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Church and Mission: What God Has Joined Together Let No One Separate Michael Goheen Trinity Western University Langley, B.C., Canada

Church and Mission: What God Has Joined Together Let No One Separate Michael Goheen Trinity Western University Langley, B.C., Canada

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Page 1: Church and Mission: What God Has Joined Together Let No One Separate Michael Goheen Trinity Western University Langley, B.C., Canada

Church and Mission: What God Has Joined Together Let

No One Separate

Michael Goheen

Trinity Western University

Langley, B.C., Canada

Page 2: Church and Mission: What God Has Joined Together Let No One Separate Michael Goheen Trinity Western University Langley, B.C., Canada

The separation of these two things [mission and church] which God has joined together must be judged one of the great calamities of missionary history, and the healing of this division one of the greatest tasks of our time.

- Lesslie Newbigin

Page 3: Church and Mission: What God Has Joined Together Let No One Separate Michael Goheen Trinity Western University Langley, B.C., Canada

Emergence of missionary societies

Parachurch mission organisations as primary instrument of missionsEmerged in the 18th century and exploded in first half of 20th centuryBlindness and hostility of church to missionary callingE.g., William Carey, 1792, Particular Baptist Society for Propagating the Gospel among the Heathen

Page 4: Church and Mission: What God Has Joined Together Let No One Separate Michael Goheen Trinity Western University Langley, B.C., Canada

Church blind to missionary calling . . .

Christendom context: Non-missionary consciousness

Christendom was a self-contained supposedly ‘Christian’ world and “the sense that the Church is a body sent into all the world . . . and existing for the sake of those beyond its borders, no longer played an effective part in [the church’s] thinking.” (Newbigin)

Page 5: Church and Mission: What God Has Joined Together Let No One Separate Michael Goheen Trinity Western University Langley, B.C., Canada

Church blind to missionary calling . . .

Christendom context: Non-missionary consciousnessChristendom context: Non-missionary churchmanship

“The period in which our thinking about the Church received its main features was the period in which Christianity had practically ceased to be a missionary religion. . . . It was in this period, when the dimensions of the ends of the earth had ceased to exist as a practical reality in the minds of Christians, that the main patterns of churchmanship were formed.” (Newbigin)

Page 6: Church and Mission: What God Has Joined Together Let No One Separate Michael Goheen Trinity Western University Langley, B.C., Canada

Evaluate emergence of missionary societies?

As so often happens, the correction of a deformity in the Church was itself deformed by its opposition to that which it sought to correct. The New Testament knows of only one missionary society—the Church. The eighteenth century knew Churches which had totally ceased to be missionary societies and saw the birth of missionary societies which made no claim to be Churches (Newbigin).

Page 7: Church and Mission: What God Has Joined Together Let No One Separate Michael Goheen Trinity Western University Langley, B.C., Canada

Deformities arising from emergence of mission societies

Mission and church separated Church and mission designate two different bodies Mission body responsible for propagation of gospel Church a different body devoted to worship and

nurture of members

“…the church was defined in terms of what happens inside its four walls, not in terms of its calling in the world.” (Bosch)“…church becomes an introverted body, concerned with its own welfare rather than with the Kingdom of God.” (Newbigin)

Page 8: Church and Mission: What God Has Joined Together Let No One Separate Michael Goheen Trinity Western University Langley, B.C., Canada

Mission and Church: Two Different Bodies

Younger churches Mission responsible for propagating gospel

Churches receptacles into which converts placed for safekeeping

The congregation is bound “to draw the obvious conclusion, cease to concern itself with the rest of the village, and become a body concerned only with its own welfare.” (Newbigin)

Page 9: Church and Mission: What God Has Joined Together Let No One Separate Michael Goheen Trinity Western University Langley, B.C., Canada

Mission and Church: Two Different Bodies

Younger churches

Older churches Mission business of full-time specialists

Church supports mission as worthy enterprise with giving, prayer, etc.

Mission no longer raison d’être of congregation

Page 10: Church and Mission: What God Has Joined Together Let No One Separate Michael Goheen Trinity Western University Langley, B.C., Canada

Deformities arising from emergence of mission societies

Mission and church separated

Mission reduced to intentional cross-cultural propagation of the gospel

Page 11: Church and Mission: What God Has Joined Together Let No One Separate Michael Goheen Trinity Western University Langley, B.C., Canada

Mission and Church in Scripture

Derivation of word ‘mission’

Starting with the church in Antioch (Acts 11, 13)

Careful to put in context of Acts and the biblical story

Page 12: Church and Mission: What God Has Joined Together Let No One Separate Michael Goheen Trinity Western University Langley, B.C., Canada

Beginning of mission in Acts

“. . . modern commentators help to perpetuate a ‘Christendom’ reading of the Acts account by the way they divide up the material and insert editorial heads and commentary that draw on modern practice and assumptions. . . . [they] introduce the term ‘mission’ at the beginning of the Gentile mission (Acts 13)” (Wilbert Shenk)

“In Luke’s account, it is the first part of Acts that founds mission. In our haste to ‘get to Paul,’ we sometimes tend to see this first part only as fumbling and groping for mission, while the Pauline apostolate will be true full-fledged mission.” (Lucien Legrand)

Page 13: Church and Mission: What God Has Joined Together Let No One Separate Michael Goheen Trinity Western University Langley, B.C., Canada

Mission and Church in Scripture

Derivation of word ‘mission’

Starting with the church in Antioch (Acts 11, 13)

Careful to put in context of Acts and the biblical story

Distinction between “organic mode” of mission (Acts 11:19-26) and the “sending mode” (Acts 13:1-3)

Page 14: Church and Mission: What God Has Joined Together Let No One Separate Michael Goheen Trinity Western University Langley, B.C., Canada

Organic and sending modes of mission (Shenk)

In the organic mode a local congregation “challenged the regnant plausibility structure of their culture on the basis of the claims of the reign of God. . . . Witness to God’s reign, present and coming, was at the heart of the disciple community’s life. The church grew organically. . . . this mode has been the main vehicle of the expansion of the church historically and is an authentic outworking of the Great Commission.”

In the sending mode “certain individuals were set apart for an itinerant ministry that would enable the faith to spread to key cities and regions throughout the Roman world. . . . The Great Commission continually holds this dimension [of mission] before the church.” (Shenk)

Page 15: Church and Mission: What God Has Joined Together Let No One Separate Michael Goheen Trinity Western University Langley, B.C., Canada

In ActsPast two centuries mission has been reduced to ‘sending mode’ thus eclipsing missional calling of the churchOur tendency to read the last half of Acts as a series of three missionary journeys of Paul—something not found in ancient or medieval commentaries—derives not from a careful reading of Acts so much as from imposing on the text a model of mission that dominated the 19th and 20th centuries (Justo González)Nevertheless, Acts 13:2-3: “central New Testament paradigm for missions” (Newbigin) Place text in context of Acts, and Acts in the biblical story

Page 16: Church and Mission: What God Has Joined Together Let No One Separate Michael Goheen Trinity Western University Langley, B.C., Canada

Biblical story

Biblical story tells story of God’s mission to restore the whole creation and all of the life of humankind“Fundamentally, our mission (if it is biblically informed and validated) means our committed participation as God’s people, at God’s invitation and command, in God’s own mission, within the history of God’s world for the redemption of God’s creation.” (Chris Wright)

Page 17: Church and Mission: What God Has Joined Together Let No One Separate Michael Goheen Trinity Western University Langley, B.C., Canada

Beginning with the Old Testament

When we speak about the Church as ‘the people of God in the world’ and enquire into the real nature of this Church, we cannot avoid speaking about the roots of the Church which are to be found in the Old Testament idea of Israel as the people of the covenant. So the question of the missionary nature of the Church, that is, the real relationship between the people of God and the world, cannot be solved until we have investigated the relation between Israel and the nations of the earth (Johannes Blauw).

Page 18: Church and Mission: What God Has Joined Together Let No One Separate Michael Goheen Trinity Western University Langley, B.C., Canada

Biblical Story

Abraham covenant (Gen.12.2-3)Backdrop of creation and sin

“What is being offered in these few verses is a theological blueprint for the redemptive history of the world . . .” (William Dumbrell)

“Twofold agenda” (Paul Williamson)• Formation of a people• So that all nations on earth might be blessed

Blessed to be a blessing: Recipient then mediator

Chosen for the sake of the nations (Gen. 18.18-19)

Page 19: Church and Mission: What God Has Joined Together Let No One Separate Michael Goheen Trinity Western University Langley, B.C., Canada

Biblical StoryAbraham covenant (Gen.12.2-3)Mosaic covenant (Ex.19.3-6)

Special treasure, priestly kingdom, holy nationIsrael is “to be a people set apart, different from all other people by what they are and are becoming—a display people, a showcase to the world of how being in covenant with Yahweh changes a people.” (John Durham)Torah (Ex.20-23)Backward, forward, outwardPublic display: the “visibility of Israel was part of its theological identity and role as the priesthood of yhwh among the nations.” (C. Wright) (cf. Ezek. 5.5)Centripetal mission

Page 20: Church and Mission: What God Has Joined Together Let No One Separate Michael Goheen Trinity Western University Langley, B.C., Canada

Mission of God’s people

“God’s mission involves God’s people living in God’s way in the sight of the nations.” (C. Wright)“. . . mission is not primarily about going. Nor is mission primarily about doing anything. Mission is about being. It is about being a distinctive kind of people, a countercultural . . . community among the nations.” (Howard Peskett and Vinoth Ramachandra) “The history of Israel from this point on [after Mosaic covenant] is in reality merely a commentary upon the degree of fidelity with which Israel adhered to this Sinai-given vocation.” (Dumbrell)

Page 21: Church and Mission: What God Has Joined Together Let No One Separate Michael Goheen Trinity Western University Langley, B.C., Canada

Biblical StoryAbraham covenant (Gen.12.2-3)Mosaic covenant (Ex.19.3-6)Covenant breaking and covenant renewal

Israel’s continuing failureProphetic promises to renew covenant• End-time kingdom• Eschatological shepherd• Gather people• Renew people• Fulfil calling: Gentiles stream to Zion (e.g., Zech. 8.23)

Page 22: Church and Mission: What God Has Joined Together Let No One Separate Michael Goheen Trinity Western University Langley, B.C., Canada

Gathered and renewed

For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws (Ezek. 36:24-27).

Page 23: Church and Mission: What God Has Joined Together Let No One Separate Michael Goheen Trinity Western University Langley, B.C., Canada

Biblical Story

Abraham covenant (Gen.12.2-3)

Mosaic covenant (Ex.19.3-6)

Covenant breaking and covenant renewal

Jesus’ mission: Gathering and renewing a community to take up missional calling

Page 24: Church and Mission: What God Has Joined Together Let No One Separate Michael Goheen Trinity Western University Langley, B.C., Canada

Jesus gathers and renews a community to take up their missional calling

“. . . the only significance of the whole of Jesus’ activity is to gather the eschatological people of God.” (Joachim Jeremias)“That God has chosen and sanctified his people in order to make it a contrast-society in the midst of the other nations was for Jesus the self-evident background of all his actions.” In Jesus we see God’s “eschatological action” to “restore or even re-establish his people, in order to carry out definitively and irrevocably his plan of having a holy people in the midst of the nations.” (Gerhard Lohfink)Eschatological shepherd gathering lost sheep of IsraelRestoring them to their missional callingDeath, resurrection, Pentecost: Renewal of people

Page 25: Church and Mission: What God Has Joined Together Let No One Separate Michael Goheen Trinity Western University Langley, B.C., Canada

Biblical Story

Abraham covenant (Gen.12.2-3)

Mosaic covenant (Ex.19.3-6)

Covenant breaking and covenant renewal

Jesus’ mission: Gathering and renewing a people to take up their missional calling

Gathered eschatological people commissioned and sent

Page 26: Church and Mission: What God Has Joined Together Let No One Separate Michael Goheen Trinity Western University Langley, B.C., Canada

Commissioning of eschatological people (Matt.28.18-20; Jn.20.21)

Not a task assigned to individuals; it is an identity given to a community “Great Commission is a foundational ecclesiological statement, for it is addressed to the disciple community, not autonomous individuals.” (Shenk)New direction: Centrifugal“In this ‘go to all nations’ there lies therefore the distinctive turning-point, the great change of direction of the gospel, indicating and prepared by earlier declarations of Jesus but now coming into effect.” (C. Wright) People take a new form“. . . the renewed-Israel people, now transformed through Jesus and the Spirit into a multi-ethnic, non-geographically-based people charged with a mission to the whole world.”

Page 27: Church and Mission: What God Has Joined Together Let No One Separate Michael Goheen Trinity Western University Langley, B.C., Canada

Church’s life is in its sending

Commission “is the launching of the church. It is a movement launched into the public life of the world. It has no life except in this sending. . . . the church . . . [is] a body thrust out in to the world to draw all people to Christ. The church’s being is in that sending.” (Newbigin)

Page 28: Church and Mission: What God Has Joined Together Let No One Separate Michael Goheen Trinity Western University Langley, B.C., Canada

Biblical StoryAbraham covenant (Gen.12.2-3)Mosaic covenant (Ex.19.3-6)Covenant breaking and covenant renewalJesus’ mission: Gathering and renewing a people to take up their missional callingGathered eschatological people commissioned and sentActs: Mission of eschatological people

Page 29: Church and Mission: What God Has Joined Together Let No One Separate Michael Goheen Trinity Western University Langley, B.C., Canada

Acts: Mission of eschatological people How will nations be gathered into people of God?

Acts 1.8: Programmatic text Era of gathering

Witnessing community: Identity of church• “The point is that an entire people give witness to God’s plan for

the world. . . . The entire New Testament sees the church as a contrast-society which stands in contrast to the world.” (Lohfink)

• Be the witness, do the witness, say the witness (Guder)

Empowered and renewed by Spirit

To the ends of the earth

Page 30: Church and Mission: What God Has Joined Together Let No One Separate Michael Goheen Trinity Western University Langley, B.C., Canada

Jews first, then Gentiles

“We have to do with two successive events, first the call to Israel, and subsequently the redemptive incorporation of the Gentiles into the kingdom of God.” (Jeremias)

It is first of all “a matter of winning Israel for the Gospel; and then Israel, believing, would become a light to the nations.” (Johannes Munck)

Page 31: Church and Mission: What God Has Joined Together Let No One Separate Michael Goheen Trinity Western University Langley, B.C., Canada

Movement to nationsGathering Israel: Acts 2.42-47

Devoted to means that nourish new life (v.42)

Manifestation of attractive life (v.42-47)

Drawing scattered Israel to faith (v.47)

Gathering Gentiles: Acts 11, 13‘Evidence of the grace of God’ (11.23)

‘Great number of people were brought to the Lord’ (11.24)

Sent Paul and Barnabas to establish witnessing communities in areas where there was none (13.1-3)

Pauline pattern

Page 32: Church and Mission: What God Has Joined Together Let No One Separate Michael Goheen Trinity Western University Langley, B.C., Canada

Spontaneous expansion of the church

Irresistible attraction of their communal life

Spontaneous evangelistic activity of the local congregation

Planting of more of these congregations in new places

- Roland Allen

Page 33: Church and Mission: What God Has Joined Together Let No One Separate Michael Goheen Trinity Western University Langley, B.C., Canada

Conclusions from biblical story Church is community charged with mission

Mission is central to church’s identityMission is ecclesial

“Because the church and mission belong together from the beginning, a church without mission or a mission without the church are both contradictions. Such things do exist, but only as pseudostructures.” (Carl Braaten)

Mission broader than cross-cultural missionsPeople who embody God’s purposes (forward, backward, outward)Being (gathered and scattered), doing, speaking

Mission includes missionsPlant these communities everywhere as witnessNecessary aspect of church’s missionUltimate horizon of church’s mission

Page 34: Church and Mission: What God Has Joined Together Let No One Separate Michael Goheen Trinity Western University Langley, B.C., Canada

How shall we then live? Need to recover our missional identity

Mission is not a “fringe activity of a strongly established Church, a pious cause that [may] be attended to when the home fires [are] first brightly burning. . . . ‘so am I sending you’—the very word ‘send’ means mission and so the whole Church is on mission, and cannot be otherwise. . . . Missionary activity is not so much the work of the Church as simply the Church at work.” (John Power)

Theologically: • Jürgen Moltmann: Mission can renew our ecclesiology• Hendrikus Berkhof: Need to revise our ecclesiology

Congregationally: Gathered life (leadership, structures, worship, etc.); activities in world (evangelism, mercy, justice, callings in culture, missions); relation to culture

Page 35: Church and Mission: What God Has Joined Together Let No One Separate Michael Goheen Trinity Western University Langley, B.C., Canada

How shall we then live?

Need to recover our missional identityNeed to see missions as necessary part and as ultimate horizon of church’s mission

“. . . every church, however small and weak, ought to have some share in the task of taking the gospel to the ends of the earth. Every church ought to be engaged in foreign missions. This is part of the integrity of the gospel. We do not adequately confess Christ as the Lord of all men if we seek to be his witnesses only among our neighbours. We must seek at the same time to confess him to the ends of the earth. The foreign missionary enterprise belongs to the integrity of our confession” (Newbigin).

Page 36: Church and Mission: What God Has Joined Together Let No One Separate Michael Goheen Trinity Western University Langley, B.C., Canada

How shall we then live?

Need to recover our missional identityNeed to see missions as necessary part and as ultimate horizon of church’s missionNeed to struggle with our terminologyNeed to see mission/missions as partnership among churches

Mission in, from, to all six (or seven?) continents “Home base” and “mission field” is everywhere

Need to ask how mission organisations can aid mission of the church