finding that Jesus is enough

Wilbert Shenk asserts …

Without mission the church dies.  Although what we ordinarily call the church may continue to exist as a religious group, a missionless church is no long an authentic church.  The proof of its missionary character will be demonstrated by its response to the world. (“New Wineskins for New Wine: Toward a Post-Christendom Ecclesiology,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research, April 2005, 75)

Shenk’s point is that church renewal and outreach must accompany each other.  Both dimensions must be addressed, if the church is to do more than just exist as organization, as religious entity.  The church exists to give witness to the glory and purposes of God … without this mission it betrays its charter and constitution.

The irony is that as the contemporary church feverishly seeks to renew itself via a focus on its growth, health, services to members, branding, worship styles, etc., it is in fact doing the opposite-destroying itself.  Jesus said, “unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds” (Jn 12:24).  Unless the church gives itself away in witness to, care of, and justice for the neighbor nearby and those at the ends of the earth, it will die.  Mission rhetoric and seasonal participation in mission emphases are not substitutes for giving ourselves away.  Mission means we give ourselves to the world, go ourselves to the world, and love the world more than ourselves.  This is the mission of and hope for the church.

Join us at Truett Theological Seminary, Waco, Texas for the Parchman Endowed Lectures, October 13, 14, and 15 (2009).  Our guest lecturer will be Lamin Sanneh, D. Willis James Professor of Missions & World Christianity and Professor of History, Yale Divinity School.  Born in Gambia of royal African lineage, Sanneh is an editor-at-large of The Christian Century, contributing editor of the International Bulletin of Missionary Research, series editor of Oxford Studies in World Christianity and the author of more than a hundred articles and several books, including the recent Whose Religion is Christianity? The Gospel Beyond the West (Eerdmans 2003), Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture (Orbis 1989), and Disciples of All Nations: Pillars of World Christianity (Oxford 2008).

Dr. Sanneh will lecture at 9:30 am each of these days under the general theme of Connecting World Christianity: New World Parameters.  This is a rare opportunity to hear a leading voice in the interpretation and shaping of world Christianity.

 ”The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve.”
    Mark 10:45 

Just as Christ came as a servant, service is the role of the church.  And yet, the church is constantly tempted to be a triumphant and victorious community that aligns itself with power, privilege, and place rather than finding itself in the places of service.  There is a fine line between the the “victorious Christian life” and the assumption that privilege and rights belong to us irrespective of others.  An indicator of when we have crossed that line is when we expect to be served by the powers in society, to be at the head of the table, to be respectable and honored - to be socially advantaged. 

History shows that the people of God usually do not voluntarily move toward service.  Rather, service is forced on us via humiliation, loss, and exile.  Quite possibly the American church is at the brink of such loss.  The Christendom arrangement within the American context (particularly in the South) has run its course, and Christianity is being disestablished in school, by government, in polite society, and within the wider popular culture.  Many Christian leaders act as though it is still 1950 and that society still cares about what they have to say or is looking for them to determine what is right or wrong.  However, the year is 2009 and society is not listening, nor does it care what we think.  At best, the wider culture only wants to manipulate and corrupt Christianity for its ends. 

The need for the gospel to be at home in its context (contextualization) must be balanced by the necessity of critical self-examination.  Christianity becomes un-Christian when its essence is severely diluted by societal forces.  Patriotism and gospel, consumerism and gospel, entertainment and gospel, sports and gospel, wealth and gospel are dangerous mixtures that can and will mute the church’s voice and disengage it from mission.   Thus, the church constantly needs are reminder; a means to assist it in strking the right balance.

Service is the means through which we remember who Jesus is and are reminded who we are to be.  Jesus was in the world, for the world, and serving the world.  Our renewal as the people of God will not come through accumulating more power, or recapturing a golden era, or re-inventing ourselves.  Rather, renewal comes as we realign our mission to that of the Suffering Servant by taking up a towel, kneeling before the maimed and marginalized-washing feet, dressing wounds, and loving without conditions. 

Service is not resignation from or a forfeiting of the church’s role in society.  It is the means through which it actually is salt and light, permeating the whole of society.  The power of the gospel is made real not in our alliance with the state or in political maneuvers but in our service.

Jesus came to serve; we are called to serve.  Either we freely pick up the towel or circumstances may force it on us.

As already noted in previous posts (2008: Oct 19; 2009: Jan 9, 23, Mar 11, 22, Apr 12, May 19), the face of global Christianity has been radically altered.  Jehu Hanciles, Beyond Christendom: Globalization, African Migration, and the Transformation of the West (2008), highlights how the development of Christianity into a non-Western religion has impacted Western Christendom.

According to the World Christian Encyclopedia (2001), the church in Europe and North America is losing members at a rate of six thousand members a day (just over 2.2 members a year).  The level of apostasy is much higher with regard to churh attendance: roughly 2.7 million church attendees in Europe and North America cease to be practicing Christians every year (an average loss of seventy-six hundred every day).  These extraordinary developments are substantiated by numerous reports (114).

How are we to respond to such information?  Several options: We can dismiss this information as only academic, statistical mumbo-jumbo, or we can give way to resignation, hand wringing, and despair, or we can pursue the questions which this information provokes.  

I believe that integrity and faithfulness demand that we pursue the obvious questions.  Such questions as …

• Is this a signal that the church has lost its place of prominence in Western culture, or that faith has been successful translated into new places and fresh expressions?
• Does the decline in church attendance indicate an abdication of faith or that people are doing their faith in different ways and places?
• Where are those who leave going?  To new religions, other forms of ’spirituality’, or to the mall?
• Has denominationalism run its course and thus is the blame or cause of the statistical decline?
• Where would the church in Europe and North America be if not for Pentecostalism and Charismatics?  If not for Christian immigrants from Africa and Latin America?
• Has the Western church merely succumbed to the long process of secularization and thus just needs to rediscover or rejuvenate its conservative and/or evangelical moorings? 
• Is the information a call to re-double our efforts to re-evangelize the homeland, or is it a cause to rethink the nature and purpose of the church within Western culture?  
• For what reason and on what basis should we continue sending missionaries to Africa, Latin America, and Asia? 
• In what ways should the shift evoke adjustments in our personal and corporate lives? 
• In what ways should the shift cause us to rethink faith, church, theology, missions, etc?  

Tough questions!  Some would say these kinds of questions should not be voiced aloud, less we undermine our evangelical and missionary commitment and resolve.  Well, my contention is that to avoid these questions and blissfully continue doing church and missions as if nothing has changed is irresponsible.  Faithfulness to the gospel and the mission of God demands that we not dodge, dismiss, or mask difficult or uncomfortable questions.  Nor is it acceptable to just keep repeating well-worn answers.  The change in world Christianity is massive, complex, and dynamic and thus demands that we make reasoned and intentional adjustments in our thinking, living and loving.  Tough questions require an authentic response.

Alan Hirsch seeks to provide clarity in the midst of mounting confusion over the word missional.  After stating that missional does not mean emerging or seeker-sensitive, and is more than social justice and church growth, he offers his understanding of missional.

A proper understanding of missional begins with recovering a missionary understanding of God.  By his very nature God is a “sent one” who take the initiative to redeem his creation. This doctrine, known as missio Dei-the sending of God-is causing many to redefine their understanding of the church.  Because we are the “sent” people of God, the church is the instrument of God’s mission in the world.  As things stand, many people see it the other way around.  They believe mission is an instrument of the church; a means by which the church is grown.  Although we frequently say “the church has a mission,” according to missional theology a more correct statement would be “the mission has a church” (Leadership, Fall 2008, 22).

I completely agree.  Missional has been co-opted and turned into the next emphasis, a new technique, or some slick program.  Instead, missional has to do with theology - our understanding of God; who he is, what he does, and his ultimate purpose.  A clear understanding and use of missional is essential, if the church is to be God’s church.  The church needs to hear anew that God is a sending God, and thus, the church is a missional people.  She exists for God’s mission.

Why do missions?  Is it merely because Christ commands us to ‘go’, and thus we must obey?  Is it because we are under orders of a sovereign God, so we must do as we are told?  Roland Allen, missionary thinker and prophet of a previous era, answers the why question in the following manner … 

Had the Lord not given any such command, had the Scriptures never contained such a form of words, … the obligation to preach the Gospel to all nations would not have been diminished by a single iota.  For the obligation depends not upon the letter, but upon the Spirit of Christ; not upon what He orders, but upon what He is, and the Spirit of Christ is the Spirit of Divine love and compassion and desire for souls astray from God (Missionary Principles, 1968, 31).

Almost the entirety of my mission formation centered around one text, Matthew 28:19-20, and thus, mission for me was one-dimensional and narrow.  The ‘Great Commission’ is certainly important, but it is not the whole.  Missions runs throughout Scripture from beginning to end, and it is at the heart of who God is.  We do missions not for one simple, narrow reason but for multiple reasons that are as broad as both testaments and as big as God.  We do missions because God through “divine love and compassion and desire” sought and redeemed humanity, and as those reconciled we now participate by grace in the same ministry of reconciliation.

 In The Coming of the Third Church (Orbis, 1976), Walbert Bühlmann makes an interesting connection between church growth and maturity …

“growth in maturity in a minority Church brings, as a consequence, numerical increase while growth in maturity in a majority Church leads in most cases to a numerical diminution, which is a healthy readjustment in which many nominal Christians discover that following the Lord exacts a price which they are not ready to pay.”  (147)

The minority church , of course, is located in those places traditionally called ‘the mission field’, and the majority church is in Europe and America.  The growth and maturity for both churches is found in the high price of following Jesus.  In the case of the minority church where discrimination and persecution is taking place, this price brings numerical growth.  For the majority church, the high price of discipleship produces health, as it trims away nominalism.  In both cases, costly discipleship is the key for growth and maturity.

I found the following in Jehu Hanciles, Beyond Christendom: Globalization, African Migration, and the Transformation of the West (Orbis, 2008), to be an interesting qualification regarding globalization and worldwide connectivity.

“Undoubtedly, Internet users worldwide remain a privileged elite-in 2006 global usage was still under 16 percent.  But Internet usage is lowest in Africa, where only 2.6 percent of the population are users-compared to 10 percent for Asia, 10 percent for the Middle East, and 67 percent for the United States.  The disparity is even more obvious when it is considered that, though it accounts for 14 percent of the world’s population, the African continent is home to only 2.3 percent of Internet users worldwide.” (27)

The worldwide web is not so worldwide and certainly will not replace, in the near future, other means of human communication and interaction.  I guess pulling a chair up and talking face-to-face with another person is here to stay!

I have been thinking the last couple of days about identity and purpose.  I think both are tied up in what it means to be witnesses.

Witness is Our Identity 
Like the early Christ followers, once we know God, we become witnesses of His glory and love.  Witness is more than a task that must be done, an obligation that must be fulfilled, or a job that we are paid to do.  It is who we are.  Even in baptism, we verbally and physically confess Christ and identify ourselves with His community, and thus, we are witnesses of Him.  Witness is the identity Jesus gives His followers: “… you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses…” (Acts 1:8).  A few days after these words are spoken, the Spirit falls on the disciples, and they boldly tell “of the mighty deeds of God” (2:11).  They become what Jesus said they would be - witnesses.  Peter, speaking for the group, gives an account of the death and resurrection of Jesus, of which they had witnessed (2:32).  Even though they are fishermen, tax collectors, and common people, they are above all else witnesses. 

The role of witness is much larger than any vocation or cause.  Most of us have been taught from an early age to interpret the witness of Paul in terms of a vocation.  This way of seeing Paul is so engrained in us that without a second thought we explain Paul’s passionate witness with a profession - missionary.  Thus, we give Paul a vocational designation that he never uses of himself.  Paul refers to himself as “an apostle” (Col. 1:1), “a bond servant” (Rom. 1:1), “a prisoner” (Eph. 3:1), and “a witness” (Acts 22:15), but never does he use the term missionary to define himself.  And though Paul supports himself through making tents, this vocation does not define him.  Vocation is a secondary issue.  Witness is primary and gives him identity.  His ambition (Rom. 15:20), hope (Phil. 1:20), longing (Rom. 15:23), and passion is that he might bear witness to Jesus.  Just like Paul, no matter what our vocational choice or gifting is -engineer, teacher, social worker, student, or computer programmer -our identity is first and foremost that of a witness. 

Witness is Our Purpose
God’s purpose in sending the Son is the glory of His name.  As holy and eternal God, He becomes man and empties Himself in sacrificial love and thereby reveals “the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6).  Jesus’ prayer in John 12 anticipates the means through which God’s glory is to be realized.  With the prospect of death before Him, Jesus yields Himself to God’s purposes.  He finally prays, “Father, glorify Your name.”  A voice from heaven responds, “I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again” (v. 28).  Jesus’ purpose was to reveal God’s glorious love and mercy.  Likewise, He commissions His followers for the same purpose.  He exhorts those who would be His followers to “let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven” (Mt. 5:16).  Paul states the same purpose in a different way: “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31).  Because God’s love through Jesus Christ is His glory on earth, we glorify Him as our lives reflect and tell of this love.  Our purpose is to give witness to His glory.

Much of the confusion about purpose stems from two misunderstandings.  First, if we believe we must work for our salvation, then we will feel compelled to do something for God.  Witness is too simple of an act or not substantial enough, so we want to do something more tangible or grand, such as build a church, raise money for a cause, or do something heroic.  We forget that salvation is by grace alone, so that we might not boast in ourselves.  Rather, the best we can do is boast of God and point to what God has done and who Jesus is.  In fact, witness to God is our declaration of His unmerited love and grace toward us. 

Second, because we do not trust the power of a simple witness to change lives or change the world, we give ourselves to other activities that either supplement witness or are in place of it.  This is clearly seen in missionaries who think that the ‘natives’ have to be ‘civilized’ before they can receive a proper witness.  In the end, schools and hospitals become the purpose of missions.  Education and health care are certainly part of our response to the problems of our world and expressions of love for others, but these need to be accompanied by a verbal confession of our transformation in Jesus.

In order to maintain a clear understanding of our purpose, we need to continually remind ourselves that the Holy Spirit is the fundamental witness.  He Himself bears witness of Jesus (Jn. 15:26), and He empowers the believer for witness (Acts 1:8; Lk 24:49).  Through the work of the Spirit, our pale and faulty words become brilliant and true words of witness.  Not only our words, but our lives are transformed into true witnesses, by the mysterious work of the Spirit.

Be who you are - witnesses!  Do what is ultimate - witness!

We really do need a broader conception of mission.  Mission does not necessarily mean ‘missionary’ nor must it refer solely to the missionary enterprise.  Missionary is a vocational designation and the missionary enterprise is only one avenue through which we give witness.  Mission is much larger than any one vocation or a particular endeavor.  I prefer to think of mission as signifying a way of being or a lifestyle (as well as other things).  It denotes a way of being with God and in the world as a witness to His glory.  Therefore, mission formation is the particular process through which we are transformed into God’s people for witness to the people wherever we might encounter them.  This witness could take place in Waco, Dallas, New York, Ghana, or Tibet.  What is crucial to mission is not necessarily a particular place but formation into a particular kind person.  Formation to mission is crucial, and thus, we need clear thinking regarding what this looks like. 

1. Mission formation orients life toward the missio Dei, the mission of God.  God’s movement toward creation in redemptive and healing love is the focus, rather than a program of the church (ministry), or an organization of the denomination (mission board), or a vocation (missionary).  Mission formation pushes us beyond temporal emphases and programs and causes us to look for the activity of God.  By focusing on God, the primal missionary, we come closer to being party to what he is doing in the world.
2. Mission formation takes place within the realities of life.  Instead of retreating from life or disengaging from the realities of the world, mission formation engages the needs of the world and the lives of people.  In no way does this negate spiritual disciplines or an emphasis on the interior life.  Yet, outside of engagement with the world, formation is incomplete and can even be malformed. 
3. Mission formation must focus on the peoples of the world.  Because the Creator loves the world, he sends his Son, Jesus Christ.  As the Father sends his Son, the Triune God sends his followers (Jn. 20:21).  Formation exists for the preparation of followers for witness to the nations.  If formation becomes an end in itself, then the Christ life can become solely about our development or personal and national interests.  If election becomes about us, our families, and our nation, as it did for Israel, then we become disqualified as witnesses.

Talk is cheap, and thus, doing must be expensive.  Obeying what we know to do and what we know to be right is the hard work of any kind of formation but especially that which missional.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes,

You can only learn what obedience is by obeying. It is no use asking questions; for it only through obedience that you come to learn the truth. With our conscience distracted by sin, we are confronted by the call of Jesus to spontaneous obedience. (The Cost of Discipleship, 78)

The call to God’s mission does more than give us a new vocation, or relocate us outside the border of the U.S., or require us to learn a new language.  It is an expensive call to obedience, to know God’s truth.