Earlier in the week, I posted part 1 and 2 of a series on Missional Church, coming out a series we are doing in church, looking at the concept of Missio Dei – God’s Mission.
In this post, I want to look at the difference between a traditional approach to evangelism, and missional church.
A traditional approach to evangelism has prioritised the conversion of individual people: to become a Christian, be saved, be born again or other such phrases. Missional church sees the scope of God’s salvation much broader: the restoration of the whole cosmos.
Genesis 12 becomes the touchstone: God blesses Abraham, and in turn, he is to be a blessing to all nations. The whole world is to receive God’s blessing through Abraham and his offspring. We, as heirs to the promise of Abraham, are supposed to be a blessing to the world we live in: to serve, heal, restore, love, care, bless, encourage and be good news.
The story of Jesus healing ten people with leprosy (in Lk 17) is a great picture of missional church. These ten people cry out to Jesus, and they are healed as they go to present themselves to the priests (who would decide if they were healed and could rejoin society). Only one comes back to Jesus.
In the past I would have been focused only on the one person who came back to Jesus. After all, that is what really matters! But now, as I am beginning to see the redemptive work of Jesus in a much broader scope, I think Jesus was expressing the Kingdom for all 10. He was surprised that only one came back! But I don’t think he was going: “Darn it; I used all that power on 9 ungrateful sinners! What a waste! “
Of course (and please see my initial caveats in post 1), being connected to Jesus is the best thing for every human being. We rejoice when someone comes to Jesus; we rejoice too when the Kingdom is expressed in the blessing or healing of others.
I think there is massive change in mindset is missional church. We have often engaged in social action projects, but if we are being honest, mostly that has been with the aim of seeing people “get saved”. The world has accused us of ulterior motives … and most of the time, I think they were right! And in doing so, we have failed to represent the unconditional love of God.
To illustrate this point, here is a table from “The Shaping of Things to Come” by Frost and Hirsch. I have adapted slightly … they used the table in the book to describe bounded and center sets … I have used it to describe the difference between a traditional evangelical mindset, and the mindset of missional church:
This maybe overstating to make a point; it is pretty provocative. But I have found that I am now much more of the right than the left … what about you?
Tags: Evangelism, Missional Church, Emerging Church, Alan Hirsch, Bounded Sets, Centred Sets
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Hi Rupert great post – liked your point about the lepers – i guess the expection for thanks is 1 out of 10 people?
I wonder how much that approach to evangelism has been influenced by modernity:
i. focus on souls/intellect at the expense of bodies/physically/material world [so we marginalise resurection, heaven to earth etc]
ii. emphanisis on propositional truths/faith not works which leads to a focus on what we believe rather than what we do.
I would push back at you on your comment that the church has engaged in soicial action projects to see people get saved – it might be one motivation but i think it is often more to do with a privitised charity obligation which can often be led by a parachurch organisation as the churches work has been to be seen i. and ii. above…
Whilst in one way I appreciate the distinction that Frost and Hirsch (and you?) are trying to make, in my mind this seems something of a false dichotomy. I’d like to think there is truth in both sides of the list. I also think the Evangelism side only represents a particular style of evangelism (“old school”). In fact, I would expect many evangelists these days to major on the “mission” side of the table. Does that mean they are suddenly doing mission and not evangelism? Surely mission is not just evangelism 2.0!
I think there is confusion here: is the point here that we should stop doing this inferior evangelism thing and start doing the obviously superior mission thing? I guess the real question is: where does evangelism fit in a Mission-shaped church? Also, what is evangelism? Perhaps a definition of this would get the ball rolling. I am 100% with the Missional church theme, but I don’t see that as an an excuse to not share Jesus with people. On the contrary, we should expect such an opportunity to happen more often if we are doing this missional thing right!
In my personal experience of evangelising, (my defn would be, an attempt to communicate the significance and meaning of Jesus’s life, death and resurrection, with an emphasis on personal response) I have employed all of the right-hand-side column — but also something of the viewpoint of the left column also.
Personally I think I would push back any notion that evangelism is only for some special few (no where in the bible do we find a gift of evangelism). I do see some that had a vocation of evangelism (i.e. Philip the Evangelist), and also a place for an Evangelist to equip the saints for the work of ministry (Eph 4). At the end of the day, if our non Christian friend asks us about Jesus, what does the so-called non-evangelist say: “umm, actually I don’t have the gift of evangelism, so I can’t really answer you.”
Clearly we are all evangelists in that we are all called to represent Christ and to play our part in the furtherance of the gospel.
In your preach you mentioned as a joke that possibly the only people who hated evangelism more than you were the people that you evangelised. I’m not sure if you meant there to be any truth in that statement at all, but it made me sad to hear it. Apart from demonised, drunk or otherwise deranged people, my experience is overwhelmingly positive. Many people have thanked me for taking time to explain the Christian story, often remarking that they have never heard it explained in church(!). Others thanked me for listening to their story, which as I implied previously (doing mission-style evangelism) is always a good thing.
So I am wondering why you said you hated it so much? Or does part of your definition of evangelism include harassing people in the street or otherwise annoying people who don’t want to be spoken to? I’m personally in the camp that we should not annoy or harass people into faith! (Although perhaps the Apostle Paul would disagree, what with inciting riots continually!)
Another note: this Easter a friend of mine had his mother come to his church to attend the easter service. The gospel was preached, and she felt compelled to respond and give her life to Jesus. Its sad to think that if she had attended my own church, I doubt this would have happened, as I don’t recall a presentation of the gospel and call to respond. In this case my friend had frequently shared the gospel with his mum himself, but for some reason it wasn’t until she heard it in the context of the Easter service that something happened. I say all this not to criticise or to cause offence, but out of genuine sadness. Can’t we be a missional church and still say with Paul: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is God’s power for salvation to everyone who believes” ?
One more thing — to say conversion is a process is a bit misleading. The New Testament is absolutely clear that there is an invisible boundary line we cross when becoming Christians…we become/are declared “righteous”. You cannot grow into this in any meaningful sense, “you’re either in or your out”,as the George Clooney quote goes. Again, perhaps this is an issue of terminology, as the New Testament does recognise the concept of three tenses of salvation, as I am sure you know:
– I was saved (justification)
– I am being saved (sanctification)
– I will be saved (resurrection)
BTW, thought the story about the lepers was good, and it does seem a good illustration of Missional Church. But I think some more clarification on the whole evangelism vs mission thing is needed!
I wonder if we emphasise a particular part of the gospel that is most relevant to the times we live in. So in 20th century, particularly in the first half, in the age of two world wars there was tremendous insecurity about the world and its future. So the emphasis was developed on a rescue … God has come to take us from earth to heaven. Would you agree with that? What other factors have influences how we have understood the gospel?
I am not saying that it is wrong, just that it is narrow. And we now need to find a wider understanding of the gospel for our times. Which is probably another way of saying exactly the same as you.
I probably agree too with your final paragraph. I still think it is one motivation. However, i think we have (predominately) seen social action as second best to seeing “souls saved!”. So it as our duty as Christians, to help people, but really their eternal destiny is what matters. i think that understanding is changing. Do you see that changing too?
1. i think you are right, we need to develop an greater understanding on missional vs. evangelism. I will put my thinking cap on, and maybe add as another post. You rightly push the issue. I am not saying that we shouldn’t talk about Jesus … i am probably getting at an old evagelical mindset. Some of the comments made above by Paul and myself are probably part of the clues. What do you see the distinction between evangelism and say witness?
2. i think our understanding of evangelism is changing. Maybe that is the point. To highlight the change, we are using a different word (missional). But i do think it is also coming from a broader understanding of the mission of God (which i think we have narrowed too much). More on that in another post to come.
3. On the joke, I have had some good experiences, and some bad experiences. It was a joke, but there is a bit of truth in it too. I look back at some of the stuff i did, and am a bit ashamed of the WAY i did it. I think we are all agreed on wanting to see people connect with jesus … but some of our methodology hasn’t been good or helpful. That is what i guess was behind that joke. However, there is some that has been much more helpful and good. Sometimes, it is the times when we talk about our faith and our doubts and our questions and our hopes, that people most connect with us. When we stop trying to do something to them, but share our journey with them … that is good. And of course, i am not saying that we shouldn’t do that.
4. On conversion is process / event – so here is a question: does the word conversion occur in the NT? I guess i am using the word in a broad context, rather than a very narrow defination. I do agree that there is something in the NT that does bring a distinction: light / darkness; kingdom / dominion etc. But the event of coming to Jesus is only part of the story. I think we see the Holy Spirit at work in folks have yet to turn towards Jesus, some are moving towards Jesus but we might not call them Christian (godfearers?), and even when we are saved we see we still need “converting”: our mind need renewing, our attitudes, our actions etc. So i guess i am wanting to see a greater emphasis on the whole of salvation story, rather than getting people to cross the line. I have seen a number of people who have become Christians, but have not followed through on that … and a few months, or years later are no longer following Jesus. The parable of the sower comes to mind. SO i am wanting to emphasise less the event, and more the process so that we create followers of jesus for whole of life. Does that bring a bit of clarity?
Thanks for pushing me to think about what i really mean by stuff … i enjoy and appreciate that!
I do agree with Alastair in his comment that we need to avoid an either-or approach; there is truth on both sides, and in fact some of us are gifted to be more on one side or the other.
I also have been noticing recently the passage in Eph 4 where Alastair comments that there is “a place for an Evangelist to equip the saints for the work of ministry.” I think that this passage is very important because it talks about the diversity of the different roles in the body (v11), apparently all preparing us for “works of service” (v12a), but with the purpose being “so that the body of Christ may be built up ” (v12b). Maybe my definition of “works of service” gets a bit too narrow, but I don’t see them being able to build up the body of Christ on their own unless people also hear the message. Conversely, there are those here in my present country who look at the message bringers (“evangelists”) and are not impressed by our works, or our motives (which they see as mixed), and therefore are not impressed by the message (if indeed they are open to listen to it).
We have recently been exploring a scale proposed in an article by a cross-cultural worker. He essentially describes the two columns above rather as a scale of One to Five. A One is the church planter who has a vision which seems to see no purpose in any other activity. Five is the professional who works where God places him. Watch these two try to work together if they both believe they have a higher calling than the other!
“At one end are those whose primary sense of calling is a “missionary” calling – to be personally involved in reaching the people in a particular place or people group. At the other end are those whose primary sense of calling is a ”professional” calling – to serve God faithfully through the practice of their profession.”
But all the positions on the writer’s scale can be places where God has placed us to serve -none of them are wrong, or higher. Some of us will move along the scale – or be moved along the scale. I see myself as a Three, as a project worker, running effective development projects (perhaps leprosy clinics and rehab centres in the Lk17 context), but I am also supporting colleagues who are Twos in their discipling of the former lepers.
I wonder how many of the other nine lepers were in the 3,000 people who moved further in their spiritual journey in Acts 2:41? If so, they were responding to an evangelistic message AND the healing touch which they had felt.
I am tempted to add “… but the healing touch came first”. However, that would probably come from my own bias.
PS Sorry if the scale of numbers I use is confusing – I can forward the article “Understanding Tentmaking Professionals and their Sense of Call/vocation” to anyone who is interested.
Hi Rupert, I know you are not saying it is wrong, i think it is a timely and helpful correction to creeping gnostic approach, although no doubt we’ll need to recorrect in due course when our post modern cyncism as eradicated any heaven, lol
I appreciate that this is more of a widening, which is useful and we tend to land on the things that push our buttons, so to switch your Q round, what are the things about life that make a more “missional” perspective seem more attractive/wider/free-er – in the terms your post sets up?
I agree with you that we may have seen saving souls as 2ndry – that would be fully in line with our theology that the soul is the most important – again i think we’re rebalancing here – maybe our motivation is that bodies are just as material and important – so now we’re saving bodies not just souls. Of course we can go to far and end up focussing saving bodies and almost dismissing souls…
But such is the fun of us all being heretics
Neil, your comments made for interesting reading. I hadn’t thought about the “scale” before. Do you have a link for that article?
Thanks for taking time to respond to my rather large comment!
1 – I am not sure what the distinction is between evangelism and witnessing. Don’t they mean the same thing really? I suppose people say “witnessing” to indicate that they live a different lifestyle from those they are among in order to point towards their faith? Something akin to being an ambassador of Christ I suppose. If that is the case, I guess an emphasise on incarnating Christ would be the what witnessing is. Or are you getting at something else?
Again, I don’t think its an either/or thing. We should all be witnessing, and when an opportunity presents itself, evangelise. I suppose if we evangelise by going about making a general nuisance of ourselves, I would agree evangelism is not so great. To me evangelism can be like story telling: listening to someone’s story, and then telling them about Jesus’ story, and your story, etc.
2 – Personally I don’t find it helpful to compare evangelism with missional church. I would say evangelism is something all are called to do, as the Spirit leads. Some are called to a vocation of evangelism, others, to encourage and equip “the saints” to evangelise in their own spheres. Missional church, however, is a complete paradigm, not just another thing we do. Under the umbrella of missional church comes loads of things, including the very way we do church (inc. how we do evangelism), the music we use in worship, the way we speak about God, the words we use, the idea that we join in with what God is already doing, etc. What do you think? It seems to be that the chart you refer to is comparing old school evangelism to missional evangelism, rather than illustrating missional thinking per se. Now, I say this not to be petty and find flaws, but because I am really for folks in the wider body really getting their heads round missional church, so I want to help makes things as clear as possible!
3 – thanks for clarifying !
4 – I don’t think the word conversion appears in the NT, but I was thinking of the closest word/concept. Again, I think we need to hold two truths in tension: lets not get ultra post modern and say we are all on a journey, and throw out the wonderful truth of justification and being declared righteous. (Incidentally, I understand these terms more in a New Perspective a la NT Wright fashion, rather than a Lutheran/Calvin/traditional evangelical fashion.) By being declared righteous, God is accepting us into his covenant people; we are adopted as a child of God. It would be rather sad to throw all of that biblical truth out in an effort to please the post-moderns.
On the other hand, again in the NT I do see lots of talk about our salvation being a process. I do think that some people move towards Jesus (they are on a spiritual journey) but I think also the truth is that some people are moving away from Jesus and others are moving nowhere. To me, this is the wonderful thing about grace. Someone can be moving away from Jesus, be confronted by Him, and become a Christian. That’s what makes grace amazing to me. I am a little concerned that post-modern talk of faith journeys actually further condemns those that are moving away from Jesus or, like most people I know outside of the church, are moving nowhere spiritually. I guess we could look at this biblically:
Simon Peter –> on a journey to faith
Apostle Paul –> ultimate anti-Christian one moment, #1 Jesus fan the next
What do you think? Perhaps for those that don’t even believe in God, there is something of a journey. I’d love to hear some testimonies from former atheists/agnostics!
BTW I want to say I think this blog is really cool. Its great to respond to your sermons and get an opportunity to seek clarification, dialogue further, etc. Thanks for blogging your preaches!
So why do i like the missional thing?
1. It seems more like Jesus … he had real compassion and love for broken people, and he seemed to love making thier lives better.
2. It seems to recognise that we aren’t doing this on our own, but God has gone before us, and we are getting involved with what He is doing.
3. It does seem more Biblical!
4. It honours what people do in every aspect of thier lives: bring integrity, justice, compassion … in thier work, community – not just about bringing people to Jesus.
5. It seems more loving of people … it recognises the wholeness of human beings (exactly as you state in your comment) – body, soul, spirit; and seeks to enable them to become all that they could (which of course involves connecting them to Jesus.
6. It emphasises people connecting with Jesus, rather than some formula to get a ticket to heaven. I really like that.
Is that enough to be going on with? Would you add others?
1. i love your definition of evangelism: story telling. Brilliant. I will try to blog my thoughts on witnessing etc.
2. I think my headings aren’t that helpful for the table, and i think the alternative heading are good. It is difficult as some people hate the evangelism word, and others love it. In one sense i don’t care, as long as grasp what is changing in what God is calling us to be involved with, and what we do is good and helpful for those who aren’t Christians. So yes i am comparing traditional evangelism or maybe even traditional evangelicalism with something of emerging missional evangelism. And i really agree that missional church is a paradigm shift … it is a different way of looking at things that we would have done in the past.
3. Cheers.
4. I wonder if the word repentance is the NT word? But that does seem to be something that doesn’t just happen once … but a process. i guess that is my point. And even with Paul, i think he moved along the path before his convesion. For example he heard stephen in acts 7 talk about jesus before he was stoned. He saw how stephen died. That must have affected him and opened him up to the gospel?
Thanks for the comment … love the thought that some of the other lepers were among others who became followers of Jesus at a later date …
Thanks Rupert, i love the progression there, 1-3 i think most christians would sign up to, 4-6 are that humanity focussed, restored, renewed hope we find in Jesus – for me it echos the reverse of what has been our previous approach – our humanity is shot therefore we need to become spiritual beings with the reward of one day playin perfect air harp in the world’s greatest ethnic music fest – to now we are spiritual beings already and it is about the restoration of our humanity, of becoming whi we were created to be, not in our own steam but surrendering our lives to God and each other with the promise that we will get our essence of full humanity back but our bodies and lives too…
Thanks for your reply…I would agree that we are to continually repent, just as the church should be continually reforming…so I would say:
1. repentance: continual process
2. salvation: continual process, but beginning with step 3.
3. adoption/justification/made righteous: once only event
It does strike me just now that we don’t have any down to earth terminology to describe number 3. It all sounds very religious!
That is really interesting isn’t it … we don’t really have language for number 3.
I wonder if it is something that happens at some point on the journey … but often it isn’t clear when that is. Someone has said it like getting on a train, going from say France to Germany … you cross the border, but often don’t know when that happened.
yes Paul … you express that really well. Thanks