David Wesley
An interesting characteristic of the missional and emerging church is that there is very little if any emphasis on global missions. This is surprising to me since the primary understanding of missio Dei is for the church to share God's passion for redemptive change in the world. The following is an article written by Ed Stetzer which addresses this same issue. I must say that I don't agree with all of Stetzer's perspctives related to missional church, but this particular article raises an issue that we must engage. I invite your comments/reactions:
I am writing this post from Taiwan. As I have been working with both local leaders and American pastors, I have been struck by a few things and thought I would share them with you.
First, I have traveled to Taiwan as a part of the Upstream Collective. The reason is to accompany American pastors with a desire to be missional on a cross-cultural, international encounter. (You can scroll down the last few posts to learn what we are doing in Taiwan.)
Each person on the trip has the missional impulse as part of their DNA, and they are here to consider how they might join God on his mission globally. While I admire the faithfulness of these men, I must admit my surprise to see that there is not a bigger interest in such global concerns among American pastors in general. My fellow travelers seem to be rare of a breed in ministry.
Second, when I blogged about this on Sunday, two readers contacted my hosts-- one working with the Presbyterian Church in America and one from the Oversee Missionary Fellowship (OMF). Why? Well, according to one email, the author explained, "I'm particularly interested in attracting young missional church planters here."
Third, I was recently told by a pastor who called himself "missional" that his church needed to pull back on their global mission support to help their people "be missionaries right here."
All this provokes me to ask, "Why are so many missional Christians uninvolved in God's global mission?" As the missional conversation continues and deepens, what has occurred that has led to our blindness to the lost world around us?
There are five reasons I think this has happened:
1) In rediscovering God's mission, many have only discovered its personal dimensions.
I don't mean they have somehow localized mission into their interior, "private" life-- that would make little sense. Rather, the encouragement for each person to be on mission (to be "missional") has trended toward a personal obligation to personal settings, rather than toward a global obligation to advance God's kingdom among all the nations.
"Missional" has merged with privatized Christianity to serve as the reason for personal projects carried out in personal spheres. This is not bad, necessarily. But when the missional impulse is not expanded to include God's global mission, it results in believers moved only to minister in their own Jerusalems with no mind toward their Judeas, Samarias, and uttermost parts of the earth (Acts 1:8).
2) In responding to God's mission, many have wanted to be more mission-shaped and have therefore made everything "mission."
Missions historian Stephen Neil, responding to a similar surge in mission interest (the missio dei movement of the 1950s and following), explained it this way: "If everything is mission then nothing is mission." Neil's fear was that the focus would shift from global evangelization (often called "missions") to societal transformation (often called "mission"). He was right.
Recently John Piper echoed these same concerns, differentiating between evangelism and missions. He reminded us that when "Every Christian is a missionary" equals "missional," then we have diluted the need for and specialness of missionaries to foreign lands. (Although I would want to nuance John's language a bit, I agree with his point.)
One American church's website recently identified their ministry as missional, which they proceeded to define as "reaching out to the community to invite them to come" see what is happening in the church. Another's young adult community service project consisted of landscaping the church grounds. Inviting people to church and cleaning up the church are noble endeavors, but passing them for "missional" and "service" is ministerial naïveté at best. It demonstrates the fuzziness that creeps in when labels become catch-alls. And as the outer edges of the missional label gets fuzzy so does mission to the outer edges of the world.
3) In relating God's mission, the message increasingly includes the hurting but less frequently includes the global lost.
One only needs to watch the videos to see the emphases: global orphan projects, eradicating AIDS, Christmas shoeboxes, etc. All of these causes now have advocacy groups, and rightly so, as they are important. However, their vocabulary and frames of reference do not frequently make room for evangelizing the very people they touch. The message of world evangelism, actually, seems more common in legacy/traditional churches than in missional churches. Missional churches seem to speak more of unserved peoples rather than unreached peoples. As we engage to deliver justice, we must also deliver the gospel regardless of anyone's status in a culture.
4) In refocusing on God's mission, many are focusing on being good news rather than telling good news.
St. Francis allegedly said,"Preach the gospel at all times; when necessary, use words." Interestingly enough, Francis never actually said this, nor would he have done so due to his membership in a preaching order. But it is a pithy quote tossed into mission statements and vision sermons in missional churches all around my country. Why? It seems that many in the missional conversation place a higher value on serving the global hurting rather than evangelizing the global lost. Or perhaps it is just easier.
I am not urging a dichotomy here, only noting that one already exists. It is ironic, though, that as many missional Christians have sought to "embody" the gospel, they have chosen to forsake one member of Christ's body; the mouth.
5) In reiterating God's mission, many lose the context of the church's global mission and needed global presence.
For whatever reason-- the admirable one of commitment to the local church or the ignoble one of commitment to personalized consumeristic Christianity-- we have lost the grand scope of the entire family of God. While Christ calls people from all tongues, tribes, and nations, we have become content with our own tongue, tribe, and nation. Many churches are wonderfully embracing the missional imperative, but as they seek to "own" the mission by adapting their church into a missional movement in their local community, some inadvertently localize God's mission itself and lose the vital connection all believers share together. A hyper-focus on our own community results in a, have lost vision for the communion of the saints.
So how do we fully embrace missional without losing the mission? The Mission Exchange (formerly the Evangelical Foreign Mission Society) asked me to talk to their global leaders on the topic "How to Put 'Missions' Back into Missional." In my talk, I proposed four principles we needed to consider:
First, recognize it is God's mission, and we need to be passionate about the mission as He describes it. We don't own mission and it is not ours to define. A church vision statement is fine, but God's mission is better and bigger. Our first task is to submit to God's mission.
Secondly, evangelicals have understated the call to serve the poor and the hurting and need a stronger engagement in social justice. This sounds counterintuitive if we are seeking to remedy the loss of concern for articulated evangelism. But social engagement entails relational engagement, and relational engagement entails opportunities to share the gospel. The successes and experiences in our communities should awaken hearts and minds to global needs. We just need to maintain the reason for social justice: the glory of God in the worship of Jesus.
Third, share God's deep concern about His mission to the nations-- that His name be praised from the lips of men and women from every corner of the globe. Feel the Great Commission in your bones. Ask God to turn your heart to those you cannot see. As Paul did, develop ways to "struggle personally" (Colossians 2:1) for those far away.
Fourthly, churches that are serious about joining God on his mission will obey his commands to disciple the nations. The end product of missional endeavors should be a thriving Christian ready to produce more thriving Christians.
It appears to me that many missional churches are missing the Great Commission in the name of being missional. That makes zero sense. It is a huge (but historically common) mistake.
If we are truly interested in being missional-- in joining God on His mission-- our efforts should actually reflect His stated mission. We are bound to the Great Commandment as the fullest human expression of God's love. But the Commandment is not hermetically sealed off from the Great Commission. Rather, the Great Commission provides the what of mission, while the Great Commandment provides part of the how. Answering the age-old question of "Who is my neighbor?" should result in the desire to "make disciples of all nations."
- note: the source for Stetzer's article is
http://blogs.lifeway.com/blog/edstetzer/2009/09/five-reasons-missional-churche.html
19 comments:
It seems to me that the solutions proposed by the author to remedy missional churches' apathy toward evangelization in other countries are still not concrete enough to be readily applied to the life of congregations. Be passionate about God's mission, engage in social justice, share God's concern about His mission to the nations, and produce thriving Christians are not new ideas to the missional conversation, I think. On the other hand, such an article is a helpful caution against the possible pitfalls of congregations who are seeking to be missional. But now I am even more confused. How do we live this out? How can we, actually, participate in international evangelism without making it a tangential program of the congregation?
I am impressed by the balance between evangelism and social action proposed by Stetzer. He reminds me that we must not rely solely on social action in the world, but must invite people to participate in the Kingdom of God. At the same time, our evangelism is not simply for the purpose of making converts. Social action is a means for instilling discipleship.
This was very interesting to me – I have yet to be a part of a congregation that is so focused on being “missional” that they do not pay attention to world missions. On the contrary, my experience has been (especially in the last church we were in) that churches often feel they have done “their part” by giving money to world missions, praying for missionaries, supporting a LINKS missionary (family), etc. It is hard for me to imagine what it would be like to be a part of a church that has swung to the opposite “extreme.” Still, I like the author’s point that social action is not enough – we must proclaim why we do what we do. “How will they know . . . unless someone preaches to them?” I have seen a very strong emphasis on “social justice” in the seminary community since I have been here (three years), but what bothers me is that it seems to lack the evangelistic side to it. It almost feels like we want to be a part of social justice because theologically it links us up to what the kingdom is about. But without the gospel, it’s just another community project. This kind-of ties into point 4 in the article as well – “many are focusing on being good news rather than telling good news.” Point 2 that making everything “mission” makes nothing mission is also good – we are kidding ourselves, I think, if we believe that an “all-church work day” where we beautify our facility is actually missional. I do think it is a worthwhile endeavor at times, but I wouldn’t call it missional.
I am curious if anyone else has experienced such an emphasis on locally being “missional” to the exclusion of the global mission?
It seems like the author has failed to really take into account why churches may have scaled back on global missions. I think the church has done this in response to its sins in the past whereby we Westerners take the gospel, which is ours, and give it to those who need it (apparently not us). I think the church's reaction, apparently too drastic in his estimation, makes sense in this light.
Also, although he claims not to be doing so, he seems to present a false dichotomy between "global hurting" and "global lost." The gospel does not just address our "lostness" in some spiritual sense only, but encompasses all of who we are. Again I think the church's shift to focusing on the world's hurts is a corrective to previous generation's thinking that Jesus cares only for our soul.
I am with Michelle in that I have not really been part of a congregation that focuses too much on local community and not enough on the global one. An interesting thing is that the churches that focus heavily on global missions, particularly through giving globally are some of the healthiest churches as far as member engagement goes. So on the one hand I want to argue that churches actually need to focus on being missional in their own communities more. But on the other hand I know that healthy outreach to a community also involves healthy outreach to the globe.
One thing I do believe is that on a global political level, the Church of the Nazarene (of which I am a part) has let their focus be entirely way too much on global missions to the detriment of their US congregations. They started an incredible movement in the horn of Africa while the average churches here are in a complete state of disarray.
So maybe the Global Ministry Center needs to focus more on the local congregations in North America and some of that focus should be placed on awakening the hearts of those congregations to both their communities and the global missions. In seems that in doing so more resources will be opened up to global missions while churches transform their own communities.
In conclusion I do agree with Dr. Wesley that a healthy church does both local and global missions.
In my mind, the five reasons that Stetzer lists for the shift away from foreign missions misses the huge point - culture, namely postmodern culture. I'm not endorsing a move away from foreign missions, I'm just saying Stetzer totally misses the point and the history behind why these churches are focusing more on global service. There is a history behind this that people are reacting to. Maybe they reacted too far, but Stetzer still needs to acknowledge that history.
Moreover, I could not help but notice that his understanding of foreign missions appeared to be the dominant culture sending people to the weaker culture. It seems that this article was written with the assumption that "America" has lost its drive for foreign missions. If that is what he is talking about, then he needs to state that explicitly.
On a more positive note, the concluding paragraph had a good synthesis (which I'm pretty sure Stetzer didn't write). The synthesis of the Great Commandment and the Great Commission makes more sense to me than Stetzer's article. The call to love ought to issue forth in a love for all people that seeks to incorporate them into God's family. Some postmodern folks react to loving with an "agenda". While I don't like the word agenda, I do say that we love with intentionality. When we love, we love with a purpose. In a recent class my friend Aaron said it this way, "When I was dating my wife, I had the goal in mind that she would be part of my family. I wasn't dating her just to date her. I wanted her to become a part of the family." I think this is a larger issue that Stetzer touches on when mentioning Francis.
Stetzer has some good thoughts, but I chaff at some of his assumptions and his apparent ignoring of postmodern culture and the history associated with modern culture in the church.
Stetzer makes a great point in his fourth reason missional churches don't do global missions. While it is true that we are saved through grace by merit, and that we are saved through works as evidence of that merit, you can't talk about "being" good news without talking about "telling" good news. As Christians participating in a missional church, we must be ready to defend our faith whenever asked about it (and at times even without being asked about it). Good news is exactly what it says it is...news. And it can't be news unless you tell someone about it. Paul tells Timothy to "set an example for the believers in SPEECH, in life, in love, in faith and in purity" (4:12). Both aspects need to be a part of a Christian's life, and as a result, a part of the life of the missional church.
It seems to me we always playing in the world of extremes. It is either social justice or evangelism. There is a fine balance and we will be better off to remember that. I think this is where Stetzer tries to take us in his last paragraph. Whatever the case may be a dependence on the Holy Spirit providing wisdom and discernment on such matters is what is needed most. The church that has become more or less un-missional has lost the dynamic indwelling and guiding of the Spirit. Lord help the churches that exist without the Spirit.
I agree with "Just Jon" when he notes that the current reaction to foreign missions is possibly due to an understanding of our past mistakes. Maybe we do need to take a step back from the endeavor and really ask ourselves how we need to move forward. What is cross-cultural ministry? Is it just evangelism and pastoring in some country other than your own? If not, what is it? Why is it important? How, then, should we go about engaging in it? Do we in N.A. accept missionaries from other countries? Are there any African missionaries working in Nazerene mission stations in Des Moines? Why, why not? What do global missions look like in a post-christendom, flat world?
I also find myself wrestling with the question of efficacy. I do belong to a church that has a strong focus on the local community, but disregards global missions almost completely.
They work under the assumption that if we want to be God's hands in a hurting world, we need to take care of the hurting people right on our doorstep; because if we don't, who will? I heard one missionary say that his parents took him to task for wanting to go save heathens half a world away while ignoring the plight of his atheist brothers. At the same time, if I weigh the need of orphans in two-thirds world nations who die of starvation every day against the need of Ted, the homeless guy on the corner, who has food, clothing and shelter but just needs job-training, who deserves my attention? The one who just needs some extra cash, or the one who's probably going to die tonight? The question is obviously more complex than that, but that drives at the heart of it.
I am also not sure I have encountered a church so focused on its locality that it has neglected global missions, but I could see that becoming a danger if too much of an emphasis was put on the local community. On the other hand, I have seen churches so preoccupied with trying to sustain their own life that they have neglected both their community and the world. I suppose I have always thought of reaching out to the community and the world as parallel efforts, both much needed, and both having a decided biblical foundation.
On a slightly different note, it seems that the whole social justice issue is a little bit vague. It seems the projects mentioned, namely Christmas shoeboxes and global orphan projects have for the most part started with the very idea for social justice he espoused. Their goal, as I have understood it in working with at least two organizations in these areas, is to win the right to evangelize, not to only minister to physical needs. The second task he states for the church is to reach out socially to engage in relationship in order to be able to share the gospel. To the best of my knowledge, that is what these organizations are trying to do. Any project can start with these intentions and become derailed, but there is a fine line there and it seems risky to criticize these efforts too harshly. I would much rather see the church involved in building relationships through meeting these needs than engaged in street-corner evangelism and harassment at any rate.
I have noticed this trend too in missional churches. It is not that they don't care about global missions it is that they seem more focused on their present reality. This seems to be what the majority of Stetzer's points are centered around.
I think the proposed points that Stetzer makes to improve the situation is a good place to start, but it seems as if he writes forgetting the deep center that Christ plays in missions. Really focusing on Christ would be the place where true transformation would begin for churches.
I think this is a very valid point. I agree that missional churches should remember that there are unreached people that should be incorporated to the missional plan that they put into practice. I do think that local evangelism should not be left behind, however. I think that the missional church should be involved heavily in both local evangelism and global evangelism, which the author touches on briefly at the end of the article. I just believe that there should be a proper balance between the two. Neither should be neglected for the sake of the other.
In light of the discussion I am seeing about the tension between personal "evangelism" and social justice, I wonder if it would help to clarify a few terms. First of all, in most of the "missional church" conversations, I often hear people refer to the missio dei without giving much explanation of what they believe God's mission is. Clarifying this would then help us to better understand what we mean when we say 'evangelism'. It seems that Stetzer uses this term to refer to the act of proclaiming that individuals can have peace with God through Christ. While I don't disagree that this is part of God's mission, I wonder if it is broader than that. Isn't evangelism proclamation of the Good News that God's reign is at hand? If so, than what does this Good News entail? As I read the Gospels I see that Good News is more than just peace with God though a personal relationship with Jesus. It incorporates entering into a whole new way of living and interacting with the world around us. There is a social or political aspect to the reign of God. This includes becoming the kind of people who no longer ignore the needs of the widow and fatherless, etc, etc.
Perhaps it is a false dichotomy that we have created in talking about doing acts of service and justice vs telling others about how to know Christ as Lord. I would like to know more specifically what people have in mind when they are talking about God's mission. Perhaps that could shed more light on how to view the quote attributed to St. Francis.
On a second note... I have a comment in response to Jay's question about participating in international evangelism without making it a tangential program of the church. That is a good question, and I don't pretend to think it has a simple answer. But I think it would help us answer that question if we can better understand what we mean by 'program'. If a program is a something we create in order to relegate someone else to the task and still claim we are somehow 'doing missions', then that is not helpful. But perhaps if we understand program as a way of organizing ourselves so that those with the gift and call to cross cultural and ethnic boundaries to proclaim Good News can best do so, then perhaps that's not a negative term. If we, meaning a local congregation in the US, are actively thinking about, praying for, contributing to, and discerning how we can best be part of what God is doing in other cultures and countries, then we are participating in "international evangelism" in a way that comes out of our identity as Christians who have a mission in the world.
This article seems to be written by someone who is approaching missions and missional churches from a specific perspective, namely, one of global missions. As a result, the article is reactionary and perhaps overly critical of local missional efforts. One could easily argue an overemphasis towards global missions is detrimental to the efforts of local ministry. How faithful are we if we neglect those outside our own doorstep? This perspective and this experience are not my own. In my background I have experienced the opposite. Ministries being sent over seas and to inner city parts of town or to New Orleans but the poor, needy, homeless and LOST in our own community neglected. The author makes the point that his intention is not to create a dichotomy, which unfortunately is exactly what this article does. I thank the author for faithfully sharing his perspective and emphasizing one side of the coin. Certainly, it provides additional awareness in these matters. However, the church that is guilty of what the author accuses them of has missed the point of missional church as much as the church that has eyes locked on foreign lands while the natives are ignored.
The four proposed principles are nice sentiments.
I do believe that there is be a balance between local missions(in the local church) and worldwide global missions.
perhaps the reason why there is seemingly less of a focus on global missions is because "local missions" diversified; the people of the world are right in one's backyard. The need for missions is right here in the United Statees.
I see evangelicalism following out of being “missional;” as part of the natural process that unfolds as Christ followers are living their everyday lives and engaging and forming relationships around common areas of interest. The people of God recognize themselves as part of the story of God and God’s imprints and God’s activity in their life are part or at least should be a part of their speech and actions.
I would echo what Michelle and Kevin stated above, except my circumstance is slightly different. At the church I grew up at I always felt like they were more focused on Global missions than they were on Local. It's easy to give money to missions and send people on trips. It's even easy to let people speak at your church. Local missions are harder though because they force people to do something in their day to day life.
From my growing up experience with a couple Nazarene churches I can agree with Kevin's sentiment that as a whole it seems the church of the Nazarene is more globally focused.
As was stated above this hurts the congregations but it also gives them a really twisted idea of what Missions is and allows for us to just view it as one isolated program and not who we are.
Ed Stetzer says “It appears to me that many missional churches are missing the Great Commission in the name of being missional. That makes zero sense.” I don't see how it's so confusing how the church (in America at least) got here. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I can totally see how churches lose focus. I'd like to break it down as I see it:
The most recent generations of Americans have always seen America as a “sending” church. We “do” missions when we go to other countries as missionaries. We support “our” missionaries when we pay the missions budget etc. We, by helping pay their way, are being missional in a global way. (In the context, I believe missional carries weight for both the colloquial phrase and the specific ideology Settzer is looking for). So, in a way, we are accomplishing our mission of being missional.
Wait. You're right. It's not the church's mission to be missional, it's God's mission to be missional. But, still, even though it is sad, churches think that it is the church's mission. The mission was GIVEN to the church by Jesus in Matthew 28, right? That's one fault of thinking among many thoughts, of course.
Add to that fault the problems we face when the American church realized that America is now a mission field. Wow. It's news! Somebody smart said it, it must be true! (Of course it's always been true because America has never embodied the Kingdom of God, and the mission of God hasn't been fully realized in America—The Kingdom hasn't come in fullness yet!)
So, add this other fault to our thinking: We thought that since we accomplished “our mission” by sending missionaries to other countries by paying the budget, and now America needs missionaries, it must mean that there are people here who need to be converted to Christianity in the same way here too—by paying our budgets!
I think one fundamental problem (among many more problems than the simple problem I illustrate here) is that we don't really know how to bring Christ to others, and what bringing Christ to others might look like. Christ is the church. I thought people were supposed to come to church, not the church come to the people! (I'm being sarcastic again).
I believe Dr. David Wesley's class does help shape our misconceptions of bringing Christ to people. Rather, it gives us a better concept of Christ/the Church. It defines church straight away. It all about ecclesiology. It's Christology. It's the seeds for evangelism. Good job.
It thought the article was interesting however the main point that i have gotten increasinly stuck on is the notion that we must (at least according to the article as i read it) all be ingaged in active global missions. Allthough i feel there is a great need for all congragations to have insight into the gobal theater i think it is looking to far into the text to say that every person should have a global inpact. For some the question of who is my neighbor is a global playing field, and that should be taken advantage of. But for others they may never spend any sugnifcant time outside of the very comunity they grow up in. I know that ultiamtly the aouthor never would say this, yet the article itself leads to the notion that if your not doing missions on a global seeting than your not doing your part. I must say even from personal experience, I have tried to go on a "global misson trip" several times, and the ultimate fact is that even if i had gone what truely would have been accomplished as far as missions. I realize the power of Gods word to work even through a short stay in a forein land, yet the work would have to be picked up by someone who would stay at a much longer term in the mission field than i would have. That beign said to this day i have never had a successfull attemp to join a team in global missions with every attempt I have made being barred in some way. Now I would contend that allthough I have not been able to get a gobal perspective the lord has enabled me to reach teens accrost this country as i have preached in churches and worked with teens from florida all the way to washington. Coast to Coast! Now i may not have ever left my country, yet can i deny that God has allowed me to preach his word in a great sphere of influence? There will be those he calls to forien lands and there will be those who travel their countries, but there must even be a role for those He sees fit to allow to live in the same community for 80years of thier lives still have an impact for His kingdom.
I understand that we are called to be churches that reach all nations for God, and I understand and agree with a lot of what is written. The only thing that I am not sure if I agree with is the looking down on churches that want to focus on their local area.
I believe that a church is called to both local and global missions. Taking them both on at the same time might not always been possible for a church. I like how Acts 1:8 puts it. "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth." There is a process that emerges from this passage. You could possibly say missions is: local (Jerusalem), Nations (Judea), then cross cultural (Samaria, and to the end of the earth).
I am not saying that a church should never help globally/cross culturally. I feel that a if a church feels called to focus on reaching their local community more, they should not be looked down upon. At the same though, that church should be aware that it should then work towards helping globally again in the future.
(p.s. I am sorry I was late with the post. I forgot about it until this morning.)
Post a Comment