My friend Georges Boujakly writes a helpful post on the need for spiritual formation being “for the sake of others.” Lately I have had several conversations with people about the greatest “need” for the dying church in the West. In most cases the issue is identified as a “discipleship/maturity” or “spiritual formation” problem.

For those who have followed this blog know that I, like many of you, believe the primary issue for the church in the West involves rediscovering the missionary nature of the church in the midst of a post-Christendom culture. The church must relearn what it means to be sent  into the world to participate with God in what He is already doing.

Now is spiritual formation an issue in the church? Absolutely! But let our spiritual formation be that which equips, motivates and propels us to be sent into the lives of other people. Let our formation be, not for our own benefit, but “for the sake others.”

In the midst of so many negative stories in the world of sports lately, here is a nice story that might help restore your confidence.

You might also check out this sports story from a couple of months ago.

In referring to God, Jesus almost always said, “the Father who sent me” (5:23, 37), or simply “him who sent me” (5:24, 30; 6:38). Just as Jesus designated God as the sender, he designated himself as the one sent. Instead of “I” he spoke of “he that the Father sent”: “This is the work that God requires: believe in the one whom he has sent” (6:29). . . .

But Jeus was never meant to be the only missionary; John says that God explicitly did not intend Jesus to be unique. On the contrary, Jesus’ mode of existence as mission made manifest furnished the model for all the disciples. We must understand in their fullest and most radical sense Jesus’ words: “As thou hast sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world” (17:18); and after the Resurrection: “As the Father sent me, so I send you” (20:21), that is to say, “As the Father made me a missionary, so I make you missionaries.”

Jose Comblin in Sent From The Father: Meditations on the Fourth Gospel

“We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.

Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us! It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.”

– President Abraham Lincoln, 1863

Seven significant ecclesiological shifts from Christendom to post-Christendom:

From the centre to margins: in Christendom the Christian story and the churches were central, but in post-Christendom these are marginal.

From majority to minority: in Christendom Christians comprised the (often overwhelming) majority, but in post-Christendom we are a minority.

From settlers to sojourners: in Christendom Christians felt at home in a culture shaped by their story, but in post-Christendom we are aliens, exiles and pilgrims in a culture where we no longer feel at home.

From privilege to plurality: in Christendom Christians enjoyed many privileges, but in post-Christendom we are one community among many in a plural society.

From control to witness: in Christendom churches could exert control over society, but in post-Christendom we exercise influence only through witnessing to our story and its implications.

From maintenance to mission: in Christendom the emphasis was on maintaining a supposedly Christian status quo, but in post-Christendom it is on mission within a contested environment.

From institution to movement: in Christendom churches operated mainly in institutional mode, but in post-Christendom we must become again a Christian movement.

The Anabaptist Network Newsletter, February 2004

I discovered an insightful article written by Art McPhee, Professor of Mission and Evangelism at Mennonite Biblical Seminary. The article is titled The missio Dei and the Transformation of the Church. It was first published in the Fall 2001 issue of Vision: A Journal For Church and Theology.

McPhee provides a brief, yet helpful history of the use and understanding of the concept of missio Dei and its implications for the church. In regards to the implications McPhee includes:

1.  From start to finish mission belongs to the triune God, therefore whatever missionary activities we engage in can only be deemed appropriate if they coincide with God’s mission.

2.  Because it is God’s, mission is not something the church can call a moratorium on, or evade. Because the church is the fruit of God’s emerging kingdom, the church will be missional.

3.  The mission of the church cannot be limited to planting churches and saving souls, for with God’s kingdom comes shalom, of which the church is a sign.

4.  God’s people do these things not out of obligation but our of a new identity. When Jesus said, “You will be my witnesses”, he was not issuing a command but making a statement about the nature of his followers.

5.  For some in the church, being in mission will involve a call to a specific place or people. But no longer will mission be seen as something westerners carry to the non-western world.

McPhee concludes the article with these excellent words:

When our ethos changes and our prayer begins with “thy kingdom come,” our priorities, our programs, our preaching, our practices will all change. No longer will we be able to abide an ecclesiology that is not missiological. No longer will be able to divide church and mission. Isolation (personal or corporate) and respectability will be mutually exclusive.

Therefore, we will seek unceasingly to learn what God is doing in our little part of the world and get on board. We will rediscover the meaning of gathering in order to be sent. Our Sunday schools and small groups will recover their missional intent. Our failure of nerve will dissipate. Having been called from our darkness to be God’s own people, we will give testimony to God’s mighty acts and become lenses for God’s marvelous light (1 Pet. 1:9). Our kindness, passion for justice, and engagement in peacemaking will be clearly seen by all to be derivatives of God’s mission — we will make sure of it. To paraphrase Mennonite missiologist James Krabill, our mission will smell like God’s mission. Finally, we will reclaim our faith and approach each day with anticipation, expecting to encounter in ourselves and others the transforming work of Christ through the Spirit.”

“The church sits as the only institution with the resources to transform the face of planet Earth to a place of justice, peace and equity, a place without suffering. We have the message (gospel), we have the leader (Jesus), we have the example (sacrifice), and we have the power (love). The church has nevertheless lost its way. On the one hand we are capable of so much, and on the other hand we are accomplishing so little.

We are like a great warrior who has gotten lost on the way to the battle and been gone so long that he has forgotten what he set out to do. All that remain for the warrior are remnants of the original journey. Hanging over the fireplace is his old sword that stayed close for many years but now just hangs, shield is safely stored there, because the lost warrior no longer needs protection from anything; his life is all comfort. This may be why he never got back on his way; he found such comfort in his lostness.

This is the story of the church. Sent by Jesus himself to subdue evil, to destroy all the works of the evil one, to proclaim freedom for the captive and good news for the poor, to declare and establish the triumph of God, we never got there.

We stopped in the city of mediocrity and moderation, and there in the decadence of that city we have forgotten that the city of God is yet to be built. While the rest of the world is wasting away under the tyranny of sin, and hell is having its way with our children, and the poor are sacrificed to the god of material wealth, the church is growing weak and its great weapons — the Word of God and faith — have become sermon titles and concepts relegated to the realm of self-help and personal inspiration.

We have lost our way, and worse, we have forgotten to care. The battle yet rages.”

Brain Sanders in Life After Church: God’s Call to Disillusioned Christians