Missional Foundations for Church Leaders – THEOLOGY OF MISSION
Part of the LifeandLeadership.com Ministry Resource Guide on Missional Church. It discusses perspectives that were important to the first edition of the site, and is now part of the site archive that is not updated past 2012.
- Introduction
- Theology of Mission — History and Overview
- Theology of Mission — Proposals and Formulations
- Local Theologies/Contextualization
- Other Volumes on Missional Context
- Related Areas
Introduction
Whether we speak of evangelism, social ministry, or overall ministry effectiveness, biblical foundations are important. These foundations should be articulated with the realities of our mission context in mind. In this respect, churches in Westernized cultures face special challenges. The minority status of Christianity has heightened our awareness that we must think of the church’s purpose in missionary terms. Also, the increasing ethnic and religious diversity in our communities forces more interaction between clashing world views and competing truth claims (e.g. Islam).
The recent missional/emergent conversations have brought these concerns to the forefront, using terms such as missional, missio Dei, etc. For those versed in traditional understandings of ministry, these terms are relatively new. But they have been used in the study of missions for decades.
For these and other reasons, it is helpful for ministers to become familiar with missiology, which includes the theology of mission. Missiology, sometimes called the “Mother of Theology” (Bosch, 16), acknowledges that theology, whether in the Old or New Testament, was never birthed in a secluded vacuum that allowed years of reflection. Instead, all teachings of scripture were gestated and delivered in missionary encounters with the world. The Apostle Paul, for example, was not an arm-chair theologian, but a missionary who, inspired by the Holy Spirit, wrote theology to address the “emergency situations” (Bosch) in Corinth, Rome, Ephesus, etc. Christopher Wright expresses it well:
There should be no theology that does not relate to the mission of the church — either by being generated out of the church’s mission or by inspiring and shaping it. And there should be no mission of the church carried on without deep theological roots in the soil of the Bible. No theology without missional impact; no mission without theological foundations. (The Mission of God’s People, 20)
Missiology places us in the lineage of the apostle Paul, who adjusted his approach depending on whether he was speaking to the biblically predisposed Jews in the synagogues of Thessalonica or the philosophically skeptical philosophers in the Areopagus of Athens. It helps us understand how the location of one’s ministry affects the approach. It helps us translate the Christian message most effectively into a specific context.
Missiology usually begins with the theological task of defining mission, then moves to the sociological task of exegeting the culture in which the mission is engaged. This culminates in a plan to contextualize the message of the gospel in that setting so as to maximize the fruit of our efforts. A good discussion on the calling, challenges, and controversies of contextualization occurs in the blog series by Ed Stetzer.
Theology of Mission — History and Overview – LifeandLeadership.com does not provide thorough exposure to missiology, but highlights the potential benefit from two types of missiological resources. First are the overviews of how the church has defined mission historically. A few of these are summarized below:
First Read:
- David Hesselgrave and Ed Stetzer, Editors, MissionShift: Global Mission Issues in the Third Millennium — A more recent dialogue that includes a balanced and irenic exchange between several first-rank missiologists and theologians.
Other Important Works:
- Scott Moreau, Gary B. McGee, and Gary R. Corwin, Introducing World Missions: A Biblical, Historical, and Practical Survey — Intended as an introductory guide for aspiring missionaries, but the first five chapters are still quite helpful for those who serve established congregations.
- David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission — This has been called the “Summa Missiologica” because of its comprehensiveness, and is still the universally recognized authority even after twenty years of circulation.
Theology of Mission — Proposals and Formulations – A second type of missiological resource sets forth definitive theologies of mission. While some of these contain historical sections, their greatest value is in articulating a coherent viewpoint of Christian mission. I have divided them according to theological orientation.
Proposals and Formulations – Missio Dei (see definition)
First Reads:
- Michael W. Goheen, A Light to the Nations: The Missional Church and the Biblical Story – One of the best and most readable theologies of mission, less technical than Ott listed below.
- Craig Ott, Timothy C. Tennent, and Stephen J. Strauss, Encountering Theology of Mission: Biblical Foundations, Historical Developments, and Contemporary Issues — A strong recommendation. A bit more technical than Goheen listed above. It captures the best of the missional/emergent spirit while providing a biblical and historical equilibrium that is often lacking in these conversations.
Other Important Works:
- Christopher J. H. Wright, The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative — Skillfully presents the missional hermeneutic, that God’s mission is the interpretive key to the whole Bible.
- Christopher J. H. Wright, The Mission of God’s People: A Biblical Theology of the Church’s Mission (Biblical Theology for Life) — Builds on the first volume and asks the question: If the Bible lays out God’s mission, what does that tell us about OUR mission?
- Darrell L. Guder, The Continuing Conversion of the Church — A thorough explanation of the broadened understanding of mission as missio Dei (mission of God).
- Colin Greene and Martin Robinson, Metavista: Bible, Church, and Mission in an Age of Imagination – Proposes a narrative theology wherein the biblical story “takes over all other stories and incorporates their limited schemas into its own vision of universal history.”
- William Henard and Adam Greenway, Evangelicals Engaging Emergent: A Discussion of the Emergent Church Movement — A balanced, irenic, scholarly review of missional and emergent perspectives on the theology and practice of mission.
Important Works by Lesslie Newbigin:
- George Hunsberger, Bearing the Witness of the Spirit: Lesslie Newbign’s Theology of Cultural Plurality — Lesslie Newbigin is the father of the missional movement. This volume is not by Newbigin himself, but is a comprehensive development of Newbigin’s theology by a panel of scholars.
- Lesslie Newbigin, The Open Secret: An Introduction to the Theology of Mission – Still universally recommended as the early primer on missional theology to which much of the language among missionals owes its origin. Repeatedly expresses mission in these words: “The church lives in the midst of history as a sign, instrument, and foretaste of the reign of God.”
- Lesslie Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture — An older but still valuable critique of aspects of modern Western culture that are alien to the Gospel, and considers how these can be effectively countered with a confident proclamation.
- Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society — Discuses how to contextualize the Gospel in a society marked by religious pluralism, ethnic diversity, and cultural relativism.
Other Important Works (listed in recommended order):
- Craig G. Bartholomew and Michael W. Goheen, The Drama of Scripture: Finding Our Place in the Biblical Story — Does a good job showing how the Bible narrates the story of God’s journey on the long road of redemption. It presents a unified and progressively unfolding drama of God’s action in history for the salvation of the world.
- Arthur F. Glasser, Charles E. Van Engen, Dean S. Gilliland, Shawn B. Redford, Announcing the Kingdom: The Story of God’s Mission in the Bible – Demonstrates how the missional nature of God and the Church is the interpretive narrative of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation.
- Ben Witheringon III, Imminent Domain: The Story of the Kingdom of God and Its Celebration — Stresses that the kingdom of God can only come through God’s intervention in answer to the prayer, “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
- Richard Bauckham, Bible and Mission: Christian Witness in a Postmodern World – Bauckham’s chief contribution is his defense of the Biblical story as a metanarrative over against the posture of hard postmodernism that disparages metanarratives.
- Darrell Guder, The Incarnation and the Church’s Witness – Elevates the incarnation as the most helpful model for the church as it conceives of its mission.
- Andrew J. Kirk, Mission Under Scrutiny: Confronting Contemporary Challenges — Good discussions on how the church may missionally engage cultural issues such as conflict, violence, and same gender relations.
- Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon, Resident Aliens: A Provocative Christian Assessment of Culture and Ministry for People who Know that Something is Wrong — An older but often quoted volume. Argues that the church, as those called out by God, embodies a social alternative that the world cannot on its own terms know.
- Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, ReJesus: A Wild Messiah for a Missional Church — Proposes that Christology (the exploration of the person, teaching, and impact of Jesus Christ) determines missiology (our purpose and function in the world), which in turn determines our ecclesiology (the forms and functions of the church).
- Brian D. McClaren, The Secret Message of Jesus: Uncovering the Truth That Could Change Everything — Good representation of Emergent thinking. Draws upon all the major theologians who have shaped the emergent movement and expresses them in a way that the theologically uneducated can understand.
- Johannes Blauw, The Missionary Nature of the Church: A Survey of the Biblical Theology of Mission – An older work, first published in 1962, and regarded as a seminal work on theology of mission. Available in full text on the web.
Proposals and Formulations — Missional/Resurgent Reformed (see definition)
First Read:
- Tim Chester and Steve Timmis, Total Church: A Radical Reshaping around Gospel and Community — Proposes a church built around two main principles: gospel (the content of our message) and community (the context of our message)
Other Helpful Volumes:
- D. A. Carson and Timothy Keller, Editors, The Gospel as Center: Renewing Our Faith and Reforming Our Ministry Practices – Brings together evangelical and conservative Reformed scholars to defend the traditional gospel and strengthen the church against relativism.
- Kevin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert, What is the Mission of the Church? Making Sense of Social Justice, Shalom, and the Great Commission – Brings conservative Reformed and Southern Baptist perspectives to the subject of mission, offering definitions of terms such as missional, missio Dei, social justice, and shalom.
- Mark Driscoll, Radical Reformission: Reaching Out Without Selling Out (in Evangelism) — Not theology in the academic sense. It is a biblically grounded popular-level expression of how to keep postmodern ministry rooted in Scripture.
- Marc Driscoll and Gerry Breshears, Vintage Church: Timeless Truths and Timely Methods (Re:Lit: Vintage Jesus) – A follow-up on a best-selling volume, Vintage Jesus, which upholds the biblical and historical record of Jesus as the foundation of all faith and practice. Encourages a proper balance of the eternal truths of Scripture with timely, relevant methods designed to engage culture.
- Michael Horton, The Gospel Commission: Recovering God’s Strategy for Making Disciples — This is not “Resurgent,” but is definitely a “Reformed” critique of incarnational models of ministry as well the spirituality of Richard Foster and Dallas Willard.
Proposals and Formulations — Missional/Convergent with Conventional (see definition)
- Jim Belcher, Deep Church: A Third Way Beyond Emerging and Traditional — Fairly describes the emergent church and proposes a “deep church” alternative based on ancient creedal orthodoxy.
- Ross Hastings, Missional God, Missional Church: Hope for Evangelizing the West – Presents an exposition of the Trinitarian mission of John 20, supporting the idea of the church being deep (affirming historic Christian faith and meaningful interior congregational life) and wide (missionally engaging the postmodern culture).
- Mark Liederbach and Alvin L Reid, The Convergent Church: Missional Worshippers in an Emerging Culture – Substantive and well-researched. Offers solid critique of emergent and traditional churches, and proposes ministry models that integrate redemptive features of both approaches.
Proposals and Formulations — Missional/Convergent with Attractional (see definition)
- Alan Hirsch and Dave Ferguson, On the Verge: A Journey Into the Apostolic Future of the Church — A blend of theology and practical strategies to converge the missional and attractional perspectives. Represents Exponential, one of the largest church planting movements in America today.
- Andy Stanley, Deep and Wide: Creating Churches Unchurched People Love to Attend – An interesting description of Stanley’s philosophy of ministry as practiced at Northpoint Church. Unapologetically attractional. Insists that attractional and missional are not opposites.
Proposals and Formulations — Missionally Responsive/Evangelical (see definition)
- Ross Barnett, Editor, Discovering the Mission of God: Best Missional Practices for the 21st Century – An exhaustive, substantive theology of mission from conservative evangelical scholars, mostly Southern Baptists.
- D. A. Carson and Timothy Keller, Editors, The Gospel as Center: Renewing Our Faith and Reforming Our Ministry Practices – Brings together evangelical and conservative Reformed scholars to defend the traditional gospel and strengthen the church against relativism.
- Kevin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert, What is the Mission of the Church? Making Sense of Social Justice, Shalom, and the Great Commission – As stated above, this integrates conservative Reformed and Southern Baptist perspectives to the subject of mission, offering definitions of terms such as missional, missio Dei, social justice, and shalom.
- Walter C. Kaiser, Mission in the Old Testament: Israel as a Light to the Nations – A brief theology of mission from a seasoned scholar. Concentrates on the Old Testament contribution to theology of mission, demonstrating the historical continuity of mission in the story line of Scripture.
- Andreas Koestenberger and Peter T. O’brien, Salvation to the Ends of the Earth: A Biblical Theology of Mission (New Studies in Biblical Theology, Volume 11) – A very substantive theology of mission written from a conservative evangelical viewpoint. The best from this perspective.
- John Piper and David Mathis, Finish the Mission: Bringing the Gospel to the Unreached and Unengaged – A strong evangelical affirmation of the Great Commission from Matthew 28:18-20, calling people to bold, global, missional engagement, regardless of the cost. Presenters include Louie Giglio, Ed Stetzer, and John Piper. Less academic.
- John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad: The Supremacy of God in Missions, 3rd Edition — An impassioned plea for churches to become God-centered, Christ-exalting, Spirit-empowered, soul-satisfied, Bible-saturated, missions-mobilizing, soul-winning, and justice-pursuing.
- John Piper and Justin Taylor, The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World — Emphasizes more of the peril than the promise of postmodernism, harkening to truths such as Christ’s deity as the basis for a healthy contextualization of the Gospel in our time.
- Eckhard J. Schnabel, Early Christian Mission, Volume 1 : Jesus and the Twelve. Also Early Christian Mission, Volume 2: Paul and the Early Church – An exhaustive, encyclopedic look at how the evangelistic mission of the church was fulfilled in the early church.
- Ed Stetzer, Subversive Kingdom: Living as Agents of Gospel Transformation – A challenging call to living in ways that allow God’s kingdom to expand. Excellent, readable integration of theology of mission, ecclesiology, and missional spirituality. More popular level than others on this list. Helpful DVD and small group workbook combinations make this ideal for congregational use.
- David F. Wells, Above All Earthly Powers: Christ in a Postmodern World — The last of a tetralogy where Wells offers a scholarly and prophetic contention that early postmoderns (church growth, “seeker” churches) and late postmoderns (emergent and some missionals) participate in the erosion of biblical faith and practice.
Localized Theologies / Contextualization (in suggested order)
- Timothy C. Tennent, Theology in the Context of World Christianity: How the Global Church Is Influencing the Way We Think about and Discuss Theology — Written out of a strong biblical orientation. Explains what it means to shape the Christian message so that it makes maximum impact in one’s communication context.
- Dean E. Flemming, Contextualization in the New Testament: Patterns for Theology and Mission — Defends contextualization as a biblical practice, that the activity of expressing and embodying the gospel in context-sensitive ways has characterized the Christian mission from the very beginning.
- Clemens Sedmak, Doing Local Theology: A Guide for Artisans of a New Humanity (Faith and Cultures Series) — A practical guide to equip church leaders for the task of constructing local theologies.
- Robert Schreiter, Constructing Local Theologies – Explains the philosophical and theoretical roots of the practice of localized theologies.
- Richard Bauckham, Bible and Mission: Christian Witness in a Postmodern World – A good balance to the idea of localized theologies, stressing that biblical mission is both universal and particular.
Other Volumes on Missional Context
- Philip Jenkins, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, Revised and Expanded Edition – An eye-opening picture of how the current face of Christianity has changed, shifting the balance to Latin American and Eastern population centers. Also comments on trends in North America.
- Soong-Chan Rah, The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity – Does a good job chronicling the multi-ethnic wave in North American churches, and suggests ways to effect revival over against the white captivity of the church.
Related Ministry Resources
Missional Perspectives for Christian Ministry:
- Missional Perspectives for Christian Ministry 01, Introduction
- Missional Church Resources, Introduction and Index
See Resources on Over 100 Areas of Christian Ministry: