To the inhabitants of L’Aquila, life had appeared stable and safe, calm and certain, and yet forces in the depths of the earth were shifting in opposing directions and tension that had been building for some time suddenly erupted into a massive earthquake.  Surely they thought, ‘How could such a cataclysmic event happen in our town?’

Earthquakes result from seismic waves originating far beneath the surface in what is called the lithosphere.  These waves occur because slippage at fault lines or a fault plane and these eventually manifest themselves at the surface as an earthquake.  Stress builds at the point of slippage until it “breaks” or ruptures, releasing the stored energy that travels up and into the surface, causing tremors that split the earth, shake buildings and put people on their knees.  It may take years or decades for a shift in the lithosphere to manifest itself at the surface, and yet, the potential is there whether seen or not.

Giuliani, L’Aquila, and earthquakes – What could these possibly have to do with church and mission?  Plenty!  I see at least four parallels.

First, a quake is coming.  Oh, it may not be an actual earth-shaking kind of quake, such as ones we have witnessed recently in Japan, Italy, and Chile.  Rather it may be a cataclysmic quake of the physical, social, economic, or psychological variety.  We may think that everything is stable and calm in life, and yet, slippage is occurring deep beneath the surface and stress is building.  One day, when we least expect it, rupture will occur, and everything will be shaken, everyone will be brought to his or her knees.

History gives witness to the uncertainty of status and security – stable existence.  Science has not and cannot solve all environmental and medical problems; technology has not reconciled and united people of differing races and classes; no matter what political party is in power peace and posterity allude us, and no man or woman is able to escape death and decay.  We stand, individually and collectively, on a fault line, and the rupture of life in some form is our future – jobs will disappear, friends will betray, cancer will invade, loved ones will die, unity will disintegrate, despair will overwhelm.  Events on the surface might indicate otherwise but deep within the lithosphere slippage has already occurred and stress is building.

We might think because we are Americans, or have status in the community, or identify as Christians that we are immune to quakes.  But there is no immunity from, or inoculation against quakes.  They are no respecter of persons.  To think that we can avoid quakes is an illusion, a false hope.

There is nothing wrong with hoping to avoid quakes, and yet, this is not real hope.  Real hope begins in seeing government, money, religion, sports, structures of society, and possessions for what they are – necessary but tentative, worthy of our care, participation, and investment but not our lives.  Hope is real and able to withstand seismic destruction when centered in the person of Jesus Christ and focused on the eternal purposes.

Second, an alarm is being raised.  We must listen carefully to the Giampaolo Giulianis in our midst.  Mission experts are warning us that the foundation of church and missions has shifted to the point of breaking.  They are telling us that in order for us to be the people of God in the coming quakes there must be a radical change in our outlook and practices.  For example, David Smith traces the historical course of Western, modern missions and concludes that it “has lost its credibility and can no longer survive,” unless there is a drastic and fundamental change.[ii] Smith is not alone in his judgment.  Wilbert Shenk states that “re-visioning” must take place in the “Christendom assumptions and habits of mind” that continue to “determine the conceptual framework,” especially for those who participate in the church and global mission.[iii] Douglas Hall concludes that “presumption upon the past power and glory of Christendom is perhaps the greatest deterrent to faith’s real confession in our present historical context.”[iv] David Bosch warns of a crisis in missions due to “a fundamental paradigm shift, not only in mission or theology, but in the experience of the whole world.”[v] The crisis is due to “an inadequate foundation for mission and ambiguous missionary motives and aims” that “lead to an unsatisfactory missionary practice.”  He suggests that an alternative paradigm for mission must be constructed.  Hendrik Kraemer declares, “We do not stand at the end of mission.”  Rather, “we stand at the definite end of a specific period or era of mission, and the sooner we see this and accept this with all our heart, the better.  We are called to a new ‘pioneer task’ which will be more demanding and less romantic than the heroic deeds of the past missionary era.”[vi]

These missionaries, teachers, and friends of the church and mission, who have spent their entire lives reading the signs, have decided it is time to sound the alarm.  They are saying, if we do not respond to the mounting tensions, if we neglect the ‘pioneer task’, we will soon find ourselves sitting under the rubble of worn and antiquated mission structures and means without a witness.  Heeding their warnings means refusing to rely on the familiar, comfortable, or stable.  Instead we must look to what the Spirit is doing and listen for his directives toward new ways of witness and love.  The emergency situation brought on by quakes calls for different types of structures and alliances, adjustment of rules and principles, and radicalization of our forms of witness.

Third, mission happens in the midst of the quake.  Sitting in a prison cell in Philippi, Paul and Silas experienced “a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken” (Acts 16:26).  Seeing cell doors open and assuming that everyone had escaped, the jailer decided to kill himself rather than face the authorities.  Paul and Silas called out, “Do yourself no harm.  We are still here.”  The jailer “came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas,” and asked, “Sirs what must I do be saved?”  From within the prison cell, witness was extended.  In the midst of the quake, hope was offered.  If all we do is promote and practice church and mission as the casual undertaking of respectable people, as if all is safe and sane, then we will wake up one day debilitated and victimized by the quake rather than able to offer hope and witness.  Quakes are the stuff of mission, just as the cross is the means of salvation.  Either we will flee the tremors, or we will offer hope in the midst of falling debris.

Fourth, tremors can already be felt.  We really don’t need the experts to tell us that the ground is shifting.  As I look at the landscape of church and mission, I see structures that I thought indestructible collapsing before my eyes, powerful and stately people have been brought low, and proven methodologies now looks irrelevant and silly.  We can either turn our faces from the obvious, ignore the signs of collapse, and act as if everything will be fine, or we can call the crisis by its proper name, affirm who God has called us to be, and create new and vibrant structures, alliances, and means for witness.  Even though the quake will with certainty erupt and surely change the entire landscape, isn’t it far better, more beneficial for the church and its mission, if we take preemptive action and not just sleep through the tremors?

Our vision for church and mission must undergo a thorough and continuous transformation.  Mission structures, evangelistic methods, church programs, and theological formulations that have provided surface solutions in the good times will be no match for the coming rupture.  As with the officials in L’Aquila, a state of stability and serenity can lull us into thinking we are secure and safe.  Instead of opposing, censuring or shunning those who disturb the serenity of the church with their exclamations that the mission edifice is starting to sway and buckle, we should embrace these agitators in order that we might together re-read the Scriptures concerning the mission of the triune God, pray earnestly for wisdom and insight, and humbly seek the Spirit’s guidance and power.

The question for each of us is quite simple: When the ground shakes will we be awake and ready – will we be the people of God?

[i] See http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/05/laquila-earthquake-prediction-giampaolo-giuliani.

[ii] David Smith, Mission After Christendom (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2003), 4.

[iii] Wilbert R Shenk, Write the Vision: The Church Renewed, 1st ed. (Valley Forge, Pa: Trinity Press International, 1995), 52.

[iv] Douglas John Hall, The End of Christendom and the Future of Christianity (Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2002), 3.

[v] David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1991), 4, 5.

[vi] Kraemer cited in Bosch, Transforming Mission, 8.

Along with these descriptors, the adjective ‘missional’ is in vogue, and thus – the missional church.  The intent is to indicate that rather than mission being solely what the church does, mission is who the church is.  Rather than mission being conceived as trafficking the gospel from one place to another, mission is found everywhere.  Behind this move is the re-conception of mission as the mission of God, missio Dei.  Since mission is ultimately about the person and activity of the Triune God as the ‘Sent One’, mission must likewise be descriptive of the nature of the church.  Much of the missional turn was initiated and defined in the 1998 publication of The Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America.  Since that time, it seems ‘missional has gone viral.

Almost every church I encounter self-describes as a missional church.  Everyday people, not just pastors and missionaries, now speak about missional leadership, missional vocation, missional lifestyle, missional responsibility, missional communities, missional politics, and so on.  It sounds as though missional is the next wave of church-talk; an alternative to purpose-driven or seeker-sensitive.  Or is it that missional has become the latest packaged and promoted denominational program?  One only needs to Google the word to see how thoroughly missional church language has become.  Across the Internet one can buy missional bags, take a missional cruise, do a missional Bible study, use missional metrics, and learn how to become a missional mom or monk.

Missional, it seems, has become vacuous and somewhat meaningless; a trendy term that means whatever we want it to mean.  The sum affect is that as an adjective that qualifies, missional allows the church to absolutize who she is and what she does – the opposite of what was intended with missio Dei.  So, missional church can become church writ large.  In the end, church can exploit mission for the justification and promotion of whatever cause or program it deems worthy or it chooses to undertake.

If mission is the movement of Father, Son and Spirit toward humanity and is to define the church, then the conversation must move beyond mission as describing or modifying church – missional – to mission generating existence and purpose for the church.  Thus, it is far better to say, the church exists by mission.

The church exists as a result of mission, and its ongoing purpose exists because of divine mission.  And yet, to say the church is mission goes too far, since church can and does refuse to live by God’s mission.  The mission of God precedes and supersedes the church, and thus, the church exists as it points to, lives out, and speaks of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Through such pointing, living and speaking, the church exists by mission.  Emil Brunner’s oft-quoted words aptly states the matter – “The Church exists by mission, just as fire exists by burning.  Where there is no mission, there is no Church; and where there is neither Church nor mission, there is no faith” (The Word and the World, 1931, p. 108).

As long as the church exists for itself – its consumption of religious services, its numerical growth, or its influence and place within society – or even exists for others – those outside the faith, those on the margins, or the nation and its causes – the church can quickly and quite unintentionally find itself defined by something other than the mission of God.  As the people of God gathered in local churches, we do not define God’s mission.  Rather, it defines us.  Such a reorientation of the church’s existence requires a reaffirmation (rediscovery) of who God is, and what he has done and is doing in the world.  The church can only then reimagine its existence as approximating and being sustained by God’s mission.

If the church exists by mission, then …
What must happen for churches to reimagine their place in God’s mission?
What should pastors and staff members do to lead churches in their re-imaging of God’s mission?
What must denominational and parachurch organizations forgo in order to truly serve the church’s mission existence?

So, how are Christians to respond to this new reality? 

The response of some is to do whatever they can to mimic their surroundings.  Thus, they feel they must forgo distinctions that are out of step with the wider culture in order for Christianity to remain viable and relevant.  So, in speech and action, they seek to excise exclusive language and to avoid an uncomfortable stance on issues related to morality, gender, and eternal destiny.  Their mission, they say, is to accompany society in such a way that they have a voice in the national/cultural conversation.

Fear is one of the motivators for these Christians.  They fear being marginalized by society, so they carefully measure their words and actions in order not to alienate.  The result is that society determines what the concerns, priorities, and sensibilities of the church are to look and sound like.  And while this is in many ways appropriate and healthy, a line can easily be crossed and the church loose its distinct voice and its cause begins looking no different than that of any other club or group.  An indication that this line has been crossed is when the standards for the kind of music used in worship, the way the church markets itself, the services it offers, the subject matter of sermons, and the causes that the church undertakes are set chiefly by external forces rather than internal convictions.

The tendency of other Christians in the face of the new reality is to mount a vigorous defense of the church, to reiterate its rightful place within American society, or to redouble efforts to bolster it’s reputation and profile.  The shift underway threatens the existence of the church, and thus, these Christian feel compelled do whatever they can to secure the church’s place, protect its interests, and ensure that Christians get what they need.  The end result is that much of the church’s mission becomes the garnering of resources necessary to perpetuate who it is and to protect its interests.

Fear is likewise a motivator for these Christians.  Specifically they fear being taken advantage of by the wider society or losing what they feel rightfully belongs to them.  These fears also impact their speech and action.  They employ insider language in order to create a sense of belonging for those on the inside and exclude those on the outside.  And while this language provides a secure connection and identity for brothers and sisters on the inside, it also categorically defines the outsider.

As a result, these Christians act out their faith in sacred rather than public space.  They travel to a specific building called church to do Christian kinds of things.  They gather within havens of agreed beliefs about morality, politics, and gender.  The safety of these havens protects them from threatening, worldly influences and forces.  And while they must make necessary forays into the world to work, shop, and attend public events, it is in the sacred space that life makes sense.  Thus, mission for these Christians means attracting those on the outside to the sacred space and then convincing them to defect.

In both cases, response is not a matter of conservative versus liberal, mega versus small, rural versus urban, or Baptists versus Methodists.  Rather, in both we find two ways in which Christians of all theological persuasions and denominational affiliations and churches of all sizes and locations deal with the changing context.  At one extreme, the mission of the church is to accommodate.  On the other side, mission is to attract.

There is a third response.  Rather than being for or against society, Christians set themselves toward the mission of God.  Orientation and response are not ultimately determined by changes in society but by the unchanging and relentless purposes of God.  The mission of God rises above mere accommodation and attraction to a way of being in and for the world defined by who God is and how God acts toward the world.

Mission and missional are used by both those who accommodate and those who attract in order to describe and justify what they do.  And yet, before describing mission as what we do, mission must be understood as divine being and action.  Mission does not belong to us, rather it originates from and is defined by who God is and what God does.  Rather than accommodating the spirit and patterns of society, God is distinctively other.  Rather than submitting to a temporal, local agenda, God’s ways are higher than any person or society’s ways.  Rather than seeking to be relevant or current, God makes all things new.  Rather than protecting what is his, God gives.  Rather than looking out for his own interests, God loves.   Rather than pulling everything to himself, God sends.  God, who creates and sustains all things, so loves the world, that He gives his only begotten Son.  This is mission; this is the mission of God.

For our response to the current shift in American society to be faithful and true, it must begin with an acknowledgment of God’s mission and an alignment of our minds and hearts, words and actions with this mission.  Christopher Wright says, “it is not so much the case that God has a mission for his church in the world, as that God has a church for his mission in the world.  Mission was not made for the church; the church was made for mission–God’s mission” (The Mission of God, 62).  Missions goes awry when the church acts though mission begins and ends with it.

The mission of God encompasses more than a few verses in the New Testament and includes more than missionaries who live and work in cross-cultural settings.  How it impacts the whole of the church is a longer conversation than this post, but I will suggest four ways in which we might acknowledge and align our lives with it.

• Interpretation.  The mission of God should guide the way in which we read and interpret scripture.  Reading the Bible, both Old and New Testament, as a missionary text about a missionary God changes everything – the way we view our purpose, God’s action in history, the end of all creation, etc.
• Inversion.  The mission of God should critique the manner in which we speak, act, and love.  If we allow it, the mission of God provides a lens through which everything is turned upside down – is inverted.
• Imagination.  The mission of God should frame the way we imagine the world – economics, race, politics, relationships, vocation – and only then will it affect our actions.  As a missional reading of scripture inverts our way of seeing reality, we can begin imagining what could be, what should be.
• Implementation.  The mission of God calls us to action.  If acknowledged and understood, the mission of God will not allow us to passively acquiesce to or quietly retreat from our culture but will demand that we respond as Christ did – with our lives.

We do not live above God’s mission, as if it is ours to control and manage.  His mission is not a program to run or resources to manage.  Mission is his words and actions of love and grace toward the world.  And while we are always the object of this mission and never the subject of its design and intent, we can become participants through God’s gracious invitation and by his empowerment.  But in order to do so, we must set aside our fears and re-read scripture, re-think our lives, re-imagine the world, and re-enact God’s glory, passion and love, in light of the mission of God.

Two defining questions …
Which mission guides my response to the changing society around me?
Whose mission gives definition to who I am and how I act?

To the modern mind (not that BrettG has a typical modern mind), listening to the Spirit is a bit nebulous and subjective.  We prefer a rational or programmatic approach to most everything in life, even our religion and devotion.  So, we rely chiefly on reasoned or formulaic answers rather than those generated by processes that are Spirit-induced or Spirit-guided.  This is not to say we should forgo reason altogether or that there is nothing to be gained from processes that people in other places have found helpful.  The difference is that reasoning and formula can take us only so far and routinely give us expected, uniform answers when what is needed are new and local answers.

The Spirit is not predictable nor is he uniform.  He creates new understandings and thus brings into being new kinds of obedience.  Because every situation is unique and personalities vary wildly, new answers and new kinds of obedience should be the norm not the exception.  It seems to me that listening to the Spirit is a necessity not an option, if we are to respond faithfully to particular contexts and innovate unique solutions via local processes.

In order to listen to the Spirit, I have to … well … stop and listen.  This sounds simple, but it is really quite hard.  Whereas a ten-step program or formula requires that I merely do step one, step two, step three and so on til I complete ten steps, listening to the Spirit necessitates that I journey down uncharted, unscripted paths.  It entails interruptions in my normal and recognizable processes and involves the centering of mind and emotions on hearing the Spirit.

Hearing the Spirit includes …

• living in the hope that the Spirit will speak.  When the disposition and longing of my heart are to hear from God, I am open to hearing what the Spirit is saying.
• yielding to the convicting work of the Spirit through which my pride, ethnocentrism, and prejudice are exposed.  My experience is that the Spirit’s words are usually addressed first to me and then to wider concerns.
• reading scripture.  As I read how God dealt with men and women of the past, I understand better how he speaks today and what he might be saying to me.
• turning down the volume on other voices (TV, radio, music, twitter, facebook) and be still before the Spirit.  Possibly I cannot/do not hear the Spirit because background noises dominate and crowd out the voice of the Spirit.
• listening to what the Spirit is saying to my community of faith.  While the Spirit speaks to me as an individual, the chances are that he is speaking the same message to those with whom I have relationship – wife, friends or church members.

So once again .. too often and too quick we look for globalized answers before listening to what the Spirit is saying to his church.  Don’t rely on globalized answers – rather, stop and listen to what the Spirit is saying.  You and I will hear Spirit-formed answers for our particular contexts as we live with hope toward the Spirit, yield our lives to the Spirit, open the scriptures, turn down other voices, and listen to what the Spirit is saying to our faith community.

If I preach with great style, technique and passion, but do not have love, I have become a rattling can or honking horn. If I have knowledge of all methods and have the skill to do them all with great effect, but do not have love, I have lost my way.  And if I am able to start hundreds of churches, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.

Love does not rush by people; love does not become jealous of the success of a colleague. Love does not brag about deeds or speak in a superior tone, does not act haughty or seek its own way, is not easily offended, keep a record of offenses or failures, nor is it OK with evil stuff and lies but is thrilled with justice and truth.

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.

Love never fails; but if there are methods, and strategies, they will be done away with; if there are five and ten-year plans, they will one day come to an end; if there are teachers and missiologists, they will be unemployed.

For we really know only a fraction of what is going on around us, but when Jesus’ reign is established, our temporal methods and strategies will pale in comparison to what he is doing.  When I was a young religious professional, I spoke like a minister, thought like a missionary, reasoned like a theologian; when I started loving, I moved beyond such speaking, thinking and reasoning.

For now we see in part what God is doing, but one day we will see everything exactly as it is.  But for the time, all we have are faith, hope and love.  Of these, love rules.

If love is the aim, then preaching, strategizing, and teaching should move me closer to people, not increase my distance from them.  These activities should add dignity and humanity to the person in front of me, not objectify them.  And yet, the truth is – for love to rule these activities, I must be radically seized by the God who is love.

Behind this tendency to globalize answers is the modern belief in the potency of reason to create solutions for every problem and then the tendency, mainly by those of us in the West, to apply those solutions universally.  The modern missionary movement was party to transmitting global answers when it came to methods and strategies.  We reasoned that if a person had success with a certain method in one place, he or she could universalize the principles and tactics of that method and apply them elsewhere, anywhere.  In this way, we produced worldwide, mega-strategies and universal methodology in an efficient and uniform manner.

It can be debated as to how well this globalizing tendency has served us.  I would say, not well at all!  One has only to look at the pattern of continuous announcements of yet another grand plan or methodology.  That which is touted as the answer, the silver bullet, is in truth only the ‘strategy of the day’.

Globalized answers are no longer appropriate in late modernity for several reasons.

First, globalized methods and strategies usually violate context.  While there has been much made of the global village in which we live and globalization, we must acknowledge the stark reality of a highly localized and diverse world.  The ‘present age’ is not the same worldwide.  Bangalore is not Hong Kong.  New Zealand is not Los Angeles.  Late moderns remind us often that the world is highly contextual, and thus, it is imperative that we respect and embrace the uniqueness of each context, and realize that methods, strategies, and services must be context-specific.

Just because a particular program or strategy works in Kenya does not mean it is workable or appropriate for Dallas, and vice-versa.  To do this would be like using a hammer to put a screw into a piece of wood, when what is needed and what is best is a screwdriver.  The old adage is true – To a hammer, everything is a nail.  Because I am an American, enculturated into the American worldview, I cannot help but see all of life through an American lens.  The solutions for the church I attend in central Texas are truly unique in orientation and execution.  It would be the height of arrogance to say that what ‘works’ in central Texas should or must work in South Africa.  To universalize Texas methodology and strategy to South Africa or elsewhere is to disregard and violate context.

Second, globalized methods and strategies undo local processes.  If I hear a person speak about the success of her strategy in New York City or read her book, and then seek to make what she found to be right for her situation, right for my situation, then I have short-circuited the processes at work to discover and understand what it means to be the church in my location.  I have skipped the hard work of evaluating, thinking, dreaming, and praying.  Modernity preaches a gospel of efficiency and effectiveness, when there are no shortcuts to the discovery of what God would have us to do in our particular context.  Globalized methods and strategies tempt us to cut corners and to forgo processes.  And while we may save time in the short run, discovery is missed in the long haul.  We must be willing to wait for ideas to mature and for the Spirit to reveal his ways in his timing.

Third, globalized methods and strategies seldom work.  We may think they do because of initial interest or limited response, but in reality they do not.  They usually have the opposite effect – they do damage and undo the good that has been done.  What I have witnessed is a great deal of resource and effort expended in trying to force the proverbial round peg into a square hole.

So, if globalized answers are not appropriate, what should we do in order to serve the present, late modern age?  I suggest that we must affirm, promote, and support the processes whereby methods, strategies and solutions arise from within and for the local church.  One of the chief reasons we look for globalized answers is because we undervalue the local church – who she is, what she can do, and her role in the kingdom of God.  It is with the people of God in a particular locale that ancient and current traditions, cultural hopes and aspirations actually meet the gospel, and unique ways of service and witness are formed.

A distinctive for Baptists that we best not forget is the autonomy of the local church.  We believe the church is to be found primarily and visibly in local gatherings of believers.  The local church gathered in a village in Nagaland is the church.  It is the body of Christ for that particular locale, giving visible, tangible, physical expression to the love of Christ.  Autonomy is more than an issue of polity and governance but also a matter of appropriate and viable witness and service.

History teaches us that whenever the church in one locale forces its ways of church and witness on a church in another locale the results are damaging and sad.  For persons from the West or the East to promote, finance, or force globalized methods, strategies or solutions on another is simply a form of cultural or ecclesiastical imperialism.  We must insist that the church of Recife, Brazil be the local church in and for Recife, and we must believe that the Holy Spirit can and will guide this local church to innovate and implement a particular witness for Recife.

Less you think I have tilted too far in one direction, I do believe in cooperation and cross-cultural witness.  And yet, unless an emphasis on local church processes is maintained and fostered, true cooperation, collaboration and assistance are difficult, if not impossible.  When an emphasis on the local church is in place and operating, we find a clear basis from which to partner in ways that are valuable and appropriate.

Too often and too quick we look for globalized answers before listening to what the Spirit is saying to his church.  Don’t look to Delhi, Atlanta, or Los Angeles for answers- rather, listen to what the Spirit is saying.

Well, more Wright stuff is on its way.  His new book, The Mission of God’s People: A Biblical Theology of the Church’s Mission (Biblical Theology for Life) (Zondervan) is due to be released later this month (August 20, 2010).  It looks as though he will be addressing ecclesiology from the perspective of missions.  I have pre-ordered my copy and will be working through it this fall.  Look for my review in an upcoming post.

The BWA’s every five-year congress was a gathering of 4000 plus Baptists from 105 countries.  Those who attended were representatives of conventions, organizations, or just members of local churches.  We met not to fight each other or oppose another group but to worship Jesus Christ and give witness to his lordship in our collective lives and churches.  While attendees were wildly diverse in language, dress, heritage, and culture, we embraced each other with respect and in dignity as brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ.  Highlights for me were meeting and interacting with two ladies from Nigeria (one a pastor and the other a deacon), listening to a young man from India tell me of his hopes and dreams, and seeing old friends from Sri Lanka.

The theme of the gathering was Hear the Spirit.  Speakers repeatedly called on us to do the work of ministry and missions in the anointing and power of the Spirit – not in the flesh or via our own authority.  This was like a sweet, refreshing breeze in a day of large, self-important personalities and power struggles within Baptist life.  I leave Honolulu energized, challenged, and hopeful.

• Energized by so many conversations with brothers and sisters from around the world.
• Challenged by the testimony of those who endure so much in their witness to Jesus.
• Hopeful that unity and collaboration can be a reality in my lifetime.

Did I agree with everything said?  Was I comfortable with all we did?  No on both counts.  But for some reason, I did not feel the need to agree with everyone on everything nor did I feel pressured to conform on peripheral issues.  Unity in the Spirit for witness and love was more than enough reason to gather and is reason for great hope.

What has changed through this transformation in thinking about the church is that the church can no longer be thought about apart from mission. Indeed, it can only be understood through its participation in mission. The concepts ‘mission’ and ‘church’ have converged into a new idea, something like ‘mission/church’. This shift in perspective is of great consequence for imagining what the church might be and how the mission of God might be worked out through the church as Christianity confronts its global context. (Faith Seeking Action: Mission, Social Movements, and the Church in Motion (Lanham, Maryland: The Scarecrow Press, 2007, 19)

Such an understanding is a huge, crucial step, but it does not answer the harder question – How does ‘mission/church’ look as it is danced out in the world?

There was a day when we thought the mission dance was simply giving to an annual offering, going through the seasonal promotion, and rallying behind an uncomplicated, crisp slogan.  In that day, every church could be ‘mission-involved’ or ‘mission-minded’.  Well, the simpler days of such simple (and tepid or cheap) involvement are over, and it is for the good that they are.

The church of my youth lived in the illusion that they were right in the middle of the mission endeavor, when in reality, they were barely at the margins.  Mission involvement was promoted as prayer and payment; prayer for missionaries and payment for mission.  And while prayer and funding are necessary components, they are not mission.  They may be sponsorship, assistance, support, trusteeship – but they are not mission.  The distinction is real and substantial, and must be made, if mission and church are to be truly reconnected.

Mission means doing missions, not merely funding or supporting missions and missionaries.  It means the hard, complicated, and expensive work of preparing people, raising funds for them, commissioning them, nurturing and caring for them, holding them accountable, and participating with them.  It means missions not done by a few for the whole, but the whole of the church doing missions in every location, through each relationship, and within all vocations.  It means working through difficult issues, such as appropriate witness to other faiths, financial dependency, leadership training, appropriate activities, the place of evangelism and social action, strategic involvement, etc.  Mission means doing missions, not just thinking, talking, or promoting the idea of mission.

Even though the traditional machinery that marginalized the church in mission no longer works for many, I see churches and church leaders looking for new ways of locating the church at a safe and inexpensive distance from real and costly mission involvement.  Some are waiting for new machinery to emerge that will re-establish for them, under a new name and with new language, old illusions of mission involvement.

We need to be clear and honest – ‘mission/church’ means the church exists for mission preparation, sending, implementation, and engagement.  It is no longer a question of whether these activities are what mission entails for the church.  The question is, Will the church take her place in the mission of God and do missions?  It is only through costly and complex action that mission and church converge, that they become the new idea.  For me, the answer to the ‘mission/church’ question is to be found in those courageous, pioneering churches who are innovating, doing, and dancing out mission.