Rediscovering Mission (Part 1)

I recently attended a seminar organised by the Willesden Area and boldly entitled Shaping the Church for Mission. As a result I felt it was high time that some of the stale ground on mission was forked over and given a good airing. So here goes.

What is this Mission thing?
Firstly, What is this Mission thing? It's for those who are interested in that sort of thing, isn't it? Don't you have to be on the committee or something? Well if you think of the whole of Christendom as a sort of committee, then I suppose, yes.

Then, surely if we are truly converted we would want to share our experiences of God's love with others? Well, again, yes and no. There are so many confusions here. For starters, how do you go about it? Then, who's interested out there? And another thing, is mission compulsory for Christians?

Scripturally, we can't avoid it
Scripturally, we can't avoid it. It's right there as Christ's command to his disciples "Make all people my disciples" he says. We can be excited by this or alternatively it can make us feel rather uncomfortable. We may perhaps have visions of ourselves being required to knock on people's doors, or walk up and down the High Street with a Bible text placard or stand in a public place wearing a sandwich board and handing out tracts. It is a fact that these stereotypes together with tub-thumping rallies to bring people to the Lord often spring to mind. Our experiences over many years have almost certainly reinforced these images.

Caught not Taught
Let me put the facts straight immediately. Mission can take so many different forms. It is quite rightly said that Christianity is often caught not taught. Winning souls to Christ can come through an act of kindness, loving witness, pastoral care or simply seeing someone living out a role model Christian life. I am sure you can think of many other examples.

However, when we speak of evangelism doesn't our view of mission often run a bit like this:

Well that's what vicars are trained for isn't it?... It's not really my sort of thing. Going overseas or knocking on peoples' doors and asking if they would like to come to church. It's so embarrassing... Don't get me wrong. We really do want to see our Churches full again. We would really love more people to come along... I can't understand why more don't come. It's so nice and friendly here. We have all our favourite hymns and the vicar's very nice. Of course we do need more young couples. And what about our young people? I'm afraid there's some who like church and some who don't and you'll never bring in the die-hards who don't like organised religion... but we'll carry on doing what we've always done and hope that some day they'll get the message. After all what better message can there be than God is Love and Jesus died to save us from our sins? I'm afraid Sundays are not what they used to be. It's just like any other day of the week. The shops are open, people go to work or out for the day. There's just no time for God... My own children stopped coming. They say they find Church boring.

Amongst this mix match of clichés I hope I have included some of the things we find ourselves saying - sometimes out of sheer frustration.

Deep Misgivings?
I make no apology for painting a bleak picture for it is a more common parish experience than we would like to admit. We do have deep misgivings about the word "Mission." The Church is apt to play up its undoubted stunning successes and that tends to make us feel rather guilty about our own inadequate attempts. But we must be very careful: it is the doom and gloom picture on which the old enemy wants us to focus. What we need to do is to look at the picture with fresh eyes. That is the way of rediscovery.

A Global Perspective
In the first instance the global picture is quite different. In Africa and the Far East, for example, Christianity is on the march. Tremendous resurgence. It's in the UK and other parts of Northern Europe that faith is in recession and has been for over a hundred years. What a paradox: out from Britain's shores went many a plucky missionary to spread God's Word in Heathen Lands. Now it's we who need the missionaries!

So what do we make of Jesus' words, "Make all people my disciples"? Is it a command as we often call it, or is it an entreaty or even perhaps a polite invitation? (Yes, quite like that one!). You see, it is possible to be very clever with words: you can water down these quotations to the point where it almost seems like a piece of optional Christianity.

But if we look under the surface of what Jesus is saying we will find something much more powerful.

Who is Jesus Speaking To?
Firstly, to whom is it addressed? Jesus said to his "disciples", that is his followers, those who call themselves Christians. Take that a stage further, the Body of Christ, the Church of God - yes that's it. So it is Jesus' command to his Church, isn't it? That is how we usually think of it: his followers on earth, you and I. It is our duty. All this I believe to be true, but there is something more: under the surface there is a more powerful discovery.

Missio Dei
Bishop Graham Cray in his book Youth Congregations and the Emerging Church has laid out a powerful and well reasoned argument that Mission is more than simply a duty imposed on Christ's Church. He speaks of something called Missio Dei Sounds impressive: obviously Latin. What does it mean? Literally, "Mission of God."

We would have to look again at that most beautiful and familiar passage in the Bible that opens John's Gospel. "In the beginning was the Word." It is full of such deep and meaningful statements that they flow over us almost without our noticing what is being said about the nature of God.

If we substitute "Jesus" for "the Word" in the passage, the patterns of emphasis on the idea of Mission begin to change. The first thing we notice is that mission appears to have its origin in God. Mission the word itself has a Latin stem which means "send" as in Missal or Missionary. And there's an awful lot of sending going on in this passage. John the Baptist was a man sent from God, and he was sent to bear witness to the light. Then there are those famous words, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that all who believe in him should not perish but have everlasting life." (John 3:16). Love... Light... and sending? So is God a missionary then? Well God is certainly the fountain of sending love into the world and trus must be the deepest source of mission. Love is at the core of God's meaning, and if mission has its origins in the heart of God the Creator, then God must be a Missionary.

A Missionary God
David Bosch, in his book Witness to the World puts the case rather well:

Mission has its origins in God. God is a missionary God, a God who crosses frontiers towards the World. In creation God was already the God of mission, with His word (Jesus) and His Spirit as missionaries. God likewise sent His incarnate Son into the world. And He sent His Spirit at Pentecost.

Bishop Cray draws several important conclusions from this: the Church's mission is to share in the mission of God and the Church is missionary by its very nature. Furthermore in the words of Jurgen Moltmann, "It is not that the Church has a mission of salvation to fulfil in the world; it is the mission of the Son and the Spirit through the Father that includes the church."

Let's underline what emerges from this form of thinking. There is a Church because there is mission and not the other way around and following on from this "the Church's mission is to share in the mission of God."

All Missionaries Together
I don't know about you, but this gives me a 'feel good factor' about mission. There we were, the Church of God with this onerous duty imposed on us by our Master (and between ourselves making a bit of fist of it) and just for a minute it looks as if we are alone, in glorious isolation. Suddenly we realise that this mission of love to the world is actually God's Mission to mankind. Not only that but he sends his Son as the forerunner and example and then sends His reinforcements in the form of His Spirit at Pentecost. So we are all missionaries together.

I was never very good at maths at school but I've worked out an equation here: God + Son + Spirit + Church = Unstoppable force for Love in the World = Mission.

What Next?
Question is: How do we go about it? How do we reach out to the estimated 60% of our population who not only have no experience of Church but do not even know what "Church" is?

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4