05.01.07
missional ecclesiology 6
Howard Snyder responds,
“Biblically speaking, ecclesiology and missiology are two ways of of talking about the same thing. The church is the mission of God on earth, and “church” without “mission” is an oxymoron. The church begets mission and mission begets the church.
“Mission “precedes” church only in the sense of the missio Dei, God’s mission to and in the world, which has produced the church through the work of Jesus Christ by the Spirit to serve as the continuation of God’s mission.
“This understanding makes no sense in the Christendom model but that model is bankrupt and, thankfully, is fading.”
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In The Shaping of Things to Come Alan Hirsch reminds us that Jesus did not come preaching the church, but the kingdom of God. Alan contrasts the attractional vs the missional impulse. Alan identifies four elements that frame our understanding of the incarnation: presence, proximity, powerlessness, and proclamation. Alan notes that the incarnation was organic: Jesus was so much like his neighbors, he was never even noticed until he began to do miracles. As a movement took shape, the gospel became embedded first in the Hebrew culture and then in the Greek. Alan compares this dynamic to seed and soil, and then new life growing and reseeding itself. Alan spelled out some of the differences between attractional and missional in his previous book (72).
Alan suggests that we have tended to place ecclesiology before missiology. He argues for a different order. Christology comes first, then missiology, then ecclesiology. The shape of the church is determined by Jesus and His mission. That mission comes first means the church is always embedded in a particular context, and that her shape is guided by her purpose.
Before I began this series, I made a few notes so that my own thoughts would be clear. I wrote,
“Since God has always been on a mission, and since the first sent one is Abraham, there is a clear sense in which mission precedes the existence of the church.
“But if we take the existence of the church as a requisite for mission, that is, if we are talking about a missional ECCLESIOLOGY, then we might anchor mission in John 20, with Jesus breathing the Spirit and speaking shalom in the upper room. This act looks toward Pentecost; the coming of the Spirit impels the church into mission.
“But another word we connect strongly with mission.. more strongly in this generation than ever perhaps.. is incarnation. If the Spirit is the force behind mission, incarnation is the modus operandi. So now we have mission, ecclesiology, Christology and Pneumatology at the center. In reality “missional ecclesiology” is only a lens that focuses light from wider sources; a hook, which can’t be properly appreciated apart from a broader theological grid.
I think this point was made in a variety of ways over the course of this past week, both in personal submissions I received as well as in the comments. I hope this generated some good conversations. The final point I would like to make is to echo Tony Jones recent remark on orthodoxy: just as orthodoxy is an event, so a missional ecclesiology is about action. First, God’s action on our behalf, and second, our action on His behalf. It is not the Church of God that has a mission in the world — it is the God of mission who has a Church in the world.
NextReformation » missional rooting said,
April 29, 2008 at 7:35 am
[...] In that final post I referred to the work of Alan Hirsch in The Forgotten Ways. Alan notes that we placed ecclesiology before missiology, and argues for a different order (p 142), with Christology first, then missiology, then ecclesiology. At the time that made sense to me. The shape of the church is determined by Jesus and His mission. Placing mission first helps us understand that form is a conversation between nature, telos (purpose) and context. Then I wrote, “Since God has always been on a mission, and since the first sent one is Abraham, there is a clear sense in which mission precedes the existence of the church.” [...]