Darrell Guder, Editor, Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America. Eerdmans, 1998.
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LifeandLeadership.com Summary
Relative to the missional movement, this collection of essays is regarded as the book that started it all. It is another of several volumes published by Eerdmans in association with Gospel and Our Culture Network. Though the authors point to the seminal influence of British missiologist Lesslie Newbigin, they recast his and other fresh ideas toward the specific concerns of the church in North America.
Like many of the early books in the missional movement, this volume actually functions as a missional ecclesiology. Yet since it also was among the ground-breaking works on the subject, it plays a vital role in laying out the philosophy of the Missional/Missio Dei movement in general.
The first chapter lays out the background, philosophy, and research method of the book. The Network constructed a six-member ecumenical team of missiologists: Lois Barrett, Inagrace Dietterich, Darrel Guder, George Hunsberger, Alan Roxburgh, and Craig Van Gelder. Their task was to “explore the possible shape and themes of a missional ecclesiology for North America.” (8) The team worked together for three years to review relevant literature. In addition, they consulted four theologians whose work was especially helpful – Justo Gonzales, Douglas John Hall, Stanley Hauerwas, and John Howard Yoder. Through the various discussions and drafts, a consistent set of themes emerged and were refined through further exchange.
Like all missional literature, this text begins by affirming that the church is now on the periphery of North American culture. This is over against the previous era of Christendom, where churches could assume a
“system of church-state partnership and cultural hegemony in which the Christian religion was the protected and privileged religion of society and the church its legally established institutional form. Even when the legal structures of Christendom have been removed (as in North America), the legacy continues as a pattern of powerful traditions, attitudes, and social structures that we describe as ‘functional Christendom.’” (6)
By contrast, the current situation is a “post-Constantinian, post-Christendom, and even post-Christian mission field” that beckons “a theological revolution in missional thinking that centers the body of Christ on God’s mission rather than post-Christendom’s concern for the church’s institutional maintenance.” (7)
Central to their theology is a shift from an ecclesiocentric understanding of mission, where mission was merely an activity of the church to spread the gospel, establish European-looking churches, and inculcate the benefits of Western civilization in needy cultures. The emphasis now is on a theocentric reconceptualization of mission based upon Missio Dei, the “mission of God.” In this sense, “mission is not merely an activity of the church. Rather, mission is the result of God’s initiative, rooted in God’s purposes to restore and heal creation.”(4) The church exists because God is a missional God, and is itself God’s sent people.
The authors were guided by “a shared conviction that the Scriptures are the normative and authoritative witness to God’s mission and its unfolding in human history,” and that “one must read Scripture from a missional hermeneutic.” (11) Following this path led them to a list of “characteristics of a faithfully missional ecclesiology:
- A missional ecclesiology is biblical. It must be based explicitly on what the Bible teaches.
- A missional ecclesiology is historical. Shaping an ecclesiology for a particular culture, in this case North America, must demonstrate respect for the historical development of other ecclesiologies.
- A missional ecclesiology is contextual. The only way to be a church is incarnationally, within a specific culture
- A missional ecclesiology is eschatological. The church represents the dynamic and creative work of the Spirit in moving us toward God’s promised consummation of all things.
- A missional ecclesiology can be translated into practice. “The basic function of all theology is to equip the church for its calling. …A missional ecclesiology serves the church’s witness as it ‘makes disciples of all nations, …teaching them to obey everything that I [Jesus] have commanded you.” (Matthew 28:19-20) (11-12)
Each chapter makes a unique contribution this missional ecclesiology.
Chapters 2 and 3 by Craig Van Gelder look closely at the North American cultural context (U.S. and Canada). This includes the shaping forces that “impinge upon the nature and faithfulness of the church” (15) such as modernity and postmodernity, and how these have resulted in the unique versions of functional Christendom in North America (e.g. denominations, local worshipping communities, parachurches).
Chapter 4 by George Hunsberger addresses the theological heart of missional ecclesiology. He describes the church as a people who are called and sent to represent the reign of God, especially in contrast to the church as a “vendor of religious services and goods” (84) He develops both the distinction and the interrelationship between church (ecclesia) and kingdom (basileia).
Chapter 5 by Lois Barrett sets forth builds upon this theology by expanding the vision of the church as the apostle to the world. She says:
“When the church in North America discards the Christendom mind-set, it can become truly apostolic. To be apostolic is, literally, to be sent out. This implies a distinction between the church and that to which it is sent. The church exists as community, servant, and messenger of the reign of God in the midst of other kingdoms, communities, and powers that attempt to shape our understanding of reality. The world of those kingdoms, communities, and powers often opposes, ignores, or has other priorities than the reign of God. To that world, the missional church is apostle – send out on behalf of the reign of God.” (110)
The kingdom is over against the “principalities and powers” that seem to run the world but in reality do not, and functions in that world as an alternative community.” (15)
Chapter 6 by Inagrace Dietterich explores the kind of distinct communities that emerge as churches seek to be missional. She says:
“The distinctive characteristic of such communities is that the Holy Spirit creates and sustains them. Their identity (who they are), their character (how they are), their motivation (why they are), and their vocation (what they do) are theological, and thus missional. That is, they are not formed solely by human intentions and efforts, individual or collective, but instead by God’s empowering presence [i.e. the Holy Spirit]. …Through this power of the Holy Spirit a “people sent” are cultivated through the practices by which they are formed, trained, equipped, and motivated as missional communities.” (142)
She discusses the role of the Spirit in creating community (koinonia) shaped by the fruit of the Spirit, Christian togetherness, and an intentional, disciplined cultivation among members. She also discusses the place of practices such as baptism, the Lord’s Supper, reconciliation, corporate discernment (Spirit-filled deliberation), and hospitality.
Chapter 7 by Alan Roxburgh considers the nature and practice of missional leadership as apostolic work. He says:
“Leadership is a critical gift, provided by the Spirit because, as the Scriptures demonstrate, fundamental change in any body of people requires leaders capable of transforming its life and being transformed themselves. …Such leadership will be biblically and theologically astute, skilled in understanding the changes shaping American society, and gifted with the courage and endurance to lead God’s people as missional communities. Ours is a context and a time that require leaders who lead from the front, showing the way toward the recovery of a missional church.” (183)
Roxburgh contrasts this to the historical images of the leader as priest and pedagogue, and the current professional images of counselor, manager, and technician. The image he chooses is “equipper,” one who attends to the formation of covenant communities of the kingdom. Roxburgh presents a rich discussion of how Christian leaders move beyond dissipating their energies toward meeting the individualistic needs of members to aiming a pilgrim people toward expressing the reign of God in their context.
Chapters 8 and 9 by Darrell Guder look at how the church should organize itself for its apostolic vocation. “These organizations must serve, not determine the nature of the church” (222) Toward that end, he suggests three criteria for these structures: scriptural authority, cultural (and thus organizational) diversity, and the local particular community as the basic missional structure of the church . Adherence to biblical authority in general, and to missional ecclesiology in particular, guards against the tendency of administrative power to distort the gospel as the organizational structure becomes an end in itself, and to “foreclose on the eschatological open-endedness of the church’s mission.” (230) One of the main challenges in North America is to shift from evaluating our structures primarily as contributors to “efficiency, productivity, and success” (238) of the local “parish” to faithfulness in translating the gospel into its context as a mission community. Guder also underscores that local congregations must not isolate themselves, but must see themselves as one community among many communities who share the common calling. He offers proposals toward these structures of connectedness.
From the Publisher
What would a theology of the church look like that took seriously the fact that North America is now itself a mission field? This question lies at the foundation of this volume written by an ecumenical team of six noted missiologists – Lois Barrett, Inagrace T. Dietterich, Darrell L. Guder, George R. Hunsberger, Alan J. Roxburgh, and Craig Van Gelder. The result of a three-year research project undertaken by The Gospel and Our Culture Network, this book issues a firm challenge for the church to recover its missional call right here in North America. The authors examine today’s secular culture and the church’s loss of dominance in contemporary society. They then present a biblically based theology that takes seriously the church’s missional vocation and draw out the consequences of this theology for the structure and institutions of the church.
About the Author/Editor
Darrell Guder was appointed to the Henry Winters Luce Chair of Missional and Ecumenical Theology in January 2002 at Princeton Theological Seminary, where he challenges the church to reclaim its missionary spirit. The California native earned his Ph.D. in Hamburg, Germany, and was a youth pastor and college professor there. He also directed the Institute of Youth Ministries of Fuller Seminary and Young Life and was academic dean of Whitworth College.
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