Is Church a valuable term in relation to fxC?

1. Is Church a valuable term in relation to fxC? June 2011 The Sheffield Centre Church Army’s Research unit

2. ‘What a mistake-a to make-a’ • Surely not fresh expressions – of Church? • Call them ‘fresh expressions of Mission’ • Yes there is a problem: • cf Dan Kimball: They like Jesus but Not the Church • Is there an alternative view?

3. The shame and down drag of the church … the church’s history was already a problem in western culture – the Crusades, witchcraft trials, support for slavery and more were perceived by the culture as arguments against the truth of Christianity … Since that first edition the situation has gotten worse. Jonathan R. Wilson, Living Faithfully in a fragmented world, (2nd Edition) p. 2 I’m an evangelist - get me out of here Right? … being mission minded is the highest and proper calling of the Church , and through it the Church finds its best reason for being. M. Atkins in Croft (ed) Mission shaped Questions (London: CHP, 2008) p. 22

4. 2 questions 1 Is the church so tarnished, corrupt and broken that we are better to continue with a churchless mission? • Can the essence of the church be redeemed by an insistence on its missional character?

5. Responses from Scripture • Clues from how Yahweh operates … • God’s preferred way of mission is through his people • Note Adam and Eve • Note Abraham • ‘My People’ language – the scandal of particularity. Exalted purpose and debased performance is an old problem. • Covenants are with people: Noahic, Abrahamic, Davidic ‘From a missiological perspective, the covenant with Abraham is the most significant of all the biblical covenants.’ Chris Wright, The Mission of God, (Nottingham: IVP, 2006)p. 327. ‘The whole core of biblical history is the story of the calling of a visible community to be God’s own people, His royal priesthood on earth, the bearer of His light to the nations… and the same is true in the New Testament.’ L. Newbigin, The Household of God (originally London: SCM, 1953: now Carlisle: Paternoster, 1998) p. 24.

6. Lessons from Christ and his Church • ‘Jesus never meant to found a church.’ • Really? So why 12 disciples? • A wedge between disciples and church is artificial • When does the Church [the people of God] begin? • Pentecost? • Resurrection? • Sending of the 70? • Calling of disciples? • Abrahamic covenant? • Adam and Eve! • See ++Rowan @ Oxford 2011

7. To Loisy or not to Loisy? ‘Jesus proclaimed the kingdom of God and what came was the Church’ A. Loisy, The Gospel and the Church (Paris: Picard, 1902), p. 111. Translations from the French vary. This version is from Kung, The Church, p. 43. -ve: Bosch – part of the failure of the church versus +ve: H. Kung, E. Jay and the official Catholic view It was a positive and necessary development of an organism

8. Extraordinary Ecclesial Ephesians • The image: the Body of Christ Eph. 1:23, 2:16, 3:6, 4:4, 4:12 • The expectations ... • ’His intent was that now, through the Church the manifold wisdom of God should be made known …’ Ephesians 3:10 • A Mystery: Insiders and Outsiders are reconciled in one BodyEphesians 2:16 • ‘Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations …’ Ephesians 3:20-21 • How Christ views the Church • ‘Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her.’ Christ nourishes and cherishes the Church as a human does their body. Ephesians 5:25 & 5:29 How do we measure up to this?

9. Christ, the Church & Mission • Paul dealt with tacky churches, yet is audacious in connecting the three • The Spirit too is intimately involved • The Church of God and the Mission of God are inherently and mutually linked. .. we must insist that a Church which has ceased to be a mission has lost the essential character of a Church, so we must also say that a mission which is not at the same time truly a Church is not a true expression of the divine apostolate. Newbigin, The Household of God, p. 200-201.

10. Trinity and Missionary Ecclesiology Any theology of the Church must ultimately be rooted in the being and Acts of God. Eucharistic Presidency para 2.2 When Christians speak of ‘God’, it is as shorthand for the Holy Trinity. Two things follow from this. First, God has to be understood relationally and communally. ‘Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who mutually indwell one another, exist in one another and for one another, in interdependent giving and receiving.’ Second, God is a missionary. We would not know God, if the Father had not sent the Son in the power of the Spirit. Mission-Shaped Church pp. 84-85 with the quote from Eucharistic Presidency para. 2.16 The Trinity are … community-in-mission Should Barth meet up with Zizioulas?

11. Trinity & Missionary Ecclesiology The Trinity are … community-in-mission • Notice the order; which comes first, mission or community? • The Trinity exhibit the priority of being • How do missiologists / pioneers/ evangelists think? • Is Missio Dei thinking the start?

12. Trinity & Missionary Ecclesiology ‘Mission comes from the Father, through the Son, in the power of the Spirit.’ Cray (ed.), Mission-shaped Church p. 85. If mission ‘comes’ it cannot be the starting point. But how do mission writers often think? Does Mission ‘define’ the church? No, it is only an intrinsic activity of the church In the life of God the Trinity it is the same They are community-in-mission The church must re-establish the priority of the Great Commission. It is the Lord’s mandate that defines [his italics] the church as people who follow Christ .. with a vision for Christ’s reign on earth.E. Gibbs, Leadership Next ( IVP, 2005) p. 89.

13. The Three and the One Take Immanent Trinity 1st & Economic Trinity 2nd • Being is prior to doing • We aren’t ‘human doings’ • Yet … God is ontologically missional How odd! • The best way to become mission- shaped is … • don’t start with mission! • Like God – start with a loving community

14. Great for Baptisms, weddings – maybe not funerals A minor change? • Suspension? • Brakes? • Steering? • Transmission? • Seating Cabin?

15. It’s only the old story It works for all of society Sheffield Centre: 14 years, 1 lesson The Pioneers taught me Community Is Central It’s not so much a lack of truth… but a missing connection between the words uttered and the style of life that results from it: a lack of authenticity, of depth, of correlation between words images and reality.Tomlin G, The Provocative Church (SPCK, 2002) p. 10.

16. Tell me the old, old story … A. Kreider, Grove Liturgical Studies No. 32 Worship and Evangelism in Pre-Christendom (Cambridge: Grove Books, 1995) A Jesus-shaped distinctiveness Community Is Central Spiritual practices that fed them Little direct evangelism The bottom line about community Even God chose to do it this way

17. ? Connecting Mission Church & Kingdom Mission ? Church Kingdom ‘… the Church is the fruit of God’s Mission’ Cray, Mission-shaped Church p. 85.

18. The fruit of Mission Then sower in Mission God’s mission Church begins The story changes in history No sooner is Church the consequence of mission, than it becomes also the conductor of mission. ChurchandMission

19. Not so simple as … God’s mission Church begins mission mission mission church church Mission-shaped Church pp. 85-91

20. Connecting Mission Church & Kingdom Mission The bearer of the gospel and The embodier of the gospel By the Spirit ? Church Kingdom ‘… the Church is the fruit of God’s Mission’ Cray, Mission-shaped Church p. 85.

21. Connecting Mission Church & Kingdom Mission Bearer and embodier of the gospel By the Spirit Proceeds from God Initiates a process Both are bound to each other Eschatology greets history Comes from the future into the present ? Church Kingdom ‘… the Church is the fruit of God’s Mission’ Cray, Mission-shaped Church p. 85.

22. Instrument C K Connecting Mission Church & Kingdom Mission Bearer and embodier of the gospel By the Spirit Proceeds from God Initiates a process Both are bound to each other ? Eschatology greets history Church Kingdom ‘the fruit of God’s Mission’

23. Instrumental? The limitations of the analogy • Only a functional relationship • Thing and Person • No overlap between them • The Theological Critique • Church is not just a means, but also an end, it is the foretaste of what it proclaims • The way salvation is proclaimed must fit its nature. Reconcilation is communicated by the reconciled ‘ … a real participation in the life of God Himself.’ Newbigin, The Household of God, p. 199. ‘The Church can be instrumental … because she is much more than instrumental – because she is in fact herself the body of Christ.’Newbigin, The Household of God, p. 200.

24. Connecting Mission Church & Kingdom Mission Bearer and embodier of the gospel By the Spirit Proceeds from God Initiates a process Both are bound to each other ? Eschatology greets history Church Kingdom ‘the fruit of God’s Mission’ Instrument: C K Sign: C K

25. Sign here Positives: • A sign points beyond itself to something greater • Those who see it, go beyond it • Church is always less than Kingdom – we are an imperfect sign • Kingdom points up what the Church faces, not what its face currently looks like • The Negative: • Distance between signs and what they signify … the Church does more than merely point to a reality other than itself. House of Bishops, Eucharistic Presidency, p. 16, para. 2.12. Only part true … Jesus’ ministry of erecting signs of God’s incipient reign was emulated by the early church. Christians were not called to do more than erect signs; neither were they called to do less. Bosch, Transforming Mission, p. 49.

26. Foretaste • A distinct contribution by Lesslie Newbigin • Without it, we are robbed of an overlapping connection • Without ‘foretaste’, instrument and sign are empty • Sign links to the Church’s witness, foretaste to its life. Unless the foretaste is real, the witness is hollow ‘I am suggesting that the only answer, the only hermeneutic of the gospel, is a congregation of men and women who believe it and live by it.’Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, p. 227.

27. Kingdom Church Now Not yet Visible Emerging Foretaste is inherently partial • Foretaste is real and partial ‘The presence of the kingdom in the Church is the presence of its foretaste, its first-fruit, its pledge in the Sprit.’ Yet it is a presence ‘veiled in weakness’ and a matter of reality and pledge ‘of having and of hoping’.Newbigin, The Gospel in a pluralist Society pp. 119-120. By virtue of its participation in the life of God, it is not only a sign and instrument, but also a genuine foretaste of God’s kingdom … House of Bishops, Eucharistic Presidency, p. 16, para. 2.12

28. Step up higher Church is not just the bearer or the pointer to the gospel but the embodier

29. Connecting more … The Father: ‘Initiating Creativity’ Mission ? Jesus The Son: ‘Obedient Responsiveness’ The Spirit: ‘Creative Completing’ Church Kingdom

30. Unashamedly Christocentric Mission Jesus Church Kingdom

31. Value the Church Mission Mission • A chequered 20th century history Jesus Church Kingdom Kingdom Church

32. The World The World The Church The Church Ecclesial eclipses • Medieval version • Hurrah the mission is done • ‘no long anything to call the world’ • WCC 1968 • Let the world set the agenda

33. Has it gone far enough? • Some rehabilitation of Church Bosch: the Church has been ‘rehabilitated in WCC circles as an instrument of mission.’ He affirms … ‘the centrality of the church in God’s divine economy’ but with recognition of its deeply ambiguous life as a ‘union of the divine and the dusty.’Bosch, Transforming Missionpp. 388-389 ‘There is a church because there is a mission.’ Bosch,Transforming Mission p. 390

34. Church Mission Why else stick with ‘Church’? • Disincarnate mission is neither possible nor Christian • Not perpetuating an old divorce: Church vs Mission ‘An unchurchly mission is as much a monstrosity as an unmissionary Church’. L. Newbigin, The Household of God (originally London: SCM, 1953: now Carlisle: Paternoster, 1998), p. 201.

35. Church and Mission? Why else? • Disincarnate mission is neither possible nor Christian • Not perpetuating an old divorce: Church vs Mission • If ‘fx of Mission’: ‘Church’ can say– nothing to do with us. • If ‘fx of Church’:The claim is … • This sort of thing is normal • It’s freshly expressed • and it’s Church • No other language can ‘say’ that • An Anglican instinct ‘the abuse does not take away the use’

36. They said it first There is no way of belonging to Christ that does not include the Church. G. Cray, Youth Congregations and the Emerging Church, (Cambridge, Grove Evangelism 57) p.5. Throughout this study we have assumed that, in one way or another, the Church is at the heart of God’s mission.’A. Kirk, What Is Mission?, p. 205.

37. And also …the only hermeneutic of the gospel is a congregation of men and women who believe it and live by it. The church is to be the primary agent of mission and if it does not exhibit evident community and transformed lives, then any amount of evangelistic events and church projects will have limited credibility ... That community is described in Scripture as nothing less than the body of Christ. ... this means that how the church conducts its life is foundational to the whole work of proclaiming the good news of Christ.L. Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (London: SPCK, 1989) p. 227

38. And for the third time of asking Ultimately the evidence for the credibility of the Gospel in the eyes of the world must be a quality of life manifested in the Church which the world cannot find elsewhere. Bishop of Rochester (Ed.) Towards the Conversion of England (London: Church Assembly, 1945) p. 33 A church without evangelism has lost its heart Evangelism without the Church, has lost its body Medical wisdom recommends the retention of the relationship G. Lings, Lectures to students at Church Army’s College of Evangelism.

39. What can we do? How about … Investing as much in fostering quality of community as we do in worship, teaching, encouraging mission Dig into … Vanier Peck Kreider New Monasticism Dalpra …

40. Mission Jesus Church Kingdom Insist on triangulation • Do not divide the 3 • Do not conflate the 3 • Do not subtract any 1 • Always examine any 1 in relation to the 3 Simples! Compare the Trinity.com