The missional paradigm which calls itself integral mission,[1] holistic mission, contextual mission are all, within the spectrum of the history of Christianity, relatively recent approaches to understanding mission in broad, meta-narrative perspectives. It could be argued that mission has begun to encompass different or more emergent characteristics in order to engage with either the collapse, death or certainly a waning effect of Christendom, sometimes to the detriment of evangelism.
The theological presuppositions behind the missiological approach of the Christian Church are changing in recent decades. If we were to briefly outline missiology at the end of the nineteenth century, we perceive some of the elements of missional thinking currently being either up-rooted to re-imagined. The last few decades of the nineteenth century were dominated by a missiological approach held by missionaries who had been in ‘extensive confrontation with the great religions of the non-Christian world’.[1] The dominant attitude was that, apart from Protestant Christianity, other religions were idolatrous.[2] The attitude was, to say the least, extremely pessimistic. The natural consequence of such thinking was that these other religious models, due to their idolatry, stood opposed to God. Christians, therefore, had a responsibility to stand against such religions in the same way they were to confront sin. Stanley accurately highlights the underlying attitude to other religions and the oft-military language that developed from this when he writes ‘Missionaries were engaged in a spiritual battle with the satanic forces of heathendom’.[3] As the twentieth century began to shine its light on the fading nineteenth century, changes began to occur which were to dramatically affect the attitude of missionaries. This change came as a result of the rise of the International Student Movement and the International Missionary Movement, and at the start of the twentieth century the approach to mission took ‘the first hesitant steps toward a global and inclusive ecumenical movement’.[4]
Approximately a century later and the spectrum of theological persuasion in response to missiology has grown even wider, and the evangelical world is now attempting to be missional through cultural, social and inter-faith dialogue alongside approaches not entirely dissimilar to a century ago. The theological justification for the latter dialogues lie in the fact that the people of God are sent to engage, empowered to go and honoured to represent God (Jn 20:21, 22). This relates to the life of the Church, but more broadly to the life of the kingdom or realities of God. As Murray suggests, ‘the kingdom is broader than the church … God is at work outside the church as well as within it and through it’[5] (Cf. Mt 13:31, 32; 22:1-11; Acts 19:8; Rom 14:17). Bosch highlights that our priority is, and only comes from, God:
Mission has its origin in the fatherly heart of God. He is the fountain of sending love. This is the deepest source of mission. It is not possible to penetrate any deeper: there is a mission because God loves man [inclusive].[6]
The ministry of reconciliation has been recognized as a significant component of God’s mission which involves evangelism but the focus has more cosmic overtones (2 Cor 5:18, 19). The Lambeth Conference in 1988 discussed the need to look increasingly outwards, stretching the hands of God towards those with needs and speaking forth the words of the Gospel.[7] The missio Dei was a concept shared by
Karl Hartenstein involving the work of mission entwined with the Trinity, a three-fold saving action of God to bring the compassionate plan of redemption to all people.[8]
Drane writes, ‘Once congregations begin to realise the need for sharing their faith with other people, they are easily fired up with visionary enthusiasm’.[9] How can this realization be brought to the people of God? A report by Russ Oliver found that the responses of thirteen thousand teenagers were that ‘Sadly, many churches are highly irrelevant’.[10] There is, and needs to be, a tension in which the global Christian community has to live with and by a constant self-reflection on whether we are participating in God’s mission or are we following our own mission? Have we answered Cohen when he suggests ‘If the church is to survive the decade with any credibility … our lives have to reflect the truths we proclaim’?[11]
The missio Dei incorporates a holistic approach to mission and one of its many motivations is social action. The transforming power of God can and does work at all societal levels to bring about individual and communal change (Lk 4:16-21). Subsequently, mission is not just evangelistic but also should embrace ‘a broader understanding of mission that includes social and community involvement’.[1] This aspect is where a kingdom-centred approach, rather than a church-centred approach to mission can give life to the church and the local community. As we have seen earlier, however, a transforming theology of presence would not necessarily have been the main evangelistic approach of the early church: an approach which was marked by conversion and entrance into the Christian community. This, if approached with thought and contextual appropriateness, enables the witness of the church to be seen as disinterested and vicariously serving and meeting the needs of the community (Mt 20:26-28).
The mission of the people of God needs to image something more befitting the immensity of a living God than an attractional model of a God who simply is a soul-saver. This attractional model could be perceived as understanding evangelism in dualistic terms, where the everyday existence of human being is ignored by a God who is only interested in a ‘spiritual’ side to humanity. This could then convey an evangelistic Gnosticism.
[1] Sharpe 1977, 1.
[2] This approach relied heavily on a biblical interpretation of the story of the Tower of Babel (Gen 11:1-9), which believed that other religions were corrupt and existent in morally polluted communities.
[3] Stanley 1990, 64. The attitude of Protestant missionaries during the majority of the nineteenth century was that the heathen were all destined to go to hell and that other religious faiths and practice were ‘at best broken lights of truth, at worst the deceptions of the devil’, Sharpe 1977, 19.
[4] Karl Barth, quoted in Bosch 1992, 458.
[5] Murray 2001, 11.
[6] Bosch 1980, 240.
[7] Warren 1995b, 12.
[8] Bosch 1980, 240.
[9] Drane 1997, 145.
[10] Francis, Kay et al 1995, 26.
[11] Cohen and Gaukroger 1992, 194.
How evangelism is understood in terms of ecclesiology and the relationship between church and the kingdom of God is vital in effective missional praxis. Bosch writes, ‘if the Church wants to impart a message of hope to the world, something of that hope and of the new dispensation should take shape in the Church herself’.[1]A missional congregation brings a dimension to ecclesiology which expands and transcends the physical walls of the church building. An integral missional approach finds its identity, priorities and agenda in, from, and with God. All aspects of the way Christians live their lives in response to the redemptive plan of God will reveal the love of God poured out in all of creation; the process of reclaiming the image of God within this ‘world’. In response to this, evangelism should happen ‘organically rather than in a contrived way’.[2] Emerging church proponents are arguing for an approach to evangelism that does not see people as part of a secret agenda within a friendship which is fulfilled when that particular friend becomes a ‘Christian’. Rather, it is the way a life is led which incarnates the narrative of God and invites others to participate in that story.
[1] For an excellent overview and description of Integral Mission, see http://www.tearfund.org/About+us/Integral+mission.htm.
