12.09.08

apostolic

Posted in gospel, mission at 2:01 pm by len

“The reason Christians are formed into communities is because of God’s work to make a people to serve him as Christ’s witnesses.  The congregation is either a missional community–as Newbigin defines it, ‘the hermeneutic of the gospel’ (The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, 222ff.)–or it is ultimately a caricature of the people of God that it is called to be.”
Darrell L. Guder, The Continuing Conversion of the Church (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 136.
“A .. way of spelling out the “apostolic” character of the church is by tending to the literal meaning of the term apostolos – one who is sent out with a mission.  As we saw above, churches can too easily identify their mission as a colonizing of the other.  An exclusive focus on the idea that “we” are sent to “them” can reinforce missiologies of aggression and invasion.  Becoming ecclesial involves not only sending, but also receiving.” LeRon Shults, “Reforming Ecclesiology in Emerging Churches.”

“The sending of the Son expresses something basic about God: that God wants to be known.  God’s mission is to know and be known.  Eternal life consists in knowing God, and Jesus Christ whom God sent (17:3).  It is in Christ preeminently that we discover this–that God wants to be known, and it is central to Christ’s mission that the world know this about God–that God is the one who sent Jesus.

“To be fully united to God’s mission is to be fully united to God.  And it is this unity in mission to which the disciples are also invited.” Geoerge Brownson, “The God Who Sent Jesus”

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