Kevin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert on Mission and Social Justice

Kevin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert, What Is the Mission of the Church? Making Sense of Social Justice, Shalom, and the Great Commission (Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), 288pp., ISBN 9781433526909.

Although I’m pretty certain I won’t want to say everything the way they say it, I’ve had this new book from Kevin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert on pre-order for several months now, and am really looking forward to looking at it more closely.

A generous excerpt from the book is available here.

And here is the publisher’s description:

‘Social justice and mission are hot topics today: there’s a wonderful resurgence of motivated Christians passionate about spreading the gospel and caring for the needs of others. But in our zeal to get sharing and serving, many are unclear on gospel and mission. Yes, we are called to spend ourselves for the sake of others, but what is the church’s unique priority as it engages the world?

‘DeYoung and Gilbert write to help Christians “articulate and live out their views on the mission of the church in ways that are theologically faithful, exegetically careful, and personally sustainable.” Looking at the Bible’s teaching on evangelism, social justice, and shalom, they explore the what, why, and how of the church’s mission. From defining “mission”, to examining key passages on social justice and their application, to setting our efforts in the context of God’s rule, DeYoung and Gilbert bring a wise, studied perspective to the missional conversation.

‘Readers in all spheres of ministry will grow in their understanding of the mission of the church and gain a renewed sense of urgency for Jesus’ call to preach the Word and make disciples.’

A twelve-minute video available here – featuring the two authors and Ryan Kelly – also provides a flavour of what to expect.

William Carey

William Carey, so-called father of modern mission, was born this day (17 August) in 1761 – 250 years ago.

Sunday 21 August 2011 has been designated as ‘Carey Sunday’, endorsed by the Baptist Union of Great Britain, the Baptist Union of Scotland and the Baptist Union of Wales. BMS World Mission has a number of helpful resources here to help churches celebrate the 250th anniversary of Carey’s birth.

As a young Christian, I devoured biographies of William Carey, and I recall doing a short series on his life for 8- to 11-year-olds in my Sunday School class, trying to finish each week on a cliff-hanger!

I also recall, even as a young teenager, being intrigued about what appeared to be some major flaws in his domestic life as well as being fascinated by all his activities I wouldn’t necessarily have associated (at that stage in my life) with ‘mission’ – in agriculture and botany, in founding schools and a college, in campaigning against Sati (the practice of widow burning), in publishing a newspaper, etc.

In fact, a few weeks ago I came across a nice piece here by Vishal and Ruth Mangalwadi, imagining a quizmaster at the finals of the All India Universities competition asking the best-informed Indian students, ‘Who was William Carey?’, with the many different answers embracing him being a botanist, industrialist, economist, medical humanitarian, medical pioneer, agriculturalist, translator and educator, astronomer, library pioneer, forest conservationist, crusader for women’s rights, public servant, moral reformer, and cultural cultural transformer. The Mangalwadis conclude that ‘Carey was an evangelist who used every available medium to illumine every dark facet of Indian life with the light of truth’, and that ‘as such, he is the central character in the story of India’s modernization’.

The line perhaps most often associated with Carey – ‘Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God’ – remains theologically rich as well as ripe for reflection on practice.

Paul Beasley-Murray on Salty Christians

Paul Beasley-Murray, ‘Salty Christians’, Ministry Today 3 (1995).

Okay, I think the title might make a bit too much of the reference in Matthew 5:13, but this is a terrific article (from a paper first presented to a Baptist Assembly Seminar at Bridlington, on 27 April 1994) which resonates with many of our concerns here at the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity.

Beasley-Murray lists some of the ways we keep the salt in the salt cellar, essentially keeping people in the religious ghetto of the church – by our preaching, our teaching on stewarship, the activities we lay on and expect people to attend, our concept of mission, and because the ‘close identification of many a ministerial ego with many a church has created a psychological need to emphasise the church over the kingdom’.

Then, more positively, he writes about ‘mobilising salty Christians’ – through preaching and teaching, in the leading of public worship, in decision-making meetings, in Bible studies, in support groups for particular occupational groups, in running a stewardship campaign with a difference, in running church membership classes differently, and in giving people time to live in the real world.

Lots and lots of practical wisdom, much of which still bears repeating.

Mission Frontiers

Mission Frontiers is billed as ‘the news and issues journal from the U.S. Center for World Mission’. Themed issues are published and available online very two months, with the following being among the more-recent ones:

July-August 2011 – Overcoming Poverty

May-June 2011 – Jesus Movements

March-April 2011 – Church Planting Movements

January-February 2011 – Discipleship Revolution

November-December 2010 – Going Radical

Matt Chandler, Michael Horton, and Tim Keller on the Church in Culture

For those who are following, or even vaguely aware of, the ongoing debates about the role of the church in culture – especially the lines being drawn in the sand between so-called ‘Two Kingdoms’ advocates on one side and so-called ‘Cultural Transformationists’ on the other side – this is a really useful 10-minute trialogue between Matt Chandler, Michael Horton, and Tim Keller.

Keller begins by asking: ‘What’s the church’s role in culture?’

To make it more granular, he asks: ‘What is the church’s job in equipping its members to carry out their callings in the world?’

In line with his recent published work on the gospel and the great commission, Horton speaks about culture (in this context) being about the ‘myriad callings’ we have as husbands, fathers, plumbers, teachers, etc., rooted in creation. But, he says, we have another calling in the great commission. Here, he deploys a distinction influenced by Kuyper between the church as an ‘organisation’ and the church as an ‘organism’. As an organisation or an institution, the church (for Horton) doesn’t have any calling to transform culture; but in terms of being an organism, the church as a people is scattered into the world to pursue their callings.

Chandler speaks about the mission of the church being ‘to proclaim the good news and make disciples’. But part of that process, he says, is training and releasing Christians to be faithful in their domains of society, to empower them to see themselves in their neighbourhood, hobby, workplace, etc. – the ‘units they do life in’ – as being a faithful presence and witness in those areas. Disciplemaking needs to go beyond emparting knowledge.

Keller judges that there is probably not much difference between the practice of Horton and Chandler. He says he hears them saying the same thing but not wanting to say it the same way. It’s not the church’s role, as the church, to change the social structures, but to equip the people to make a difference. Keller muses that it’s not the job of the pastor to lead a church to change a culture but to create a culture-changing people.

10 minutes well spent.

Derek Christensen on Equipping the Lay Mission Force

Here’s a short but powerful essay which echoes a lot of our concerns here at Imagine...

Derek Christensen, ‘Equipping the Lay Mission Force’, Momentum 2, 2 (2007), 129-34.

He begins with the ‘scattering‘ of the missionary church in Acts 8:1-4 and 11:19-24, pointing out the vital role that ‘lay’ people have continued to exercise in the history of the church, right up to recent times. Even so, as he says, while there has been ‘a great deal of writing on lay involvement... the truth is, it’s not happening’.

The bulk of the article is then taken up with an expansion of five reasons for a lack of lay involvement and five possible courses of action to take, as follows:

Five reasons for a lack of lay involvement:

1. The dominance of a professional leadership model of church life.

2. Continued focus on ‘come’ instead of ‘go’ strategies.

3. Related to this is the fact we leave most of our people with a gaping chasm between Sunday and Monday.

4. Failure to achieve a theology of culture that handles the dialogue between church and culture in ways that resonate with both people of the culture and people within the church.

5. Failure to fully resolve the church-academy divide.

Five possible courses of action for renewal in lay education:

1. Change our expectations of the role of the lay person.

2. Establish a seamless range of training opportunities for the whole people of God.

3. This implies a greater emphasis on the reflective practitioner.

4. Have as watchwords for our training three words: appropriateness, assessment and access.

5. Learn to see training of the lay mission force as a long term, lifelong task instead of short term and detached experiences.

Anvil

Anvil – ‘an Anglican Evangelical journal for theology and mission’ – has been relaunched as an online journal.

New material is available for free (following a pain-free registration process), and in time it is hoped that the whole Anvil archive will be available online.

According to the website:

‘Anvil is an Anglican evangelical journal of theology and mission. It aims to encourage clear and creative thinking and practice in theology and mission, through open, scholarly debate. While the journal stands clearly in an Anglican evangelical tradition, it seeks to engage constructively with other other Christian traditions both within and beyond the Anglican Communion. Anvil has a particular concern to reflect the unity and diversity of the church worldwide.’

Issue 27, 1 (2011) is available here. In addition to book reviews, it contains the following articles on the theme of ‘Fresh Expressions’:

Jonny Baker

Curating Worship

Drawing on many years involvement in ‘alternative worship’ and in particular on interviews for his recent book Curating Worship, Jonny Baker offers reflections on worship as curation and highlights a number of key themes arising from this creative liturgical and missional movement that are of value for the wider church.

Graham Cray

For the Parish by Andrew Davison and Alison Milbank – A Response

In their recent book, For the Parish, Andrew Davison and Alison Milbank offer a strong critique of Fresh Expressions and Mission-Shaped Church. In this response, Bishop Graham Cray highlights and responds to six of their criticisms, arguing they seriously mislead and misrepresent both the report and Fresh Expressions. He identifies contrasting approaches to the gospel and culture as underlying many of the differences before noting three areas of shared concerns.

George Lings

Evaluating Fresh Expressions of Church

One of the big questions we face today, particularly in relation to Fresh Expressions, is what we mean by ‘church’. In this article George Lings provides us with an overview and some critique of a number of existing lists and criteria on offer to evaluate church. He then explores in more detail the additional question of what it means for a church to be Christian, offering four distinctive characteristics. Finally, he critically explores the deeper question of our image of church and tracks four paradigm changes in this over recent years before concluding with a reflection on how the interpersonal paradigm can combine with the distinctively Christian features of church to assist in evaluating fresh expressions.

Eleanor Williams

Urban Fresh Expressions: Sustainability in the Mixed Economy

Drawing on parish experience and on research interviews conducted in preparation for a written project on the viability of Fresh Expressions of Church in urban deprived settings, Eleanor Williams surveys the findings of the research, drawing out key insights. She concludes by raising some challenging questions about the sustainability of new forms of church at the margins of society, and the meaning of the concept of ‘mixed economy’.

Select articles from earlier issues of Anvil are available here.

Brian Stanley on a Vision for Mission

The text of the 2011 G.R. Beasley-Murray Lecture, delivered by Brian Stanley (Professor of World Christianity at the University of Edinburgh) at the 2011 Baptist Assembly in Blackpool, is available here.

Its title is ‘Renewing a Vision for Mission among British Baptists: Historical Perspectives and Theological Reflections’.

Stanley does a nice job, in my opinion, of weaving together historical discussion with theological reflection around the topic of mission, under three main points:

• Rediscovering the missionary purpose of God

• Restoring the centrality of missionary discipleship

• Re-envisioning the shape of missionary fellowship

Here are some highlights:

‘[B]y “renewing a vision for mission” I mean, not simply expanding and deepening our commitment to evangelism within Britain, but, more fundamentally, bringing into the very centre of our church life a passionate absorption with the theme of God’s missionary purposes for the world’ (1-2).

‘The mission of God is an overflowing of the incessant dance of selfgiving in relationship... which characterizes the inner life of the triune God, into the community of the people of God, and from them into the world’ (6).

‘The missionary responsibility of the church is to make not converts, but disciples whose communal life together will be a visible embodiment of “all that I have commanded you” – in other words, the mind of Christ and the values of his kingdom. Hence the church as a missionary community is called to be what Lesslie Newbigin loved to refer to as “the hermeneutic of the gospel”, an icon or exemplification of what the gospel of the kingdom is all about’ (9).

Lausanne World Pulse (June-July 2011)

The themed articles in June-July 2011’s Lausanne World Pulse are devoted to ‘the power of discipleship’.

Sara Singleton

The Gospel within Discipleship: Spiritual Formation

God calls us to learn, listen, and to live in the light as we grow to be his disciples and disciplers of others. The change that comes from the renewal of our inner life leads to an irrepressible love for God and others.

LaNette Thompson

Discipleship at Arm’s Length? Not Possible

Cross-cultural discipleship should include mentoring in four areas – purpose, relationship, knowledge, and rituals and powers.

Knud Jørgensen

Discipleship: Shallow Lake or Deep Waters? A Nordic Look at Church

A life without discipleship will always be a life without Jesus – an idea, a myth, a folk religion, without Christ as the center. The author discusses how this plays out in Western Europe and calls for a church that both supports people (gives to, takes care, welcomes, carries) and challenges people to discipleship and obedience.

The Executive Summary is available here, and the full version here.

Church Attendance Survey

Dr Lisa Oakley, a friend of the Institute, from Manchester Metropolitan University is running a valuable new survey exploring people's experiences of church. We are happy to point people to the website where they can add their reflections. Lisa gives more information here:

Church – the good, the bad and the ugly.

Church and church attendance is a central part of the lives of many Christians in the UK. It is important therefore for us to understand how people experience church. The ‘church experience survey’ has been launched to collect views on the best and worst about church. It is aimed at anyone who attends or has attended church in their lives. All results are anonymous so no one can be identified.

As well as general questions about positive and negative aspects of church life it asks some searching questions which we need to know the answers to in order to understand more about church and to allow us to think about ways in which we may need to rethink or develop our churches. It also allows individuals to celebrate the things which are good about churches across the UK whilst asking about issues which have been difficult for us to discuss. The on-line survey only takes 5 mins to complete and can be found at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/V9K36YP

Catherine Playoust on Gathering and Scattering

Catherine Playoust, ‘A Time to Scatter, a Time to Gather’, Pacifica 23, 1 (2010), 1-14.

One of our leitmotifs at London Institute for Contemporary Christianity is the distinction between the church as ‘gathered’ (coming together as one body for worship, teaching, sacraments, etc.) and ‘scattered’ (in the various places we find ourselves during the week). While both aspects are crucial and interdependent, ecclesiology can tend to focus on the former to the neglect of the latter.

So, I was interested to see this article (available from here) by Catherine Playoust devoted to the theme of scattering and gathering. She does a nice job of summarising the main uses of this image in Scripture itself:

‘In deciding what to include, I didn’t go in search of particular Greek or Hebrew words, but looked for places in which these ideas came up. They emerged in three main contexts, often interlocking: the sowing of seed to produce a harvest that will be gathered in; the dispersal of a multitude and its subsequent restoration to its own land; and the assembly of a group for a particular occasion, after which the members of the assembly are sent out to various places with the group’s goals in mind’ (2).

A brief exploration of these gives way to a more extended look at the gospel of John, where she notes that ‘instead of the crucifixion being the time of scattering and sorrow, to be followed by gathering and joy at the resurrection, the gathering and joy happen already at the crucifixion’ (11).

Missional Journal 5, 2 (May 2011)

After more than a decade of analysis about the missional church, David Dunbar asks (in his latest Missional Journal), ‘Where’s the beef?’

On reasons for the seeming lack of ‘concrete results’, Dunbar begins by citing the ‘residual influences of Christendom’:

‘Although the cultural situation in much of North America may now be described as post-Christendom, many remnants of Christendom are still with us... not least in the thinking and practice of many Christians. Thus many of us assume a building-centered approach to church, ministry, and evangelism. We assume that we can speak and act from a position of cultural favor and influence. And we remain deeply shaped by a clergy-laity distinction that was powerfully rooted and formed in Christendom (even though the beginning of the distinction predates Constantine).’

Change is only likely to come about, he says, by ‘regular and repeated teaching around the themes like the mission of God, the gospel of the kingdom, and the sending of the church’, by missional leaders finding ‘congregational allies – “early adopters” who will share the vision for mission and help them hold course in the face of opposition or discouragement’, and by reaching out to ‘other congregations on the same journey for wisdom, encouragement, and partnership’.

He also suggests there has been ‘an absence of models available to help churches think concretely about what it might look like follow Jesus into the world and how leaders could actually process congregations through this change’.

In addition is the challenge of formation, the fact that ‘missionally focused churches face the same problems that other groups do: forming mature disciples is a tough row upstream’.

He concludes:

‘Missional is not just another program for busy people – it is a divine call to be a different kind of people, a people formed by the gospel to embody the gospel in the totality of their daily lives. That’s where the beef is! And this is the challenge before us – it will require time, energy, wisdom, and focus to move the theoretical discussion to incarnational reality.’

Tim Chester on Eating and Drinking with Others

Tim Chester, A Meal with Jesus: Discovering Grace, Community, and Mission around the Table (Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), 144pp., ISBN 9781433521362.

IVP are publishing this in the UK. Meanwhile – to whet the appetite – Crossway make available an excerpt as well as an interview with Tim Chester around the topic of the book. It’s about the significance of eating with others – in the ministry of Jesus (particularly as portrayed in Luke’s gospel) and as part of the shared life and mission of Christian communities today.

Here are some paragraphs from the Introduction:

‘This is a book about meals. But the meals of Jesus are a window into his message of grace and the way it defines his community and its mission. So this book is about grace, church, and mission. But meals are more than metaphor. They embody God’s grace and so give form to community and mission. We can’t get away from meals.

‘If I pull down books on mission and church planting from my shelves, I can read about contextualization, evangelism matrices, postmodern apologetics, and cultural hermeneutics. I can look at diagrams that tell me how people can be converted or discover the steps required to plant a church. It all sounds impressive, cutting edge, and sophisticated. But this is how Luke describes Jesus’s mission strategy: “The Son of Man came eating and drinking.”’

After the Introduction, the book is divided into six chapters, looking at meal scenes in Luke:

1. Meals as Enacted Grace: Luke 5

2. Meals as Enacted Community: Luke 7

3. Meals as Enacted Hope: Luke 9

4. Meals as Enacted Mission: Luke 14

5. Meals as Enacted Salvation: Luke 22

6. Meals as Enacted Promise: Luke 24

Aliens and Strangers

An interesting article has been published in the latest Missional Journal from Biblical Seminary which picks up on some important thinking from Miroslav Volf and James Davison Hunter on the mode of Christian living in the world and the need for disciples of Christ to operate in a mode of Soft Difference.

Read the article here...

Baptist Times: Whole-life Discipleship (Feb 2011)

A Vision for Discipleship
Albert drives buses. He’s passionate about serving people, extending those courtesies that make life easier – waiting for the person who’s still running to the stop; exercising patience with those who’ve lost theirs. He’s also bothered about the other drivers in the depot. When I met him he was about to return to work following a short strike during which only five drivers had crossed the picket line. ‘My job tomorrow,’ he said, ‘is to be a peacemaker. That’s why I’m here.’ Albert has a vision to make a difference in his place of work. Quietly spoken, with a sense of humour, a diplomat and a good listener, Albert deploys that gifting by actively engaging with the relational tensions of his workplace. Along the way he hopes to drive lots of people safely from A to B, enable as many as possible to experience grace through his attention to their needs, and to speak about Jesus as the one who inspires his vision for a life worth living.

What about you? What’s shaping your vision for your own life?

One of the ways we might approach this question is to take seriously the places where we spend most of our time. That’s what Jesus did. John 1:14 tells us that Jesus “came and lived among them…”  In other words he came to live in a fixed time and place. It mattered where he was. This was the context in which he could fulfil his unique and specific life calling in obedience to his Father.

Jesus was sent to a tiny geographic area on our planet for a limited amount of time, but with a purpose. He came to seek and to save the lost. He came to model an alternative way of life and relationships. He came to declare by word and deed that the kingdom of God had come. He ate
and drank, he taught and healed, he talked and cried, he worked and slept, he prayed and celebrated. He lived fully and purposefully in that moment and in that place and he invited his disciples to do likewise.

Where we are matters. Where we spend the majority of our time in an ordinary week matters to God. So where is that for you - work, home, college, in your community, or somewhere else? Can you make a difference there? On the ‘frontline’ in daily life, in your ‘crossing places’ with non believers?

The Message translation of Galatians 6:4 puts the challenge succinctly,

‘Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that.’

God weaves the threads of our life, our self and our context into a tapestry that displays the wonder of his mission as we ask questions and listen, bring him our dilemmas, search the Scriptures, and exercise boldness in words and deeds on the frontline.

It’s easy to be overly swayed by other people’s expectations or intimidated by the brilliance of other people’s gifting. Allowing such forces to mould us can lead to bitterness or resentment or a growing sense of inadequacy. The truth is: you are one in whom Christ dwells and in whom he delights, his masterpiece (Ephesians 2:10), a reflection of the heart and the mind and the creative genius of the Maker. We’re not all called to be diplomats or drivers. But through our gifting and our growth in Christ-likeness on the frontline we will make a difference wherever we are day by day. So what’s your vision for your discipleship these days?

Tracy Cotterell

Hirsch & Ford: Right Here, Right Now

The ever prolific South African missiologist Alan Hirsch has published his latest book Right Here, Right Now: Everyday Mission for Everyday People co-authored with Lance Ford and we are looking forward to reading it. The book seeks to be an exploration of whole-life discipleship, a corrective to the often overlooked element of the missional church conversation: that missional communities need to be made up of missional people.

As the authors put it:

This book is written to equip all believers and to serve as a guide in the journey of living as salt and light in the name of Jesus Christ, regardless of situation, vocation or location. It is to take the academic concept of missional and make it accessible to the whole body of Christ. We believe it belongs to the whole church and must somehow be factored into the equation of discipleship, spirituality, and church at every level of our experience if we are going to be the people God has made us to be.

The book is accompanied by an excellent range of online resources at righthererightnowbook.com

Baptist Times: Whole-life Discipleship (Article 2)

LICC has been asked to contribute a series of articles to the Baptist Times exploring themes in whole-life discipleship. In the second of the series Mark Greene explores a vision for human flourishing...

Flourishing from Eden to Exeter
Here’s a question:



Why does God create Adam on Day 6? Why doesn’t he create him on Day 1?


And what has that to do with whole-life discipleship?


Well, if God had created Adam on Day 1 it would have been dark and there would have been nowhere for him to stand.


In fact, by the time God creates Adam everything is ready for him. There’s air to breathe, water to drink, food to eat, productive work to pursue and it’s beautiful. What has God done? He has created a context for human flourishing. That’s the big project.


That’s what a parent or a single person is trying to do in their home – trying to create a context for the flourishing of those who live and visit. That’s what a good manager does in a company, tries to create a context in which people can flourish. As one senior manager put it; “My job is to roll the rocks off the runway so other people can soar.” That’s what a pastor is trying to do in a church, trying to create a context in which people can flourish in Christ.


Certainly the Fall has made that more difficult but God’s primary purpose has not changed. Christ, after all, is not only described as co-creator of all things: “For by him all things were created” (Colossians 1:16)


He is described as the one through whom “all things” are reconciled:


“and through him to reconcile all things to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” (Colossians 1:20)


All things, not just some things.


This is the wonder and glory of God’s plan in Christ – not a partial salvation, not an interim solution, but a definitive, once and for all, all sufficient, redemptive sacrifice that promises the utter renewal of all things.


Tony Campolo, the American Christian social activist, put it this way,


“Evangelism is an invitation to join a movement to change the world.”


Of course, evangelism is more than that, but it is never less.


This is the big project we are all involved in – working with God to create a context for human flourishing in Him, with him, for Him, to His glory… wherever we are, day by day.


That may sound all very academic but it works out in very concrete ways, in ordinary situations.


So, a while back, a scientist called Anita pondered the lack of positive relationships in her workplace. Every day, the “team” would come in, suit up in white and scurry like moles into the single-person labs that the purity of their research required. Occasionally one of them would scuttle out to replenish a coffee cup and then scamper back. No one talked to each other, no one shared ideas about the research, no one really had much fun. So Anita decided to do an experiment and announced that on Friday, she would make coffee for everyone at 10:30 and she would bring chocolate biscuits.


And so it was that, on Friday at 10:30, the scientists, lured by chocolate, scampered out of their single-unit labs, into Anita’s benevolent conversational trap. And talked about life, about the news, and, of course, about their research. And so Friday by Friday, calorie by calorie, the “team” became more of a team.


What might you do in your context to combat something that inhibits people flourishing? Is your context full of gossip? Then practice affirmation. Is it full of selfishness? Then suggest something that helps people think of others – getting together to give to a particular charity, for example. In sum, prayerfully, look for an antidote that might, over time, lead to people experiencing Jesus’ ways. As God puts it to the exiles in Babylon (Jeremiah 29:7): “Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”