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.

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.

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).

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.’

Work in Progress

At the moment I’m working on a publication that I hope will see the light of day in the autumn this year. It’ll reflect the work I’ve been engaged in with the churches that linked themselves into the Imagine project. This is a short excerpt from the introduction….

For three years we worked with churches up and down the country, getting to know them well, trying to understand their particular challenges and opportunities, encouraging them to become whole-life disciple-making communities. From this experience we have been reminded that there are no silver bullets, no ‘off the peg’ resources that will change everything. Over three years later, we have learnt from our work with these partner churches.

What we have found is that there is a clear process that can be used by any church, regardless of their denominational stream, their age profile or their geographical location. Of course, what they end up doing will be unique to them in each situation. Each church is local and unique, and God has a way of dealing with each of them according to his plans and purposes.

But the simple process can be summarised in three points:

Giving Church Another Chance, Todd Hunter

Why read this book
At a time when many people are re-thinking the value of the gathered church as a place of spiritual formation, Todd Hunter writes to encourage us to connect all we do in gathered worship with our everyday life.

About the author
Previously he was the national director of both the Vineyard Churches USA and Alpha USA. He’s now a bishop for the Anglican Mission in the Americas. He has a website where you can read more about his work and other books.

5 Values: 5 - We Commit To Growth As Whole-life Disciples

This is the last in a series of posts on 5 Values for a Whole-life Disciplemaking Church. Read the inroduction to the series.

As our lives develop, we are faced with the challenges of new transitional moments, situations that are new to us, challenges and opportunities that we couldn’t have imagined. And in each situation we are given the chance to grow or to retreat to familiar practices.

This commitment to ongoing learning on everyone’s part, can make some feel vulnerable. We have been happier when we have felt that we have known everything and can teach everyone else. This has been a false confidence.

Connecting Sunday With Monday

Dave Gooderidge, minister at Lymington Baptist for the past 10 years, has been seeking to create a whole-life disciplemaking culture in his church. Here he shares something of their experiences...

The conviction that God is interested in the whole of life was rooted into me primarily as a student under Mark Greene at London School of Theology. So as a minister, the Sunday has always connected with Monday. I didn’t know anything different!

I think this is crucial to our understanding of the church. There is a big thing in the Baptist understanding of church about ‘walking together in ways known and ways to be made known; watching over and being watched over,’ what that means is, if we are going to grow as whole-life disciples we need to band together. We need to watch over and look out for one another and ask questions, about how you are getting on with your boss, for example, creating mutual care and accountability.

5 Values: 4 - We Are Active Listeners

This is part of a series of posts on 5 Values for a Whole-life Disciplemaking Church. Read the introduction to the series.

‘Our task is the opposite of distraction. It's to help people concentrate on the real, but often hidden, event of God's active presence in our lives.’ Henri Nouwen, The Way of the Heart

Clearly, Christians need to learn to listen to one another, to understand the pressures that they face and the opportunities that are available. But listening goes further than this. We need to be able to discern the forces that are work in our culture which may be a challenge to our discipleship, or may encourage us to think more deeply about our relationship with God. We need to hear the cries of the world to know how best to begin the dialogue that might enable us to offer the good news to people. We need to develop attentive hearing to the promptings of God, who we believe is at work in his world, bringing new creation out of the spaces where previously there were only signs of despair. And we need to encourage people to be able to understand what is happening in their own lives so that they can grow in self-awareness, moving away from the temptation of self-deception towards the liberation of authentic honesty.

5 Values: 2 - We Value Everyone's Frontlines

This is part of a series of posts on 5 Values for a Whole-life Disciplemaking Church. Read the introduction to the series here...

‘For Christian faith not to be idle in the world, the work of doctors and garbage collectors, business executives and artists, stay-at-home moms or dads and scientists needs to be inserted into God's story with the world. That story needs to provide the most basic rules by which the game in all these spheres is played. And that story needs to shape the character of the players.’ Miroslav Volf

Over the past twenty years, the church has become better at recognising the significance of many people’s vocations. Years ago, many evangelicals assumed that the top job for a Christian to have in God’s eyes was to be an overseas missionary living by faith. This was clearly sacrificial, often challenging and occasionally there would be no awareness of the fruitfulness of the work for many years, if ever. Below this in the assumed godly career ladder were ministers and church workers. If you weren’t able to be employed directly in these tasks, there was always your voluntary time that could be used for the important work.

5 Values: 1 - We Submit To The Lordship Of Christ In All Things

This is part of a series of posts on 5 values for a Whole-life Disciplemaking Church. Read the introduction to the series here.

Here is a conversation Neil had not so long ago with a group of students at a university Christian Union:

Neil: ‘Who is the Lord of all things?’
Students (Without missing a beat): ‘Jesus’
Neil: ‘Who is the Lord of the University?’
Students (Again in unison): ‘The Chancellor.’
Neil (Becoming somewhat more emphatic): ‘Ok, one more time. Who is the Lord of all things?’
Students: ‘Jesus’
Neil: ‘Right, so who is the Lord of the University?’
Students: ‘The Chancellor’

At which point we leave Neil to reflect on the current state of university education and his own teaching techniques…

5 Values For A Whole-life Disciplemaking Church: Intro

How do you tell a whole-life disciplemaking church when you’ve got one? What should you look for? If you are a church leader, how do you tell when your work in shifting the culture is making a positive difference?

These are questions we frequently ask ourselves as a team. Indeed, it is sometimes difficult to tell when a culture shift has begun to gain traction in the life of the church and to articulate what differences it is making. However, as our work in the church pilot project progressed it became increasingly clear that there are 5 core values that are central to a whole-life disciplemaking church that we believe provide a good guide to when a culture shift has begun:

Value 1: We submit to the Lordship of Christ in all things
Christ is Lord of All is a fundamental scriptural tenet (Col 1:16-17; Eph 1:22). As a community we are committed to exploring what ‘all things’ mean, recognising that no area of existence is excluded from God’s interest, purpose and redemptive power.