I've had a funny down week. Perhaps I'm tired or perhaps I'm just frustrated, or both. One of those weeks where I'm like 'how Lord are you gonna fit all those amazing visions and dreams and passions I have about mission and community and make it useful?' I am half way through my Bible studies this year and can't help thinking, 'What’s round the corner?' However without God in all these dreams and passions they are just great ideas. But I have to trust that all this learning and studying will lead me into the direction he wants me to take.
The more I read about mission and evangelism the more I'm convinced that they are not as separated as missiologists and church leaders may make out. Traditionally evangelism is seen as 'proclamation' of the gospel and conversion of unbelievers and possibly discipleship (though I might dare to suggest the latter is often missed out!). Mission is regarded as something much broader, often including social action, reaching the poor, fighting for issues of injustice etc...And in churches the 'mission' bit is often left to those who go overseas or are sent on random yearly projects in the local town. To put it another way mission is often see as the umbrella to evangelism. However once we delve into these areas all sorts of questions are asked, 'Is the most important aspect of mission about spreading the gospel and seeing people saved?' What about social action? What about the Holy Spirit - maybe he does it all for us and we can quit even thinking about these things.....Why do we divorce everything from each other? We love to do that in our Western mindsets (still heavily Greek saturated -seeMy Big Fat Greek Mindset).
If mission is just about social action then we are just glorified social workers
If mission is just about fighting for political issues then we are just politicians
If mission is just proclamation of the gospel then we are just preaching.
The Holy Spirit must direct where we go but that doesn't mean we are divorced from the equation. As I read I am convinced of one thing. It's all about the life of Christ spilling out of us. If we are so consumed by the presence of Christ in us it will literally spill out like a fragrance. We will naturally proclaim Christ as we hang out with people because we are so excited about Him! We will want to feed the hungry because we will have the same gut wrenching compassion for those around us. As Newbigin says,
"Jesus said as he was on the cross, "where I am, there shall my servant be" (John 12:26). The one who has been called and loved by the Lord, the one who wishes to love and serve the Lord, will want to be where he is. .....At the heart of mission is simply the desire to be with him and to give him the service of our lives. At the heart of mission is thanksgiving and praise. We distort matters when we make mission an enterprise of our own in which we can justify ourselves by our works.....the Church's mission began as the radioactive fallout from and explosion of joy. When it is true to its nature, it is so to the end. Mission is an acted out doxology. That is its deepest secret. Its purpose is that God may be glorified." (Newbigin The Gospel In A Pluralist Society, p127)
The disciples and apostles in the Early Church were absoluetly enthused by the life of Christ, it literally flowed out of them. Even Paul said that all his intellect and eloquent preaching was nothing without Christ's life living in him. I am absolutely convinced that mission and evangelism cannot be seperated from Christ. The ministry, death and resurrection of Christ by the Holy Spirit must somehow be incarnate in us to such a degree that a joy busts out of us to those around us. That is what I call mission and evangelism.
Below are links to some interesting community and mission projects in the UK to inspire you:
Urban Expressions
Community Mission
Eden Network
Global Connections
XLP
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ReplyDeleteYou can never go wrong quoting Newbigin :)
ReplyDeleteI suspect you're not bored, but check out these that I have recently appreciated:
Why Gays, Republicans, and Other Notorious Sinners Are Welcome at My Church
“Getting Better” Is Not the Goal
What If I…
Love
Will do!
ReplyDeleteSorry I never responded to this. I think its great that Internet Monk emphasis the importance of God's grace and that we have only righteousness (or 'getting better' which I don't like that phrase but I think it is what he is getting at) because of Christ. I just wanted to point out his grace line here....
ReplyDelete"the goal is not growth. Growth is the by-product of the regular reception of grace and getting to know Jesus better. developing a more deeply rooted relationship with Christ."
Internet Monk is good at emphasising that everything about our relationship with Christ is rooted in grace. However I would disagree that we should therefore 'do nothing', have no goals in our relationship with Christ or that we should not challenge sin in peoples lives as in the first article.
Paul all through his letters (Gal in particular) deals with the tension of Christians using their knowledge of grace for license on on the one hand and legalism of the law on the other. This is the narrow road we all walk. Not to get so tied up in abiding laws that we are putting in our own self improvement programme which is not based on Jesus alone. However this doesn't mean we use our knowledge of grace to mean we don't seek for holiness and righteousness in our lives or flee sin (Gal 5v13).
I think in this day and age we can use the grace line and the fact that we have struggled with legalism in the past to mean we don't bother putting disapline into our lives at all in terms of prayer, bible study etc...Also because media is all about 'self improvement' any spiritual things we do are about bettering ourselves ('what can God do for me'). The key is that that discipline's comes out of our love for Christ. That will keep us away from the entanglement of legalism.However as we disapline ourselves to grow in him love will also increase.
I believe this generation is lazy one, we want things on a plate. We don't want to work for our relationshiop with Christ, so often we use the 'grace-line' to mean we don't bother. 1 Peter 4v7 says about being 'clear minded and self controlled' so we can pray and 2 Peter 1 v5-11 talks of a diligence in pursuing holiness and righteousness - all of which is in Christ. However the key is to be seeking these things in the Spirit (Gal 5v16-18) else it is just a matter of law again. However if we have the knowledge that everything we need for life and Godliness and all spiritual blessing is rooted in Christ and Christ alone (Eph 1:3, 2 Pet 1:3) then the focus moves away from us to Him.
I think the lack of teaching in church on discipleship would 'hit' right at these issues but unfortunately we spend 99 percent of the time preaching a gospel of salvation without then teaching people how to walk in their Christian life. I'm hoping to blog on this subject soon as reading some fab books on discipleship and what the walking in Christ means.