Missional Church

We are about to embark on a new preaching series which we have called “Missional Church”. In this blog I would like to introduce the series by exploring what it means to be a missional church.

There is a sense of mission captured in the Old Testament.  In the beginning God created man and blessed them and instructed them to be fruitful, increase in number, fill the earth and subdue it[1]. God had created something beautiful in Eden, a place of rest, a place of purpose, a place of communion between God and his creation, and his plan was to extend this realm over all the earth. Abraham was instructed to leave his people and go to a new land. He would be blessed by God so that he could be a blessing to others[2] . This call to be a blessing to others was engrained into the people of Israel, God’s chosen people, and they were called to serve the marginalised, the orphans, widows, the poor and the stranger. Even though Israel were the elect, there is also a conviction that the grace and mercy of God embraces other nations as well[3].

However, there is a marked difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament. If it can be said that there is a sense of mission in the Old Testament, the New Testament is all about mission! The incarnational God, Jesus, brings the mission of God in flesh to the world. Jesus engages in mission as one who has been sent from the Father of mission. In Luke 4 Jesus sets out his manifesto for mission. Full of the Holy Spirit he reads from Isaiah[4] and says:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,

because he has anointed me

to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners

and recovery of sight for the blind,

to set the oppressed free,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”[5]

We can see two aspects to the mission of Jesus, firstly to proclaim good news, and secondly to demonstrate the good news by bringing recovery, release, and restoration for those in need.

The early church followed the example of Jesus and his mission. They were constant proclaimers of the Gospel, even when banned from preaching about Jesus, they continued. Their preaching was accompanied by the demonstration of the power of God at work in his church. There were many signs and wonders in the early church, and there was the very practical outworking of grace to the poor, orphaned, widowed, and those in need. There was also the new expression of church as a community. In a world which was highly divided, socially, culturally, and religiously, the early church demonstrated a new unity which brought together Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female, each coming together as a new creation, reconciled, justified and one in Christ. This was the on-going work of Jesus in the church, proclaiming good news and a demonstration of God’s love to all.

The church today is a continuation of this mission. We need to understand that we are joining in with the mission of God, his redemptive purposes for mankind that have been demonstrated throughout history, and supremely through his Son, Jesus Christ. Our mission emanates from the very nature of God, his love, grace, mercy, and compassion demonstrated to his creation. Our God is a God who is on a mission, and he has chosen to use his church as an instrument for his plans and purposes. David Bosch in his book Transforming mission says that “To participate in mission is to participate in the movement of God’s love toward people, since God is a fountain of sending love”[6].

However, the context in which we preach and demonstrate the gospel has radically changed. We face opposition to our message and indifference to the church that is increasingly seen as outdated and irrelevant. We struggle to reach this generation of people who have no concept of Jesus and do not have a good perception of the Christian church.  We want to ensure that we have the right missiological framework for the church in the twenty-first century and are missionally relevant to the communities which we serve. We want to see every believer missionally minded in every aspect of life. In essence we need to capture the zeal and passion of the early church and give ourselves to the mission of Jesus but in a way that engages with twenty-first century people.

In our preaching series we will be looking at certain themes around mission to help us to be the missional church that Jesus intended:

• Missional Church: Jesus is Lord
• Missional Church: Community on a Mission
• Missional Church: Intentional Mission
• Missional Church: Contextual Mission
• Missional Church: Disciple Making Mission
• Missional Church: The Apostolic Environment

Alan Hirsch said “.. the church (the ecclesia), when true to its real calling, when it is on about what God is on about, is by far and away the most potent force for transformational change the world has ever seen.”[7]  Let us pray that God will stir us through the preaching of his word and that we will truly be a missional church, caught up in the mission of God, proclaiming and demonstrating the good news of Jesus to our communities.

David Bareham