What is the Relationship Between Church and Mission?

That is a big question that is currently a topic of intense discussion in many evangelical circles today. 

The traditional (and I believe biblical) answer to that question is that the church is the bigger category. The church has three inter-related activities:  worship, nurture, and witness. In addition to worshiping the triune God and nurturing its members, the church has been entrusted with a mission. The mission is to offer the gospel freely to all men, resting in God’s effectual call to grant faith to those who are elect, thereby bringing them into the church. The mission is subordinate to the church. Ultimately God’s glory, in both the salvation of the elect and the punishment of the reprobate, is God’s ultimate purpose. Within the positive side, the salvation of the elect, and their being gathered into and forming the church, the bride of Christ, is God’s eternal purpose. The church is not merely an instrument for some other goal. It is the goal.

We can vizualize the traditional view of the relationship between church and mission this way:

The church is God’s appointed ordinance for the gathering and perfecting of the saints. The saints are perfected, nourished, and nurtured through the preaching of the Word, the church’s Christian education programs, the administration of the Lord’s Supper, the communion of the saints, and through church discipline.

But with the rise of the missional movement in the last decade or so, in the minds of many the order has to be switched. In this view, mission is the bigger category, and the church is subordinate to the Missio Dei. The missional philosophy’s slogan is that “It’s not the Church of God that has a mission, but the God of mission who has a church.” This formula is attributed to various authors. (I think the one I just quoted comes from Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury.) Another version of the formula is used in The Missional Manifesto (by Ed Stetzer, Alan Hirsch, Tim Keller, et al): “Although it is frequently stated ‘God’s church has a mission,’ according to missional theology, a more accurate expression is ‘God’s mission has a church.’”

We can vizualize the missional movement’s view of the relationship between church and mission this way:

What is the practical result of subordinating the church to God’s mission? Tim Keller says that “a ‘missional’ church (as we define it) gears absolutely every single part of its life—its worship, community, public discourse and preaching, education—for the presence of non-believers from the culture surrounding it.” [Keller, “Contextual and Missional,” p. 1. Lecture Three of the Urban Plant Life series of the London Church Planting Consultation, 2008-2009.]

That’s a pretty astounding statement when you think about it. Is it true that everything the church does must be adapted and reformulated so that it is engaged with non-Christian society? Corporate worship? Christian nurture? Fellowship? What about the sacraments? Most activities that the church engages are geared toward the edification of the saints, apart from any consideration of mission.

When the church is viewed as having a subordinate role within mission, then everything the church does ought to be merely a means to the end of mission. “Missional represents a significant shift in the way we understand the church,” the drafters of The Missional Manifesto candidly state. Indeed.

Comments

[Dante]

Have you read this Lee? Paul Bowers, “Fulfilling the Gospel: The Scope of the Pauline Mission,” JETS 80 (1987): 185-98.

http://www.etsjets.org/files/JETS-PDFs/30/30-2/30-2-pp185-198_JETS.pdf

This was from his doctoral dissertation. It's solid.

Ever since hearing of it, I've always thought 'missional' is heading into a social gospel and certainly does not understand the two kingdoms. A man whom Christ gives to his church as a servant of the word has his heart set on the people of God, not culture.

Concerning your first paragraph, I'd like to see an even stronger link between worship and nurture. We worship God from the heart when we are edified (nurtured) by the word and prayer. If a shepherd is not feeding Christ's sheep, there may be loud music, but not worship.

[Keith]

Acts 20:28-30 is the "great commission" that is all too often forgotten.