrell Guder quotes South African theologian David Bosch (author of Transforming Mission) to help his readers understand how churches shaped by the Reformation came to view themselves as “a place where certain things happen” (a view not intended by the Reformers, asserts Dr. Guder). 

“Church” has become a place where we gather on Sunday morning for worship and Sunday school.  This is a misunderstanding that many of us have fallen into including clergy, who are thought to be those professionals who are authorized to perform certain activities in certain places.  Dr. Guder goes on to say that in this view of the church as a “place where certain things happen,” the church’s identity becomes embedded in its institutional structures (local and national) and in its professional class, the clergy.  And the church becomes just another societal place to “go to,” like you would go to the mall or attend school or join a club. 

In this view the church can forget its purpose while being so concerned about programs and institutional maintenance.  Under this view “mission” is viewed as a program of the church rather than the purpose of the church, something that happens at great physical or social distance, another place you “go to.”  We thereby lose the capacity to see mission as the purpose of God’s people in every time and place. 

But the church is beginning to see itself in a new way.  “Mission” is not a program of the church – it is its essence.  “The church’s essence is missional, for the calling and sending action of God forms its identity.  
Mission is founded on the mission of God in the world, rather than the church’s effort to extend itself.” (Guder, p. 80-81) 

Tim Dearborn has put it this way: “It is not the Church that has a mission, but the God of mission who has the Church.” 

So, what is a missional church rather than a church that “goes” to or “does” mission?  What might it look like?  

Ø      The missional church sees its purpose as discovering what Jesus Christ is doing in the world and being a witness to him.  

Ø      The missional church spends more time equipping people to be the church scattered more than just the church gathered.  It challenges its people to grow more alive in their faith, to look out to the world and seek out those places where God is already at work and join him in that work, whether in families or neighborhoods and workplaces or beyond.  

Ø      It is more concerned about getting the message out than bringing people in.           

The missional church is all of this and much more.  Can we get there from here?  Yes, I believe God, by the Spirit’s power that raised the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead, is already doing so. 

And God is able to make all grace abound to you so that in all things, at all times [and places], having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.  –2 Corinthians 9:8

In Christ,

Pastor Rex

 

Adapted from the » e-Newsletter July 18, 2006 of the Presbyterian Global Fellowship  http://PresbyterianGlobalFellowship.org/eNewsletters.aspx