“Team Kingdom”
I have always wanted to go to the Olympics. Its one of my “been there, done that, got the T-shirt” things I want to do before I die (not that I am intending on doing the latter anytime soon!).
So when London was awarded the Olympics for 2012 I was ecstatic. My brother and his wife live in London (they are under strict instructions not to move before then), so we have somewhere to stay. Our boys will be 8 and 6 years old (and maybe others by then?), so we are planning our summer holiday 2012 already!
We just need to get some tickets for the events. Or probably more accurately save up some money so we can buy the tickets.
But just imagine for a moment that cricket was an Olympic sport (a bit like baseball for all you Americans out there … on second thoughts it isn’t like baseball one little bit – far superior!). And imagine my childhood dreams of playing cricket for England had come off. And imagine that I am a few years younger than I am. OK, a lot of imagining there, but hold on with me.
Imagine I am part of the England cricket squad for the Olympics. I get to be part of the team; I get to play and practice with them. To hang out with them. To dream about winning the Olympics together. My whole life is about being part of that team. And I get to go the Olympics as well.
This begins to describe the way I am beginning to see the gospel. I have traditionally seen the good news about that ticket to go the Olympics (and it is free: Jesus has paid for the ticket). But until 2012, I am just hanging around, waiting (praying?) for the time to come; and of course, handing out tickets to anyone else who might want to come too! Its a free ticket after all!
But the good news of the Kingdom, that Jesus announces, is like being invited to be part of the team – I get to enjoy all the “benefits” of being part of the team now, and I also get to go to the Olympics.
The invitation to “Team Kingdom” isn’t because you and I are good at cricket or anything else. The invitation is to all. We can all be part of the great adventure of life, with God, on earth today. Of course, many choose to be build their own kingdom. Others would still prefer just to get that ticket, and be a spectator.
HT – Jollyblogger for the analogy which I have adapted slightly.
NT Wright has been advocating this view of the Kingdom. He is responsible for this analogy of how we enter the Kingdom. I don’t have his book (Jesus and the Victory of God) to reference original sources – maybe someone can help here?
In AD 66, Josephus, Jewish by birth, but later became a Roman Citizen, visits a group of revolutionary zealots, who were intent on the violent overthrow of the Roman Empire. He appeals to them to give up their mission, which would inevitably lead to death, and come with him. He had a better way. The phrase he uses is: “repent and believe in me“.
The invitation to be part of “Team Kingdom” is to be caught up and involved with a new life. It is find a better way of living. It is participate in the radical new Kingdom that Jesus inaugurates.
Repentance is less about stopping sinning (although of course there is radical change of lifestyle), and more about getting involved with “Team Kingdom”, which necessitates a different way of living.
Just imagine all that training and playing …
Is this a different way of seeing the gospel for you? How does it change things? Or do you disagree or have something to add to the analogy of “Team Kingdom”?
Tags: Emerging Church, Kingdom, Kingdom of God, Missio Dei, Missional Church, NT Wright, Josephus
Previous posts in Series: What is Missional Church? – Part 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.
Thanks Rupert and given the state of the national game i’d say you were a shoe in!
Yes i like the analogy, although it reminds me of the catch phrase that you hear around the Vineyard movt that “every one gets to play.”
I think it has some advantages as in its more about involvement, being a team, being in together.
As with any analogy it has for some downsides associated with it in my mind, for instance what is the game, what do you do on the team that is different etc?
Team God seems a good metaphor for kingdom of God but i guess that’s why Jesus used so many different ways of talking about the same thing
Thanks Paul … yes i agree there are some downsides to the analogy.
I guess what i am wanting to emphasise is that the gospel / good news isn’t just a hope for the future, but about our lives now.
… and maybe team God would have been better than team kingdom …
r
I like your last comment about the good news being about now, this minute, this week etc. 2 things: I think being missional is a state of mind & inorder to be most effective we need to feel good about ourselves. the good news is typefied by John 10:10, which for me is about piece despite the circumstances. It is also about attitude. When people see that in us it is very attractive. B
Brian – thanks for the comment. I love the John 10:10 reference … He has come to give us live, live in all it fulness. Yes.
If we could live like that, it would be very attractive. Come on…
I liked this stuff. I’ve heard Wright preach on this topic (the mp3s are on the unofficial Wright page) and its good to hear it again. One emphasis I would add would be the whole Genesis 12 thing, you know, “blessed in order to bless”. Wright puts says that the call of Abraham was about undoing the sin of Adam. That call found a realisation in the nation of Israel, but ultimately and fully in the perfect Jew, Jesus. Then by the nature of the Church being the his body, and its members being in Christ, we are saved into the people of God — the church — not simply to worship, but to “bless” the world so that all may be blessed, and in doing so, undo the sin of Adam by seeing the Kingdom come. Of course, until Jesus returns we can never complete the job…anyway, I find all of this very helpful in putting a historical context and meta-narrative around the concept of salvation and the corporate and Kingdom nature thereof.
Also just read a paper my Miroslav Volf about liberation theology and pentecostolism, and how they both emphasis the physical and concrete elements of salvation (and how traditional evangelicalism has not).
I can’t get it straight in my head where salvation ends and kingdom starts. Perhaps that is the point?
Thanks Alastair … i think the gen 12 passage is a key one too, especially as understand missional church.
Good quesiton re. salvation and kingdom. I think i probalby see salvation as a subset of kingdom. Salvation is part of the Kingdom. Salvation brings us into the Kingdom. I think that is my point from the previous posts on missional church: forgiveness of sins is not an end of itself; it is to make us fit for the kingdom.
Hello! Its been a while since I’ve posted anything, but i have been following as best I can. I really just want to be a bit cheeky – I’ve just run missional church parts four, five and six (and all comments) through Word and searched for the word “cross” which at one time not that long ago would have peppered any such discussions. But it only came up three times, and all of those were in Albo’s comments in response to part 5! I just thought this was interesting…I’m massively pro more incarnational/kingdom theologies of mission but I do think (as I’m sure everyone else does, don’t get me wrong!) that Kingdom derives a a lot of its meaning from the cross. Christ is King because of the cross and the victory he won over darkness there and we have the authority to establish the kingdom because he’s passed on to us the authority he won to do that which was won on the cross.
David Bebbington the church historian has suggested that historically evangelicals have been distinguished by four emphases: activism, biblicism, conversionism, crucicentrism. I would like to add that we probably need to throw in something about the spirit here because all pentecostal and charismatic stuff in the UK has always had evangelical doctrine at the core. I think that we need in post-modernity to broaden out our understanding more, with an emphasis on incarnation and resurrection (redressing a balance and emphasing the humanity of Christ and the importance of the body) but we need to be careful not to overlook the riches of our tradition because we are all so familiar with it. The cross makes sense of so much of what being missional and kingdom is about, even as we reduce our emphases (a process which is needed) on the crucicentrist/conversionist aspects of the tradition.
This next bit is totally off the point, but…
I have a question: have the charismata ever really appeared powerfully and legitimately (healing/prophecy etc.) in the midst of groups of believers in a way that hasn’t either presupposed or engendered afterwards a deep sense of repentance/personal conversion/intimacy with Jesus/understanding of the cross (all traditionally evangelical emphases). Now the presence of charismata is clearly secondary to our understanding of who is/isn’t a Christian (see 1 Cor) but is it not interesting that the Holy Spirit tends not to come into churches that deny/pay lip service to core evangelical doctrines like the full humanity and full divinity of Christ, and his historical death and resurrection. Its just a question. Or is it that we have missed where the Spirit is? Pentecostals got a bit of a shock when the HS jumped into mainline denominations and even the catholic church. Is he gonna jump into churches with a more traditionally liberal outlook next? And if he does, will he draw people back closer to doctrines that evangelicals have traditionally espoused…conversionism/crucicentrism etc…
What do you think? Has the Spirit done this already? Can my more liberal friends be baptised in the Spirit? And if they can, can they retain some of their less-evangelical doctrines? Is there a point where what we believe/don’t believe about God and Christ and the Trinity actually prevents the Spirit from moving among us?
Some interesting questions Paul!
I totally agree with your first paragraph — its what I posted today on the Missional part 5 topic!
Your second point, just two immediate thoughts:
– many folks would associate the holy spirit’s activity with the craziest and kookiest elements of the church…when the spirit moves it doesn’t always seem to move with those that hold authenticate doctrine!
– the day that the likes of Marcus Borg gets filled with the spirit, rolls around on the floor in fits of laughter, and then gets up to preach the “jesus is still dead in his grave” gospel, is the day when Mark Driscoll resigns from ministry and becomes a hairdresser.
in response to the authentic doctrine thing…You’re right, the holy spirit can still move among folks with some wacko doctrines and lifestyles (for a while) – its quite grey in some regards (and we are still prone to sin even after baptism in the spirit, clearly), but it does seem to be the case that (in general) while he is moving, he draws people closer to a belief in Christ as their personal Saviour (which we would expect) – most catholic charismatics (it has been observed) have tended to believe and think much more fully in Christ and get closer to more evangelical doctrine on the core issues (I think of Bohus etc in Slovakia) – obviously this doesn’t apply to e.g. church government – this has empowered the ecumenical movement in recent years. We can’t define where the Spirit will move, but what tends to be the result in experiential terms, and how does this change people’s doctrinal beliefs? I think that the HS isn’t part of any denomination but he seems to follow an agenda of pointing to Christ alone as our saviour, and lead people further away from beliefs like (eg) an inclusivist position…
I agree, that was my second point really…we don’t really see full-blown resurrection-denying liberals rolling around being slain in the spirit (or at least, I have not heard of it!).
I do agree with you comment about the cross. I think i use the term “Christ event” at some point … I guess i am wanting to see the whole of incarnation as part of the inauguration of the Kingdom, rather than just the cross which we have historically emphasised. Obviously the cross is part of that, but if you look at the much of the NT the resurrection seems to have just a high place.
So i am wanting to redress some of the balance, but not lose sight of the crucial place of the cross.
On the HS, i think the HS moves in response to faith, not doctrine or beliefs. This seems clear to me from Galatians and 1 corinthians. I think the issue is that people of faith tend to believe in the work of the HS and have faith for Him to move. More liberal people tend not to. But history is littered with examples of people whose doctrine was unorthodox, but moved in faith and the HS.