TOWARDS AN UNDERSTANDING OF MISSIONAL LIVING

Traditionally the Christian sub-culture has focused on removing the Christian (albeit  kicking and screaming) from the wicked influence of the world. This is done  in order to harness and use his/her talent to enable said church to be more attractive to the world outside from which it seeks to draw others. All this is done however while such Christians remain firmly grounded in Church events and services which bring them largely into contact with their own kind. Hence the emergence of a deeply entrenched inwardly focused maintenance culture, now called the evangelical church.

There is a now a fresh breath sweeping God’s church in several parts of the world where  many Christians are revisiting their role and place in the world. As several revivalist and reformation movements emerge with emphases on God’s restoration of prophets and apostles to the church; and as several arguments are used to shoot down such ideas and even as there are attempts by some to place a heavy emphasis on the emergence of five-fold ministries (the church’s governance by Apostle, Prophet, Pastor, Teacher, Evangelist) there has been another subtle but not so quiet shift taking place in several circles of the church. I’m not ashamed to admit that  my heart has been awakened by this new but quite old idea for Church. Simply put it’s the realisation that the Church is not called to itself but to the world.

As the Church we have become significantly distracted by movements which  have focused significantly on us; our gifts, our roles, our titles, our needs. While there is  no argument with scripture about the graces given to the church of apostle, prophet, pastor-teacher and evangelist it is necessary that we understand that the apostolic revelation of the Church has always been with us; if not the Church would have ceased to exist. What we should perhaps seek to understand more keenly, is the reality that the Church has moved too far away from a new testament communal governance which focused on a team approach or eldership of workers, to a paradigm with an overt-emphasis on Pastoral responsibility in a heavily hierarchical structure. An attempt to shift the dominant-pastor-paradigm to an equally  dominant Apostolic hierarchy is still basically out of whack with scripture.

What has emerged therefore are intra  and and inter-church arguments about who is right while we miss the boat of a lost and dying world. While Ministers struggle with whether they should be addressed as “Pastor” or “Apostle” or about whether on not a church “flows under an apostolic anointing”, the world is basically clueless about the God we serve. We’ve basically become so obsessed with organizing church to meet our own needs for positions and titledom that we’ve forgotten why we are the church. Hence our re-focus on our place and role in the world.

So, in the midst of this theological and interpretational quandary happily walks a missional movement. The missional church has been described as ” a reproducing community of authentic disciples being equipped as missionaries and sent by God to live and proclaim His kingdom in their world” What is worthy of note about the rising emphasis on missional living and the missional church, is God’s stirring of the hearts of men and women away from modernist ideas of a tightly structured Church; away from a self-focussed, consumerist vision of church as a place to meet with God to have needs met, to the idea of church as a lived 24/7/365 experience which must be focused outward; away from the Christian. He has been moving His people towards an understanding that Church is neither an event nor a monumented or edificed place. Rather it is a community which must represent Christ in the earth in all spheres of life and culture as opposed to a Sunday-morning-Sunday-night-Wednesday-prayer-meeting-conference-convention-event-focused entity.

Now back to beginnings; the church emerged because a loyal, obedient group who followed Christ was sent by Him into the same world for which He died. What we learn about God in the scriptures of both the old and new testaments is the narrative of God’s focus on the world; God’s love for the world and God’s pulling of the world to himself, not from a superior distance but from a very active lived presence. Throughout time and history man’s struggles and falls have always been on account of his running away from the benevolent God of love; his desire to strike out on his own and make it on his own terms. This has propelled him on a path of “fallen-ness”, sin and degradation. The story of the Jews is certainly as much a story of man’s rebelliousness and wandering as it is the story of God’s loving patience and eternal providence towards His chosen people.

So God grew tired of it all and decided that the time had come to put into operation His plan from the beginning of time; (”Jesus Christ, Lamb of God slain befor the foundations of the world”). The God of eternity had already brought order from chaos by moving upon the formless void which was the earth. The darkness which lay upon the “face of the deep” as recorded in Genesis was dispelled when God; the spoken Word declared “Let there be light” and automatically; there was light. God immediately revealed Himself as the God of formation; the God of movement; the God who makes something of nothing; the God who has the power to refine and redefine what is; the God who is not a passive participant; but the God of action; of work, of movement; of definition; of sacrificial love.

While Satan through the serpent was successful in temporarily disrupting the order of God; God planned again to move into the human sphere in a way that could not be discredited or destroyed. Why? Because he himself would come; He would lay aside His own splendour and glory and take upon Himself the form of a man, of a servant and become obedient to death; even the death of the cross. This act was the ultimate ligitimisation and revelation of His love; His love was no longer just a spoken reality or a reality felt and experienced only through a rigid adherence to the law but now His love was operational, a selfless act, a becoming-of-man in order to reach man but yet without sin.

God’s mission; the “Missio Dei” is a latin term which represents not just an act which God did (God on a mission) but it describes God’s very character. According to Michael Frost, He is a missioning God; a God of movement, a God who is constantly propelled outward to reach fallen humanity; who came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance; the Word which became flesh or incarnated himself and lived among men.

The awakening now sweeping over God’s church is therefore born out of an understanding that God has in fact imbued His church with His missioning nature and that we are indeed not primarily called to ourselves, to serve ourselves but to the world for which He died. In this general scheme of things what becomes important is not so much my title, or the technological savvy of my church but my understanding of the fact that I am a part of God’s mission; in fact an extension of it; and I am sent to the world. What is important about being “Apostolic’ therefore is not the title or restoration of an office; but the understanding that apostolic and missional is our nature as the church;  it is our DNA. We are the “ecclesia” or called out ones who are sent to operationalise God’s mission. The important question is how do we now make this a reality in an age of belligerent post-modernism which is not interested in Church or anything remotely similar to it? It must make us think of fresh new contexts for living church as a viable Christ-centred experience which enables us to see the world through entirely different lenses. The world in this paradigm does not become a place from which we must hide, living life from behind the curtains/shutters of “churchy” experiences and the language called “Christianese”. Instead the world must become a place which we take on with all the fervent zeal we can muster because we know that residing within us is the power to transform it.

Just a little food for thought; be assured this will continue.

Denise J Charles

 

No Compromise Allowed

While I do agree wholeheartedly with the premise of a missional paradigm, as with any movement we must be aware that too far east is most definitely west. While God is calling us into relationship with our communities and while we as the church have always been called to live the Gospel there must be no compromise with sin. If we take note of Jesus’ encounters with people and if the missional paradigm proports to follow the path of Jesus then even as we embrace others we must do it as Jesus did. In all of Jesus’ interactions with sinners His message was usually “neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more”; this was always clear. God does not expect us to grow comfortable with sin so that we can reach others; Jesus is clear on showing others what a life of righteousness is; He never tows the middle. At the end of the day, the goal of a missional way of life must not be to make people so comfortable with sin that coming to church is a breeze. The holiness of Christ challenged those with whom He came into contact to turn from sin, so even as He hung out with publicans and sinners it was never from a stance of participating in their falleness. This is not something to make light of; the walk of the cross is a walk of holiness and righteousness. Yes we did go extreme with the stance of legalism in expecting us all to look the same and sound the same once we were Christians; but the definition of Christian/church must not change. We are the ecclesia or called out ones, called to be salt and light. We can only be this if our lifestyle is different as a result of our own personal transformation by the power of Jesus Christ. At the same time we must rid ourselves of the “Christian club mentality” if we hope to reach the lost. I would hate to see the concept of missional become degenerated to a point where there seems to be a complete absence of standards and where people think that anything goes. Mind you, from my readings of Michael Frost and my watching of a number of videos I do not believe that this is the true definition of missional but ultimately as people get hooked on a new word and on a movement there is always the possibility of it being watered down and evolving into something that it was never meant to be. This is why it is necessary to keep the dialogue gong but to also lace it with prayer and a careful study of the scriptures. I do agree with the stance of a need for balance.

 

Why Exactly Does the Church Exist?

I’ve been reading recently a discussion which pursued the idea or the question of whether the church should be “primarily understood as the instrument through which God (would) accomplish his purpose in creation”, or whether it was “ the expression of that purpose itself.” This led to a more defined set of questions; does God need the church? Why did God make man? Does God need man? In the understanding and pursuit of our purpose as mankind and more specifically as the Church, we must seek an understanding of the heart of God towards humanity.

Our ability to be truly obedient to the command by God at creation to be fruitful, to multiply, to replenish and to take dominion was interrupted by sin. Yes, our ability to physically and logistically reproduce offspring has remained virtually intact give or take a few incidents of infertility but fruitfulness and multiplication to my mind is extended beyond our ability to physically reproduce offspring. It is about productivity, creativity, impact and legacy. Being able to virtually pass on pieces of oneself to others, so that what is wholesome and Godly is extended to many others and is lasting. This allows the characteristics and personality of God imbedded in us to be more evident to others therefore making us more able to impact their lives; we literally become the infectious image of God in the earth. But how do we move from our Adamic state of fallenness and sinfulness to his point, and what does any of this have to do with the church?

The church from my understanding of scripture was never meant to be an end in itself. It was never meant to be an inner sanctum of sanctums or a holy temple/building to which people journey and reverence because it is where the presence of God dwells. The church is an expression of the purpose and intent of God for humanity as lived through the lives of ordinary people submitted to Him. It is first structured on the metaphor of marriage and oneness. Christ is the ultimate Bridegroom who has given himself for His bride. Through a relationship of obedience and intimacy, the glory of the Bridegroom is released within and upon the Bride and everyone knows that they have been together. But while we are an expression of God’s glory in the earth and a reflection of what He has already intended for mankind we are at the same time the instrument by which God has chosen to multiply this effect in the earth; much like the situation at Genesis.

As Adam and Eve were instructed to be fruitful, to multiply and to take dominion, Christ calls upon us His church, to be fruitful and to be productive. This is not a hidden clause nor is it written in fine print somewhere; this is a required characteristic of true followers of Christ. God’s movement on the earth as particulary evidenced through the life of Jesus Christ, always involved a moving outward and a reaching towards man, in order to bring Him into the plan and purposes of God. So where exactly has the church gotten the idea that we are simply the master’s show-piece to be put on display, particularly on Sundays; a time where we attempt merely to pull others in as a seeming end in itself. The result? Our memberships become fattened, our club atmosphere prevails and we grow comfortable in having our needs met. Our churches are growing, our pews are filled, we have numbers big enough to finally allow us to purchase that building or piece of land accoss the street but the surrounding communities are left without impact. If we disappeared, they would hardly notice! We’re however having such a “great time in the presence of God” (lost in His glory wonder and grace), that we fail to remember who is really lost; our communities; our nations. Evangelism or missions then becomes relegated to a programme with a Director and staff but it is not the life-blood that drives our stated mission. It is almost an appendage and is usually facilitated by older women or by a few “missionaries” who travel over-seas. I know of several Christians who may feel more comfortable paying loads of money to travel to over-seas conferences to “get a word from God” for themselves, than they would serving and transforming their local communities through daily/weekly random acts of kindness or service; sort of like Jesus in the Bible.

There is no choice between the two roles of the church. We are the expression of God’s purpose; the tangible evidence of His glory in the earth and we are most definitely the instrument which He has chosen to have this effect multiplied among communities of people and withinn nations. Church by virtue of its definition means that we are the called out ones; the ecclesia; but God’s purpose even in stating the “chosen-ness” of the Jews was always ultimately to draw all mankind to Himself. So even when the fact that we are called out or chosen is emphasized, we must never forget that we are not simply chosen for ourselves; there has always been a bigger picture at stake. The defining command to the church is to “go and make disciples of all men”. So does God need the church? Only because He has chosen to. The idea of God “needing” man is certainly not out of deficiency; our human understanding of need is that it represents a deficit; something that we do not have which we “need”. God is self-sufficient and therefore “need” may not be an appropriate idea to wrap our minds around but certainly God has chosen or elected to use us the instrument to create a domino effect. It is not that He couldn’t do it Himself but we are specially chosen to be in His image and likeness and we are the proverbial slap in the face of the devil. A people of choice who have purposed to walk a righteous life and a people who would dare others to do the same. Our mission must be an extension of God’s mission through Christ. He has chosen to use us out of His own generosity and abundance. He is not a selfish God. His desre is to share His work with us; His creation. Let us get up and show Him that He can count on us.

 

JESUS REVISITED

I’m absolutely amazed to find that there’s a book called “ReJesus”. Only recently at our local fellowship in Barbados “Break Free”, we did a study over a few Sundays entitled “Jesus Revisited”. The premise for these study sessions was to bring us into a closer awareness of who Jesus really is and was (in terms of his walking the earth over 2,000 years ago). Through our many years of ministry and involvement in Church life we have seen that who Jesus is has often been relegated to the back-burner of the life of the church. Many Christian are caught up with the fads of titles and movements; with worship “correctness”; doctrinal distinctives; theological arguments and even with Old Testament symbolism and liturgical practice while failing to focus on the bed-rock of Christianity and of the Christian Church; Jesus Christ Himself. In our study sessions, those in attendance basically agreed that their perceptions of Jesus were based on popular artistic imagery and on “traditional religious perceptions” of “gentle Jesus meek and mild”;( who wouldn’t harm a fly). Our revisioning of Jesus through the word of God causes many of us to see Him again as the radical social warrior which He was AND IS; someone who went against the grain of society and was not afraid to question and challenge the status-quo. What excited us most was our realization that Jesus didn’t shun sinners for fear of contamination; he interacted with the most unlikely of associates in the most questionable of places and what motivated Him most was the realization that he was carrying out His father’s mission; it was never ever about His image; It was and is entirely about His unconditional love for lost humanity. We too are called to continue God’s mission in the world in the Spirit of radical personal and social transformationism; we need a fresh new look at Jesus through the fresh lens of His word to understand how exactly we must follow suit. It calls for us to descend from the pulpits and meet people where life is happening. This is exactly what Jesus did; it is the essence of missional living.

 

They’re Still Waiting

We’ve just come through the very harried and exciting Christmas season; a time when Christians for sure should reflect on the single event that altered history for all time; God’s entrance into the human sphere and into human experience in the form of a man; the putting aside of His majesty, glory and royalty to become one of us and doing it without an attitude or superiority complex (some of us cannot even muster being an Elder/Pastor without an attitude). Christ (the Word of God as seen in Genesis) became flesh so that He could live among men; He incarnated Himself as a human being so that He could reach us and show us how possible it is to live righteously before God. It’s an awesome reminder to the Church during this season and beyond about what God expects of us. We must be an incarnational community of people;patterning ourselves after the model of Jesus; becoming flesh or “real”; exposing ourselves; our weaknesses; our failings so that the transforming power of Christ may be more effectively evidenced in us. We are not superior to the world; we are humbly transformed by the wonderful grace of God and our lives must be open books which tell others that basically if He took me and is still taking me (albeit kicking and screaming) out of my mess; then surely He can do it for you. Let’s inhabit the earth and be a part of the world Christ came to save, even though spiritually we’re not of it (we live by different rules; march to the beat of a different drummer) but we must be present if we’re going to transform humanity through the power of Christ; it won’t happe magically from the sidelines of heaven, (nor from the comfort and beauty of varnished pews and stained glass windows). Let’s step into the places where ordinary people walk; let’s live in their spaces and share their experiences (without sin!?)Let’s be energized and motivated to not just focus on Christ’s incarnation at this time of the year; but let us Live it; really; INSIDE OUT! The peole who live among us are waiting.

 

HOW TO BE A MISSIONARY (without getting on a plane)

When I was growing up there was a plethora of stories about missionaries who sacrificed the comforts of home and sometimes family (a la the water toilet & other amenities) in order to give of their lives on the known and unknown “mission fields” of the world. These fields were usually found in Africa, the South Pacific, South and Central America and the Caribbean where I live. Then there were those services held where the focus was on monetary or prayer support for those called to the ministry or missions overseas; there was as well the call of the Senior Pastors for young people to respond to the “call for ministry”. In this paradigm this inevitably meant a call to Bible school where the youth would study for pastoral ministry. What became deeply ingrained in the “spiritual psyche” of us at that time was the concept of ministry or sentness as a peculiar calling for a spiritual elite; for a few chosen who had been called aside to be the leaders in evangelism and discipleship. This “clergy” or “Priesthood” or “Pastorate” would adopt behaviour which confirmed that sense of being set apart and different from other Christians. This may have included dress, a certain manner of “sobriety” or seriousness and of course the running title of Reverend, Pastor, Bishop or other. Am I trying to make light the many sacrifices and the great work done by many of our founding fathers and mothers in the past? That is definitely not my goal or purpose because for many of us raised in evangelical churches we can and do most definitely appreciate the level of seriousness that was and still is directed towards the concept of a “call to ministry”.

These movements most definitely facilitated the growth of our churches and spewed the development of many of the denominations in existence today. I’m not one who thinks however that because something seemed to work or served a purpose that it should not be re-evaluated especially in light of the truth of scripture. We humans, especially in the church, have a way of simply feeling comfortable with a thing simply because we’ve always done it; our comfort usually has nothing to do with whether or not it was right; that’s simply called “being religious” in my book. Having however acknowledged the growth of Churches in the modern era, are we now contented and happy with the level of influence which the church has today? How do we feel about the fact that there is an entire generation which does not seem too bothered or concerned about joining our Christian clubs even though individually they may acknowledge a belief in God?

One of the obvious derivatives of the modern movement of church growth was a separation between the secular and the spiritual and a misunderstanding of the biblical teaching of separation from the world. Christianity and its Christian pursuits and professions became the essence of a private experience of God; everything not in the Church but in the “world” or the culture of the world was relegated as evil; this included music, dance and many aspects of the arts. The focus of Christian evangelism bcame a need to pull individuals from the world to build the church; which in essence became a private club of believers who were “Christianised” and socialised into the culture of Church-life; this by the way included a hefty fear of the big bad world. If you were a singer by profession and you became a Christian therefore, it meant that “singing for God” was translated into singing only gospel music; never mind if you were a teacher and you became a Christian this did not mean that You only taught Scripture or Bible verses. It never seemed to occur to the Church then, that possibly as a Christian, you could write love songs that would be wholesome and uplifting and have some positive influence on the music industry.

While these new believers and converts schooled in the ways of Church-life were being primed to draw others in (from outside in) the brunt of responsibility for evangelism and ministry effectively laid smack dab on the shoulders of the clergy or called out ones. Everyone else in church did perhaps see some minimal responsibility to witness from time to time by sharing the gospel message in word ot by handing out literature but the essence of a lived gospel among the world we were trying to reach (the essence of incarnation) was basically a foreign concept because we were taught to fear the world. Pastors and Ordained Ministers and those of like titles were those seen as responsible for carrying out the great commission and Christianising the world. The “laity”, on the other hand, became obsessed with ensuring that they were in the “right” church with the “right” Pastor(s) who could meet their needs. Thus the consumerist or “needs-focussed” bent of Church was born.

The Great Commission; really given to the Church for all time (the ecclesia/ called out ones: yes all of us); given to the priesthood of all believers and not just a few specially titled Priests and Bishops or Clergy has regretfully become the Great Omission; because we’ve missed it big time. All of us are sent; all of us are called; all of us are set apart by virtue of the fact that we are now called Sons of God; all of us (and not a select few) are responsible for the evangelisation of the world. We must now in our minds balance out the scripture which says “love not the world neither the things that are in the world . . .” with the understanding of “For God so loved the world that he gave. . . “. God’s word specifically instructs us about what we must NOT love in the world “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life” it says nothing about the people nor does it suggest that every aspect of culture should be denounced. We are God’s humanising force in the world; God made us in His image; sin interrupted the flow and now He calls us to extend the light of His presence; to participate with Him in His mission; His work of transforming the world for which He died. It does not necessarily start with us catching the next plane to the remotest part of Africa; (yes some may still do that) but more so, it calls for an understanding that missionaries are who we are; right here in our own cultures with the people we rub shoulders with daily; so BE who Christ has called you to be; Break free from the old mindsets; be a missionary; you definitely don’t need to catch a plane.

Denise J Charles