Over the past year I have had an increasing number of conversations with pastors and church leaders about the church’s inability to “reach” their local communities. Many local churches have come to the realization that they have lost the ability to “attract” people to church programs and events. They sense that something has changed, but they are unsure about the essence of the change and what ministry adjustments might be necessary. In most cases, the leaders have no “grid” or “framework” to rethink the form and function of the church. Therefore, they lean towards a solution that ultimately involves more of the same church growth principles and programming.

I believe, as many of you that follow this blog, that a significant portion of the “solution” begins with recapturing the missionary nature of God and His church. The “framework” that is necessary is found in the best of the missional church conversation that is taking place today.

I have been studying and participating in this conversation for the past decade. Last year I completed a doctoral project that was targeted on assisting churches in the development of a missional ecclesiology. The core of the training project included three major elements.

The first piece of the training attempted to answer the question, “What is Missional Church?” During this portion of the training we examined the biblical, theological, and missiological underpinnings of the missional conversation. We also conducted a brief survey of the history of missional church, along with exploring what others were saying on the topic.

The second portion of the training focused on understanding the cultural shifts that have taken place in North America, and how those shifts have contributed to the marginalization of the church. This second element speaks to the question of “Why is the Missional Church conversation important?”

The third element of the training dealt with missional practice, or the question, “How can an existing church cultivate a more missional posture?” In this final section of the training we focused on issues surrounding community engagement and transformation, as well as how to make incremental changes in a missional direction with resources such as prayer, time, staff, facilities, and finances.

I share this brief training outline as an introduction to what I would be willing to share with other local congregations. I would like to make available a customized seminar that would focus on the series of topics mentioned above. The training could be customized to any size group that was most helpful. It could range from a two hour presentation targeted to a selected group of church leaders to a full day seminar presented to the whole congregation. You would decide the best fit for your situation and local context.

I want to make perfectly clear, that I am not trying to “make a buck” off of the missional church conversation. In fact, because I am supported by a national mission organization, the North American Mission Board, I would lead such a seminar with no required fee. I simply desire to assist churches and church leaders to better understand the missional conversation, and the significant implications it has for a local congregation.

If you have questions or would like to discuss what this might look like for your church, simply email me at brad.brisco@gmail.com

The Epistles and Revelation

In the Pauline Epistles, there are several clear uses of sending vocabulary, “each conveying a different theological perspective within the larger salvific sphere.” [1] In Romans, Paul speaks of God “sending his own son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering” (8:3). In Romans, Paul also asks how the people can hear unless the one who preaches is sent (10:15). When dealing with division in the church at Corinth over loyalty to certain leaders, Paul states, “For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel” (1 Cor. 1:17). Speaking to the heart of the Gospel, Paul makes reference to both God sending the Son and the Spirit in Galatians 4:4-6:

But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.”

In Second Thessalonians, Paul refers to God sending a “powerful delusion” to those who have rejected the gospel (2:11). Finally, in multiple places throughout the Pauline epistles we find Paul adopting and defending the title of apostle [2] or “sent one” (Rom. 1:1; 1 Cor. 1:1; 2 Cor. 1:1; Gal. 1:1; Eph. 1:1; Col. 1:1; 1 Tim. 1:1; 2 Tim. 1:1; Titus 1:1).

In the General Epistles, the author of Hebrews refers to Jesus as the “apostle” [3] or “sent one” (3:1). First Peter speaks of the “Holy Spirit sent from heaven” (1:12) and in keeping with Johannine tradition, 1 John speaks of the Son being sent by the Father (4:9-10, 14).

The Book of Revelation “uses the language of sending to convey a variety of theological ideas.” [4] In chapter one, the revelation is made known to John through the sending of an angel (1:1), later in the same chapter John is told to send messages to the seven churches (1:11), and in chapter five the seven spirits of God are “sent out into all the earth” (5:6). Finally, in chapter twenty-two we read that both God and Jesus send angels, one to prepare the people for what was to come, “The Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, sent his angles to show his servants the things that must soon take place” (22:6) and one to give John the message for the churches, “I Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star” (22:16).

1. Francis M. DuBose, God Who Sends (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1983), 51.

2. Apostle (apostolos) is defined by it s use in the New Testament and its relationship to the three words apostello, pempo, and the Twelve. Apostello (‘to send’) is used frequently in the Gospels, Acts, and the Epistles when referring to an authoritative commission. The word apostle is indebted to the Hebrew term shaliach. A shaliach, as used by the Jews, was someone sent by one party to another to handle negotiations concerning matters secular or matters religious. Harold E. Dollar, “Apostle, Apostles” in Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions, ed. A. Scott Moreau, Harold Netland and Charles Van Engen (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000), 73-74.

3. In this case, Jesus is designated as “apostle,” a title that otherwise is never used of him in the New Testament. The title apostolos is invariably used for one sent on a commission by another, and is given specifically to the representative of Jesus sent out by him (see Matt 10:2; Mark 3:14; Luke 6:13; Acts 1:2; 14:14; Rom. 1:1; 1Cor. 4:9; 12:28). Luke Timothy Johnson, Hebrews: A Commentary (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006), 106.

4. DuBose, 52.

When considering the theological and biblical underpinnings of the missional church conversation I find the two most helpful topics to address include the concept of missio Dei, or mission of God, and the language of “sending” found throughout Scripture.

The chief element to grasp about the missio Dei is that the mission is God’s. We are not called to bring our mission into a local context, instead we are called to partner with God in His mission. In the words of South African missiologist David Bosch; “It is not the church which undertakes mission; it is the missio Dei which constitutes the church.” We often wrongly assume that the primary activity of God is in the church, rather than recognizing that God’s primary activity is in the world, and the church is God’s instrument sent into the world to participate in His redemptive mission.

This leads to the second important topic, which is the theme of “sending” in Scripture. The reason it is important to recognize such language in Scripture is not only because it speaks to the missionary nature of the Triune God, but it also connects – particularly in the New Testament – God’s mission to our’s. This is never more true than in the Gospel of John.

The Gospel of John

The primary focus of the Fourth Gospel is the mission of Jesus: “he is the one who comes into the world, accomplishes his work and returns to the Father; he is the one who descended from heaven and ascends again; he is the Sent One, who, in complete dependence and perfect obedience to his sender, fulfills the purpose for which the Father sent him.” [1] “The entire Gospel is about sending and being sent.” [2] Therefore it is not surprising that John’s gospel is laden with the vocabulary of sending – the term and its derivatives appear almost sixty times.

While there is a variety of vocabulary used to describe the sending concept in the Fourth Gospel, [3] the concept is most often “expressed by different variations of the verbs pempo or apostello.” [4] The verb pempo, which is commonly translated as “to send,” occurs 33 times in John as compared to the Synoptic Gospels where the word is found four times in Matthew, once in Mark, and 10 times in Luke. [5] The verb apostello has the basic meaning of “to send forth,” and can be used of persons or things. [6] “When the object of the verb is a person, apostello often has the connotation of a commissioning, which transfers the authority of the sender to the person being sent.” [7] On account of the frequency of these two verbs it would appear that both words are of equal importance to the Johannine concept of sending and are virtually synonymous in John, however the question of synonymity has created significant debate in the past few decades. [8] Nevertheless, regardless of the position one takes on the nuances of the sending vocabulary in the Gospel of John it is difficult to overemphasize “how deeply the sending concept relates to Jesus’ identity. Almost every page of the Fourth Gospel breathes with a passage in which Jesus expressed who he is in terms of his sense of being sent.” [9]

When considering the sending motif in John’s Gospel there are at least three major areas of exploration: (1) Jesus’ mission and the origin of that mission, the Father who sends; (2) the fulfillment of the mission in the sending of the Holy Spirit to the disciples; and (3) the continuation of Jesus’ mission through the sending of the disciples into the world.

“It is part of the fundamental structure of any sending, even the sending of a mere human being, that the one sent does not follow his own will, but that of the sender, and that he does not speak and act in his own name, but represents another.” [10] This structure is clearly evident in Jesus’ relationship with the Father as depicted in the Gospel of John. Jesus, the sent one, is to know the sender intimately (7:29; cf. 15:21; 17:25) and to live in a close relationship with the one who sends (8:16, 18, 29; 16:32). Jesus came not to do his own will but the will of the Father who sent him (4:34; 5:30; 6:38-40), to speak not his own words but the words of the one who sent him (7:16-18; 8:26-29; 12:49; 14:24), and not to do his own work but the work of the Father who sent him (5:36; 9:4). The sending relationship between the Father and the Son speaks to the very heart of the gospel: “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him” (3:17).

In addition to the theme of the Father sending the Son, the Gospel of John speaks twice concerning the sending of the Holy Spirit. [11] In John 14:26 the Spirit is sent by the Father: “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” And in John 15:26 the Spirit is sent by the Son from the Father: “When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father.”

Of special importance in John is the linking of the mission of Jesus with that of his followers as the “sent ones.”  “The disciples’ mission is essentially the same as the mission of the Son and the Spirit – to bring glory to God and to bring to the world forgiveness of sins and spiritual life.” [12] In Raymond Brown’s commentary on the Gospel of John he explains the continuity of mission in the following way:

The special Johannine contribution to the theology of mission is the Father’s sending of the Son which serves both as the model . . . and the ground . . . for the Son’s sending of the disciples. Their mission is to continue the Son’s mission; and this requires that the Son must be present to them during this mission, just as the Father had to be present to the Son during His mission. [13]

After his conversation with the Samaritan woman, Jesus sends his disciples to reap the harvest (4:38). In the high priestly prayer Jesus prayers to the Father for the protection of disciples as Jesus sends them into the world (17:18).  And shortly before Jesus ascends to the Father he commissions the disciples to evangelize the world. “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you” (20:21). Here John in one pericope repeats once again three main aspects of mission he has been developing throughout the gospel: (1) Father has sent Jesus into the world, (2) Jesus sends his disciples into the world, (3) the Holy Spirit is sent to enable disciples in their mission. By themselves the disciples are inadequate to fulfill the mission, yet by receiving the Spirit they receive authority and so also become God’s “agents, or sent ones,” the apostles. Referring to this verse, John Stott remarked that the church’s mission finds precise articulation in the Fourth Gospel:

The crucial form in which the Great Commission has been handed down to us (though it is the most neglected because it is the most costly) is the Johannine. Jesus had anticipated it in his prayer in the upper room which he said to the Father: “As thou didst send me into the world, so I have sent them into the world” (John 17:18). Now, probably in the same upper room but after his death and resurrection, he turned his prayer-statement into a commission and said: “As the Father has sent me, even so I send you” (John 20:21). In both of these sentences Jesus did more than draw a vague parallel between his mission and ours. Deliberately and precisely he made his mission the model of ours, saying “as the Father sent me, so I send you.” Therefore our understanding of the church’s mission must be deduced from our understanding of the Son’s. [14]

Finally, in an excellent commentary on the Gospel of John by Craig Keener he offers a similar summation of the importance of the commissioning passage in the Fourth Gospel for the life of the church:

Whereas the sending of the Son is the heart of the Fourth Gospel’s plot, its conclusion is open-ended, spilling into the story of the disciples. Thus the church’s mission is, for John’s theology, to carry on Jesus’ mission (14:12; 17:18). Because Jesus was sending “just as” (kaqws) the Father sent him (20:21), the disciples would carry on Jesus’ mission, including not only signs pointing to Jesus (14:12) but also witness (15:27) through which the Spirit would continue Jesus’ presence and work (16:7-11). [15]

1. Andreas J. Kostenberger and Peter T. O’Brien, Salvation to the Ends of the Earth: A Biblical Theology of Mission (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2001), 203.

2. Johannes Nissen, “Mission in the Fourth Gospel: Historical and Hermeneutical Perspectives” in New Readings in John: Literary and Theological Perspectives, Essays from the Scandinavian Conference on the Fourth Gospel Arhus 1997 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1999), 215.

3. In addition to the most common use of the verbs pempo and apostello, analogous to these are erxouai, ecerxomai and katabaino; prepositions that are used with the sending concept are apo, ek and para; other terms that relate to the concept are agiazo, didwmi and entellomai; verbs that describe the return of the emissionary to the Father are upago, poreuomai, anabaino, and metabaino. Johan Ferreira, Johannie Ecclesiology (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1998), 167.

4. In John’s gospel the term pempo is used approximately twenty-three times for the sending of the Son, all in articular participial forms: eight times in the nominative (5:37; 6:44; 7:28; 8:16, 18, 26, 29; 12:49); seven times in the genitive (4:34; 5:30; 6:38, 39; 7:16; 9:4; 14:24); seven times in the accusative (5:23; 7:33; 12:44, 45; 13:20; 15:21; 16:5); once in the dative (5:24). Apostello occurs seventeen times in reference to the sending of the Son, in indicative forms only. Martin Erdmann, “Mission in John’s Gospel and Letters” in Mission in the New Testament: An Evangelical Approach, ed. William J. Larkin, Jr. and Joel William (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1998), 210.

5. Ferreira, 168.

6. Ibid., 167.

7. Ibid.

8. For an excellent overview of the debate see Andreas J. Kostenberger, “The Two Johannine Verbs For Sending: A Study of John’s Use of Words with Reference to General Linguistic Theory” in Studies on John and Gender: A Decade of Scholarship (New York: P. Lang, 2001), 129-147.

9. Francis M. DuBose, God Who Sends (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1983), 49.

10. Michael Waldstein, “The Mission of Jesus and the Disciples in John” Communio 17, (Fall 1990): 319.

11. For an excellent study on the priority of the Holy Spirit in mission see Hendrikus Berkhof, The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit (Richmond, John Knox, 1964). Berkhof argues that there has been a serious theological neglect of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in the work of mission. He writes: “In Roman Catholic theology, the Spirit is mainly the soul and sustainer of the church. In Protestant theology he is mainly the awakener of individual spiritual life in justification and sanctification. So the Spirit is either institutionalized or individualized. And both of these opposite approaches are conceived in a common pattern of an introverted and static pneumatology. The Spirit in this way is the builder of the church and the edifier of the faithful, but not the great mover and driving power on the way from the One to the many, from Christ to the world. In one of the very rare theological works on the relation between the Spirit and mission, the American missionary Harry R. Boer writes: ‘Much has been written about the work of the Holy Spirit in the salvation of men, but very little about his crucial significance for the missionary witness of the Church.’ This situation is probably to the detriment of the mission, but surely to the detriment of theology, which suffers a great impoverishment indeed in that it is oriented to situations far more than to movements. In neglecting rather than reflecting the great movement of the Spirit, it distorts the whole content of faith and is an accomplice to the individualistic and institutionalistic introversion and egotism still found in the churches today” (Berkhof, 33).

12. Geoffrey R. Harris, Mission in the Gospels (London: Epworth, 2004), 177.

13. Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John, vol. 2 (New York: Doubleday, 1970), 1036.

14. John R.W. Stott, Christian Mission in the Modern World (Downers Grove, IL: InterVaristy, 1975), 23.

15. Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary vol. 2 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003), 1204.

The Missional Language of “Sending” – Introduction
The Missional Language of “Sending” – The Pentateuch
The Missional Language of “Sending” – The Historical & Poetic Books
The Missional Language of “Sending” – The Prophetic Books

The Gospels

Some people might argue that “as a collection of documents telling the story of Jesus, the Gospels do not contain a systematic theology of mission.” [1] However, “the New Testament is a missionary book in address, content, spirit and design. . . . [It is] theology in motion more than theology in reason and concept.” [2] Furthermore, while the sending motif is clearly significant in the Old Testament concept of mission; the theological concept of sending plays an even greater and more central role in the understanding of missions in the New Testament.

“As the Old Testament closes with the promise of the special messenger whom God will send as a forerunner of the Messiah” [3] (Mal. 3:1), the New Testament begins with the announcement that the messenger has come in the person of John the Baptist, “a man who was sent from God” (John 1:6; cf. Matt. 11:10-15; Mark 1:2-8; Luke 7:18-28). Each of the Gospels then proceeds to illustrate the importance of sending in understanding the mission of Jesus. The vocabulary of sending is most prominent in the Gospel of John, while occupying a lesser, yet still significant, place within each of the Synoptic Gospels.

The Synoptic Gospels

In the Synoptic Gospels Jesus is pictured as one who has a profound sense of being sent:

Every mission involves a sender and a sent one. In a saying recorded in all three synoptic gospels, Jesus alluded to a relationship in connection with his own mission: “He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives the one who sent (ton aposteilanta) me” (Matt. 10:40; Mark 9:37; Luke 9:48). With this statement, Jesus established three facts in regard to his mission: first, there was a sender; second, Jesus himself was the sent one; third, there was a close identification between the sender and the one who was sent. [4]

Jesus’ self understanding of being the “one sent” can also be seen in other passages in the synoptics. In Matthew Jesus speaks to the Canaanite woman telling her that he “was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel” (15:24), in Mark Jesus tells his disciples that anyone who welcomes a little child does not only welcome Jesus himself, but “the one who sent me” (9:37) and in Luke Jesus shares that he must preach the good news of the kingdom “because that is why I was sent” (4:43).

In the Gospel of Luke there are three key sending passages. First, is the record in Luke 4:16-30 of Jesus returning to the synagogue in Nazareth and equating himself with the passage read from Isaiah 61:1-2. “Of all the Old Testament passages he could have chosen, he selected this one as the platform for his life and work. It became the manifesto of his ministry.” [5] As noted earlier in the discussion on the sending language of Isaiah 61:1-3, each of the redemptive deeds listed in the passage proceed from the verb “sent.” Having Jesus identify himself with this particular Old Testament passage adds to the relationship between his mission and that of being sent.

In Luke, Jesus is not only the sent one, but he is also one who sends. The second significant sending passage in Luke is that of Jesus sending out the Twelve in Luke 9:1-6:

When Jesus had called the Twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. He told them: “Take nothing for the journey – no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra tunic. Whatever house you enter, stay there until you leave that town. If people do not welcome you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave their town, as a testimony against them.” So they set out and went from village to village, preaching the gospel and healing people everywhere.

“If the foundational mission, according to Luke, is Jesus being sent by God, then the sending of the twelve is an integral part of Jesus’ own mission. From a larger group of disciples Jesus chose and commissioned twelve ‘apostles’ (apostoloi, Luke 6:12-15). He now shares his power and authority with them, and sends (apostello) them on their mission (9:1-2).” [6]

Reminiscent of Jesus identifying his ministry with Isaiah 61:1-2, he now sends out the Twelve to “preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick” (9:2). Parallel passages of the sending out of the twelve can also be found in the Gospel of Matthew, “These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions” (10:5) and Mark, “Calling the Twelve to him, he sent them out two by two and gave them authority over evil spirits” (6:7).

The third significant sending passage in Luke is the sending of the seventy-two [7] in Luke 10:1-24. Jesus again sees himself not only as the sent one, but also as the sending one. Jesus sends out the seventy-two as advance teams to prepare the towns and villages he was about to enter. Jesus not only sends out the seventy-two, but he also calls upon the people to ask the “Lord of the harvest” to send workers to assist them in their labor (10:2).

1. A. Scott Moreau, Gary R. Corwin and Gary B. McGee, Introducing World Missions: A Biblical, Historical, and Practical Survey (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004), 40.

2. George W. Peters, A Biblical Theology of Missions (Chicago: Moody, 1972), 131.

3. Francis M. DuBose, God Who Sends (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1983), 49.

4. John D. Harvey, “Mission in Jesus’ Teaching,” in Mission in the New Testament: An Evangelical Approach, ed. William J. Larkin, Jr. and Joel William (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1998), 31.

5. DuBose, 50.

6. Andreas J. Kostenberger and Peter T. O’Brien, Salvation to the Ends of the Earth: A Biblical Theology of Mission (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2001), 120.

7. Some manuscripts say seventy. It is difficult to come to any final decision regarding the number of disciples sent out by Jesus – seventy or seventy-two. See Kostenberger, 120.

The Prophetic Books utilize the language of sending more than any other portion of the Old Testament. There is a clear “association between God’s sending and the office of prophet.” [1] “The prophets were first and foremost men whom God had sent.” [2] Perhaps the most dramatic example of sending in the prophetic books is found in Isaiah 6. In this passage the reader catches a glimpse of God’s sending nature in a kind of Trinitarian fullness, “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?’” To which Isaiah responds, “Here am I, Send me” (6:8, emphasis added).

Later in the book of Isaiah, he recognizes that God’s Spirit has anointed him to “preach good news to the poor” and that he is sent to “bind up the brokenhearted” (61:1). In the larger passage of Isaiah 61:1-3 it is interesting to note that there is no less than six redemptive deeds that proceed from, or are dependant on the verb shalack = “He has sent me.” [3]

He has sent me,

to bind up the brokenhearted,

to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God,

to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion –

to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning,

and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.

In God’s call to Jeremiah he is sent to speak what God commands in 1:7: “You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you.” The people obeyed the message of the prophet Haggai because he was sent from the Lord (1:12). Zechariah stated on several occasions that it was the Lord that sent him to the nations (2:8-9, 4:9, 6:15).

In the vast majority of cases the prophets were sent to pronounce God’s judgment upon the nations. Isaiah spoke of the Lord sending judgment on Israel (9:8), of sending his wrath on the godless nation of Assyria (10:6), and sending a “wasting disease upon sturdy warriors” (10:16). Jeremiah spoke of God sending “venomous snakes” (8:17), sending both fishermen and hunters to catch and track down the disobedient (16:16), of sending his people out of Judah and to the land of the Babylonians (24:5), and of sending judgment in a assortment of ways, “I will send the sword, famine and plague against them until they are destroyed from the land I gave to them and their fathers” (24:10). Other passages in Jeremiah that speak of God sending various types of judgment include: 25:16-17, 27; 26:12, 15; 29:17,20; 43:10; 48:12; 51:2. [4]

The Book of Ezekiel continues the sending of various types of judgments, including sending “famine and wild beasts” (5:17), plagues (14:19), the sword (14:21), and fire, “I will send fire on Magog and on those who live in safety on the coastlands, and they will know that I am the Lord” (39:6). While the other prophets speak less often of the sending of judgment from God, the theme is still very apparent. Hosea speaks of God sending fire upon the well fortified cities (8:14). Amos also speaks of God sending fire upon various cities (1:4, 7, 10, 12; 2:2, 5) as well as sending judgment in the form of plagues (4:10) and famine (8:11).

While the message of the prophets is heavy on judgment, they were also sent to proclaim God’s care and blessings. Isaiah speaks of the Lord sending a “savior and defender” (19:20), of being sent himself to Babylon (43:14), and of the purpose of God’s word being fulfilled regardless of where it is sent, “So it is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it” (55:11, emphasis added).

Daniel speaks of God sending an angel to rescue Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego (3:28) and of God sending an angel to protect Daniel by shutting the mouths of lions (6:22). Joel speaks of God sending “grain, new wine and oil, enough to satisfy you fully” (2:19). Micah reflects on the Exodus event and how God sent leadership to the people, “I brought you up out of Egypt and redeemed you from the land of slavery. I sent Moses to lead you, also Aaron and Miriam” (6:4). Zechariah speaks of a group of angels as “the ones the Lord has sent to go throughout the earth” (1:10). Finally, in the last book of the Old Testament God promises to send his special messenger, “See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me” (Mal. 3:1).

In addition to recognizing that God sent prophets to pronounce judgments and blessings it is also significant to note that Scripture makes clear that false prophets were not sent by God.  In the Book of Jeremiah God denies sending false prophets on four different occasions (14:14; 23:21; 27:15; 29:9) and in chapter twenty-eight Jeremiah himself recognizes that Hananiah has not been sent by God, “Then the prophet Jeremiah said to Hananiah the prophet, ‘Listen, Hananiah! The Lord has not sent you, yet you have persuaded this nation to trust in lies” (28:15).

Furthermore, in Ezekiel the people are told that unless a prophet is sent from the Lord his words will not be fulfilled, “Their visions are false and their divinations a lie. They say, ‘The Lord declares,’ when the Lord has not sent them” (Ezek. 13:6).

1. Ferris L. McDaniel, “Mission in the Old Testament,” in Mission in the New Testament: An Evangelical Approach, ed. William J. Larkin, Jr. and Joel William (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1998), 19.

2. Francis M. DuBose, God Who Sends (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1983), 46.

3. Koole, Jan L. Isaiah III, vol. 3, Historical Commentary on the Old Testament, ed. Cornelis Houtman, Gert T.M. Prinsloo, Wilfred G.E. Watson and Al Wolters (Belgium: Peeters, 2001), 270. See also John N. Oswalt. “The Book of Isaiah: Chapters 40-66,” in The New International Commentary on the Old Testament, ed. R. K. Harrison and Robert L. Hubbard, Jr. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 565.

4. DuBose, 47.

The Historical Books

The books of Joshua, Judges and 1 Samuel continue the vocabulary of sending in passages that reflect on the Exodus event (Josh. 24:2-6; Judg. 6:8; 1 Sam. 12:8). Furthermore, in 1 Samuel God sent Jerub-Baal, Barak, Jephthah, and Samuel to deliver his people (12:11). He sent Samuel to anoint Saul as king (15:1). He sent Saul on a military conquest (15:18, 20). He sent Samuel to Jesse to anoint his son David as king (16:1). And in 2 Samuel God sends the prophets Nathan and Gad to the king, “The Lord sent Nathan to David” (12:1) and “So Gad went to David and said to him . . . think it over and decide how should I answer the one who sent me” (24:13).

In 2 Kings 2 the prophet Elijah, when conversing with Elisha, referred three times to the Lord sending him to a variety of places, “Elijah said to Elisha, ‘Stay here; the Lord has sent me to Bethel’” (2:2), “Then Elijah said to him, ‘Stay here, Elisha; the Lord has sent me to Jericho’” (2:4), and “The Elijah said to him, ‘Stay here; the Lord has sent me to the Jordan’” (2:6). In 1 Chronicles God sent a plague on Israel and threatened to send an angel to destroy the city:

So the Lord sent a plague on Israel, and seventy thousand men of Israel fell dead. And God sent an angel to destroy Jerusalem. But as the angel was doing so, the Lord saw it and was grieved because of the calamity and said to the angel who was destroying the people, ‘Enough! Withdraw your hand (21:14-15 emphasis added).

Second Chronicles tells of how the Lord sent an angel who “annihilated all the fighting men and the leaders and officers in the camp of the Assyrian king” (32:21). The book “closes with the sad note of God’s compassion and long-suffering in repeatedly sending messengers to his ever disobedient people.” [1] In 2 Chronicles 36:15 the Chronicler writes: “The Lord, the God of their fathers, sent word to them through his messengers again and again, because he had pity on his people and on his dwelling place.”

The Poetic Books

In the book of Job God is described as one who sends “water upon the countryside” (5:10) and “lighting bolts on their way” (38:35). In chapter fourteen, Job counters Zophar by stating that God overpowers man, changes his countenance, and sends him away (14:20).

The Psalmist uses sending language multiple times when remembering the events leading up to the captivity of the Israelites, as well as the exodus out of Egypt. For example in chapter 105 alone God is seen as the sender three times, “He sent a man before them – Joseph, sold as a slave” (17), “He sent Moses his servant, and Aaron, whom he had chosen” (26), and “He sent darkness and made the land dark” (28).

However, the Book of Psalms also reflects often upon the physical and spiritual blessings sent by God. In chapter twenty he sends assistance: “May he send you help from the sanctuary and grant you support from Zion” (43:2). In chapter forty-three he sends guidance: “Send forth your light and your truth, let them guide me” (43:3). In chapter fifty-seven he sends safety and faithfulness, “He sends from heaven and saves me, rebuking those who hotly pursue me; God sends his love and his faithfulness” (57:3). In chapter seventy-eight he sends the provision of food, “He sent them all the food they could eat” (78:25). Finally, in the Book of Psalms God sends out his commandments to cause nature to bless mankind:

He sends his command to the earth, his word runs swiftly. He spread the snow like wool, and scatters the frost like ashes. He hurls down his hail like pebbles. Who can stand his icy blasts? He sends his word and melts them; he stirs up his breezes and the waters flow (147:15-18).

1. Francis M. DuBose, God Who Sends (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1983), 44.

Johan H. Bavinck, the Dutch missiologist and missionary to Indonesia, observed:  “At first sight the Old Testament appears to offer little basis for the idea of missions. . . . Yet, if we investigate the Old Testament more thoroughly, it becomes clear that the future of the nations is a point of the greatest concern.” [1] The Old Testament is replete with sending language that presents a picture of God as the divine sovereign Lord who sends in order to convey and accomplish his redemptive mission upon the earth. The Hebrew verb “to send,” salah is found over eight hundreds times in the Old Testament. While its usage is most often found in a variety of nontheological idioms and nuances, [2] it is employed more than two hundred times with God as the subject of the verb. [3] In other words, it is God who commissions and it is God who sends.

In the book of Genesis God sends Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden as an act of judgment (Gen. 3:23). In the case of Sodom and Gomorrah, God not only sends angels to destroy Sodom (Gen. 19:13), but he also sends Lot out of the city (Gen. 19:29). God sends an angel to help Abraham’s servant find a wife for Isaac (Gen. 24:7, 40). Later in the book of Genesis Joseph recognizes God’s providential care in sending him to Egypt to preserve God’s people. In Genesis 45:5 Joseph declares to his brothers, “And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you.”

“In the book of Exodus, there are some seventeen references to sending, all of them related in some way to the mighty salvation event of the Exodus.”[4] In the dialogue between Moses and God regarding who will stand against Pharaoh, there are five references to sending.

The Lord said. . . . “So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.” But Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” And God said, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.” Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name’ Then what shall I tell them?” God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’” God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers – the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob – has sent me to you.’” (Exod. 3:10-15, emphasis added).

Moreover, the Book of Exodus is explicit in emphasizing that it is God who sends the plagues as an act of judgment against Pharaoh, “If you do not let my people go I will send swarms of flies on you and your officials” (8:21) and “This time I will send the full force of my plagues against you and your officials and your people” (9:14). It is also God who promises to send an angel to guard them and bring them to the promised land (23:20). In the final sending passage in the book of Exodus, Moses shares his concern over who God will send to assist him in leading the Israelites, “Moses said to the Lord, ‘You have been telling me, Lead these people, but you have not let me know whom you will send with me’” (33:12).

In the remaining books of the Pentateuch the language of sending persists. In Leviticus and Numbers God sends plagues and venomous snakes (Lev. 26:25; Num.21:6), and in the Book of Deuteronomy the Israelites are once again reminded of how the Lord sent them from Kadesh-barnea, “And when the Lord sent you out from Kadesh Barnea, he said, ‘Go up and take possession of the land I have given you’” (Deut. 9:23).

1. Johan H. Bavinck, An Introduction to the Science of Missions (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1960), 11.

2. Ferris L. McDaniel, “Mission in the Old Testament,” in Mission in the New Testament: An Evangelical Approach, ed. William J. Larkin, Jr. and Joel William (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1998), 12-15.

3. Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., Mission in the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000), 11.

4. Francis M. DuBose, God Who Sends (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1983), 42.

When considering the theological and biblical underpinnings of the missional church conversation I find the two most helpful topics to address include the concept of missio Dei, or mission of God, and the language of “sending” found throughout Scripture.

The chief element to grasp about the missio Dei is that the mission is God’s. We are not called to bring our mission into a local context, instead we are called to partner with God in His mission. In the words of South African missiologist David Bosch; “It is not the church which undertakes mission; it is the missio Dei which constitutes the church.” We often wrongly assume that the primary activity of God is in the church, rather than recognizing that God’s primary activity is in the world, and the church is God’s instrument sent into the world to participate in His redemptive mission.

This leads to the second important topic, which is the theme of “sending” in Scripture. The reason it is important to recognize such language in Scripture is not only because it speaks to the missionary nature of the Triune God, but it also connects – particularly in the New Testament – God’s mission to our’s.

Over the next couple of weeks I am going to present a series of posts that survey the “sending” theme throughout Scripture. The survey is based largely upon the work of Francis DuBose in his 1983 publication, God Who Sends. However, I do hope to augment DuBose’s work, particularly in the Gospels, and especially in the Gospel of John. In the following introduction I lay out the breath of the study that I hope will be an encouragement to those who are wrestling with the need to cultivate a missional theology.

Introduction

The Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology defines “mission” as “the divine activity of sending intermediaries whether supernatural or human to speak or do God’s will so that God’s purposes for judgment or redemption are furthered.” [1] However, when examining the idea of mission in the Bible is there a “divine activity of sending” as suggested in this definition? Furthermore, is it reasonable to ask if there is consistent biblical language that speaks directly to the topic of mission? Is the concept of mission something that has been imposed upon Scripture as a result of our own back ground and history, or does the Bible speak consistently regarding the missionary nature of God and his mission?

Throughout the following series of posts I will respond to these questions by examining the language of “sending” found in Scripture. A “survey of the term sending in its various forms in Scripture suggest that it is more than a simple descriptive word,” [2] it instead reveals the missionary nature of the Triune God, as well as the very essence of the Church. The redemptive activity of God, his relationship to the world, and his dealing with mankind is described in Scripture by the word “sending.” In fact, the word “sending” is the “sum and substance of God’s creativity and activity.” [3] The entirety of redemptive history exhibits itself as a history of God sending others to participate in the missio Dei. [4] Theologian Darrell Guder summarizes the breath of the sending theme throughout Scripture this way:

Mission is the result of God’s initiative, rooted in God’s purposes to restore and heal creation. “Mission” means “sending,” and it is the central biblical theme describing the purpose of God’s action in human history. God’s mission began with the call of Israel to receive God’s blessings in order to be a blessing to the nations. God’s mission unfolded in the history of God’s people across the centuries recorded in Scripture, and it reached its revelatory climax in the incarnation of God’s work of salvation in Jesus ministering, crucified, and resurrected. God’s mission continued then in the sending of the Spirit to call forth and empower the church as the witness to God’s good news in Jesus Christ. [5]

To illustrate the totality of the sending theme, I will consider the language of sending by surveying seven major sections of Scripture, including the Pentateuch, the Historical Books, the Poetical Books, the Prophetic Books, the Gospels (with specific emphasis on the Gospel of John), the Book of Acts, and the Epistles and Revelation. This survey of Scripture will be followed by a brief examination of biblical language that is less explicit, yet still speaks to the sending nature of God’s activity.

1. William J. Larkin Jr., “Mission,” in Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology, ed. Walter A. Elwell (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996), 534.

2. Francis M. DuBose, God Who Sends (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1983), 24.

3. Georg F. Vicedom, The Mission of God (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1965), 9.

4. Latin for “the sending of God,” in the sense of “being sent,” a phrase used in Protestant missiological discussion especially since the 1950s, often in the English form “the mission of God.” Originally it was used (from Augustine on) in Western discussion of the Trinity for the “sentness of God (the Son)” by the Father (John 3:17; 5:30; 11:42; 17:18). Georg F. Vicedom popularized the concept for missiology at the CWME meeting in Mexico City in 1963, and publishing the book: The Mission of God. John A. McIntosh, “Missio Dei” in Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions, ed. A. Scott Moreau, Harold Netland and Charles Van Engen (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000), 631-633.

5. Darrell L. Guder and Lois Barrett, eds., Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 4.

Today Lesslie Newbigin would have been 100 years old. In honor of the centennial of his birth, Andy Rowell offers an interesting tribute here. For a little more on Newbigin’s influence you can also check out a couple of earlier posts I did here and here.

Update: Two more links on Newbigin. First an article titled The Missionary Who Wouldn’t Retire by Krish Kandiah. Second, also on the CT website, a post from 1996 titled God’s Missionary to Us by Tim Stafford. (Thanks again Andy for the links!)

History of Missional Church – Part I
History of Missional Church – Part II
History of Missional Church – Part III

Other Notable Authors and Contributors

There are a number of other authors who have contributed significantly to the missional church conversation in the past decade. Two of the more notable voices have been that of Alan Hirsch and Michael Frost. Their first collaborative effort was The Shaping of Things to Come [1] published in 2003. In that book, the authors built upon the twelve indicators first offered by the GOCN by adding three additional overarching principles that provides perhaps the best direction for what it means for a church to be missional. The additional principles include the following:

1. The missional church is incarnational, not attractional, in its ecclesiology. By incarnational we mean it does not create sanctified spaces into which unbelievers must come to encounter the gospel. Rather, the missional church disassembles itself and seeps into the cracks and crevices of a society in order to be Christ to those who don’t yet know him.

2. The missional church is messianic, not dualistic, in its spirituality. That is, it adopts the worldview of Jesus the Messiah, rather than that of the Greco-Roman empire. Instead of seeing the world as divided between the sacred (religious) and profane (nonreligious), like Christ it sees the world and God’s place in it as more holistic and integrated.

3. The missional church adopts an apostolic, rather than a hierarchical, mode of leadership. By apostolic we mean a mode of leadership that recognizes the fivefold model detailed by Paul in Ephesians 6. It abandons the triangular hierarchies of the traditional church and embraces a biblical, flat-leadership community that unleashes the gifts of evangelism, apostleship, and prophecy, as well as the currently popular pastoral and teaching gifts. [2]

Hirsch and Frost believe the missional “genius” of a church can only be unleashed when there are foundational changes made to the church’s very DNA, and that means addressing fundamental issues like ecclesiology, spirituality, and leadership. It means there must be a complete shift away from a Christendom way of thinking, which, as mentioned above, has been attractional, dualistic, and hierarchical. [3]

Several other books that have added much to the missional church conversation in the past decade are included in the following abridged annotated bibliography:

Craig Van Gelder, The Essence of the Church: A Community Created by the Spirit (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2000).

In The Essence of the Church, Van Gelder shares his concerns for many churches taking a functional approach to ecclesiology. He then moves to articulate a missional ecclesiology, which he places in the context of God’s purposes within creation and his eschatological intention. According to Van Gelder, the church is the redemptive reign of God implemented in a fallen world. Furthermore, it is the Spirit which carries out the redemptive purposes of God through the church as the Spirit empowers it for ministry. After describing the church from a redemptive, Trinitarian theological perspective, Van Gelder reserves the second half of the book to give practical advice about what the church is, what the church does, and how the church should organize to best live out its missionary nature.

Milfred Minatrea. Shaped by God’s Heart: The Passion and Practices of Missional Churches (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2004).

In Shaped by God’s Heart, Minatrea offers a good introduction to the missional church conversation. The book is organized in three sections. Part one is titled, “The Church in a New and Changing World.” In this portion of the book Minatrea discusses the difference between being “mission-minded” and “missional.” In part two, “The Nine Essential Practices of Missional Churches,” he presents the core of the book as he shares nine practices that he has observed in studying missional churches. Part three is titled “Structures and Strategies for Becoming Missional.” In this last section Minatrea shares strategies for church leaders who desire to move their churches towards becoming more missional. Additionally, each chapter includes helpful reflection and application questions to be used in group studies.

Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2006).

In The Forgotten Ways, Frost and Hirsch describe the current form of church in two simple ways. A missional church is one that goes to where people are to engage them on their own cultural turf while an attractional model expects people to leave where they are and come join the church culture. They contend that the attractional, institutional church that in large part is the creation of the church growth movement, has created a spectator Christianity that is largely irrelevant at reaching 85 percent of the culture. However the book is much more than a simple attack on the attractional church or the church growth movement. Building upon theological reflection and missiological principles, the authors develops a sound missional theology for the church. The Forgotten Ways will certainly remain one of the most significant contributions to effective missional engagement.

Alan J. Roxburgh and Fred Romanuk, The Missional Leader: Equipping Your Church to Reach a Changing World (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2006).

In The Missional Leader, Roxburgh and Romanuk draw upon many years of experience as consultants to church leaders across the United States and Canada. They offer a realistic approach to leaders who are struggling with what it means to be a missional church in a local context. The authors caution against adopting business models and church growth techniques. Instead they continually emphasize the importance of recognizing that the church is a spiritual entity that is lead and empowered by the Spirit. The goal of spiritual leadership therefore is to discern where and how the Spirit of God is working in the context of the local church.

Ed Stetzer and David Putman, Breaking the Missional Code (Nashville: B&H, 2006).

Breaking the Misisonal Code is one of the most practical introductions to the missional conversation. The book is built upon the premise that the church is a community created by God to be sent as a missionary into a local context. To do so effectively means that the church must break the “missional code” of their context. Each church must function as a missionary people exegeting their culture in order to better present the Gospel.  Throughout the book Stetzer and Putman provide numerous examples of churches that exhibit missional qualities. They also offer multiple definitions to bring clarity to missional terminology. For any church leader who desires to better understand the basics of missional practice Breaking the Missional Code would be a great place to begin.

Patrick Keifert, We Are Here Now: A New Missional Era (Eagle, ID: Allelon Publishing, 2006).

In We Are Here Now, Keifert offers a framework for deep change in churches and leadership teams that are striving towards missional engagement. Similar to other books on the missional church, Keifert agrees that as a result of vast cultural changes the church is in desperate need of recapturing its missionary nature. However what sets We Are Here Now apart is that Keifert lays out a long-range plan of spiritual discernment and transformation for a local congregation. Keifert maintains that when it comes to serious missional commitment, there are no quick fixes and real change is shaped by Scripture, the Holy Spirit, and attention to each other.

Craig Van Gelder, The Ministry of the Missional Church: A Community Led by the Spirit (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2007).

Van Gelder writes that the premise of The Ministry of the Missional Church is to encourage churches to recognize the ministry of the Spirit in the midst of constant congregational change. He believes that God’s intent is often to use change either directly or indirectly to move a congregation in new directions of meaningful ministry under the leading of the Spirit. Furthermore, Van Gelder desires for congregations to understand that the Spirit-led ministry of the church flows out of the Spirit-created nature of the church. In other words, being precedes doing. Or to put it another way, the nature of the church establishes the foundation for understanding the purpose of the church and its ministry and determines their direction and scope. Van Gelder does an excellent job of showing that when a church begins with its nature, or essence as a Spirit-created community, growth and development are the natural outcome.

Craig Van Gelder, ed., The Missional Church in Context: Helping Congregations Develop Contextual Ministry (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007).

The Missional Church in Context is a collection of eight outstanding papers presented at a consultation held at Luther Seminary in December of 2005. The premise of the consultation, and exemplified by the book title, is that every context should be seen as a missional context, and every congregation as a missional congregation that is responsible to participate in God’s mission in that context. The book does not promote a method or model of ministry but encourages various congregational expressions to enter a discernment process, with the Spirit, to identify the theological foundations and insights in order to develop the capacity for ministry engagement. Again as indicative of the title, context does matter. Collectively the contributors state that the church needs to develop a “formation triad” that includes congregational formation (the shaping of a concrete Christian community), spiritual formation (corporate and personal attention to initiatives of God) and missional formation (local church’s identity and agency in its encounter with the immediate context). This text represents another important voice speaking on the significance of context in the formation of the local church.

Hugh Halter and Matt Smay. The Tangible Kingdom: Creating Incarnational Community (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008).

The Tangible Kingdom is a guide to the planting of missional communities written by two missional practitioners and church planters. One of the strengths of the book is the use of stories to illustrate the power of incarnational community. They show what it looks like to leave the safe “bubble” of much of modern evangelicalism and ventured out into the lives of those around us. Further it provides helpful direction on combating consumerism, living out our mission in the context of an entire community, and what it means to practice biblical hospitality.

Alan Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways Handbook: A Practical Guide for Developing Missional Churches (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2009).

The Forgotten Ways Handbook is a follow up to the 2006 publication by the same name. However, the handbook moves beyond the theological foundation built in the original The Forgotten Ways to a place of practice that very little resources provide. This extremely practical handbook includes many helpful tools including summary sections encapsulating the ideas contained in each chapter of the original book, suggested habits and practices to help readers embed missional principles, and adult learning-based techniques and examples from other churches that enable readers to process and assimilate the ideas in a group context.

Reggie McNeal, Missional Renaissance: Changing the Scorecard for the Church (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2009).

The most significant contribution that Missional Renaissance makes to the missional church conversation is McNeal’s attempt to establish a new way of measuring success in the church in the United States. For years the measure of faithfulness and vitality in the church has been in terms of growth in attendance, finances and facilities. However to assist the church in making a shift in a missional direction, McNeal argues that the church must begin to measure success by using a new scorecard. He asks, What would happen if we measured vitality in terms of growth in the area of people, service, prayer and outreach?

2. Ibid.,12.

3. Ibid.

History of Missional Church – Part I

The British Gospel and Culture “Programme”

The British version of the Gospel and Culture movement was initiated by Newbigin in Britain during the 1980s and came to be known as a “programme.” Newbigin had been entrusted by the British Council of Churches with the task of planning a major national conference pursuing Christian engagement with contemporary Western culture. It was shaped largely by his writings during that period, which included three significant books: The Other Side of 1984 (1983), Foolishness to the Greeks (1986), and The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (1989). The major themes of each of these books not only played an important role in the formation of the British “programme” but they continue to influence the missional conversation today.

The Other Side of 1984 was a published essay that Newbigin prepared for the British Council of Churches conference held in 1984; thus, the name of the book. In it, Newbigin presents two major themes. First, that Western culture is in crisis because it has too closely tied itself to an Enlightenment worldview. Newbigin argues that those in the west believe that science and technology holds the answers to unlimited progress. Moreover, in the west scientific explanations have replaced dogmatic explanations. However, the shift to a world dominated by science and technology has not led to a rational and meaningful world, but instead has led to a crisis of meaning and purpose which can only be remedied by a serious reaffirmation of faith.

The second theme concerns the loss of influence the church has had upon the culture. According to Newbigin, the church’s voice has been marginalized in large part because it has surrendered its place in the public sphere and retreated into the private sector. Newbigin desire is not to have the church return to a position held during the time of Christendom; he simply believes that faith must always be involved in the dialogue with other patterns of thought.

In Foolishness to the Greeks, Newbigin provides an excellent analysis of the central features of Western culture. He asks the question, What would be involved in a genuinely missionary encounter between the gospel and Western culture; especially a culture that has fragmented life into the artificial distinctions between facts and values, public and private lives, and particulars and absolutes. Newbigin places Christian truth claims in constant dialogue with modern issues. He interacts with the tensions between the truth of Scripture and science, politics, and the institutional church. In each case he asks, What must the church claim to know, do, and be in a post-Christian culture?

Finally, in The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, Newbigin continues the theme of contextualizing the gospel in a postmodern, pluralistic culture. He writes on the necessity of shaping the gospel within culture and yet insisting that the gospel cannot endorse everything in culture. Moreover, the work of contextualization is not something set aside for individual Christians alone, but for Newbigin it is at the core of the mission of the church. Describing the congregation as “the hermeneutic of the gospel,” he underlines the nature and purpose of the renewed communities of God’s people.

As presented in an earlier post, Christianity in North America has experienced a move away from its position of dominance as it has witness the loss not only of numbers but of power and influence within society. “The United States is still, by all accounts, a very religious society. The pollsters affirm that Americans and Canadians believe in God, pray regularly, and consider themselves religious. But they find less and less reason to express their faith by joining a Christian church.”[1] As a result, many historical denominations are now in serious decline, while others are just now beginning to recognize that they are now in their own mission field location.

This recognition of the North American religiosity shift to a post-Christian, neo-pagan, pluralistic mission field has lead many to return to the foundation of what it means to be the church of Jesus Christ in the world. “This involves the issue of ecclesiology (ecclesia = ‘church’; -ology = ‘the study of’). In the midst of our changing world, we are in constant need of continuing to engage in the study of the church, to explore its nature, to understand its creation and continuing formation, and to carefully examine its purpose and ministry.”[2] The chief discussion that has emerged over the past few decades around these important issues of ecclesiology and missionary engagement in North America is known as the “missional church conversation.” While there are a number of prominent contributors to this dialog, by far the most influential has been the contributions made by missiologist Lesslie Newbigin.[3]

The Influence of Lesslie Newbigin

Upon returning home to England in 1974 from missionary service in India for nearly 40 years, “Newbigin took up the challenge of trying to envision what a fresh encounter of the gospel with late-modern Western culture might look like.”[4] In the book Foolishness to the Greeks, he posed the question: “What would be involved in a missionary encounter between the gospel and this whole way of perceiving, thinking, and living that we call ‘modern Western Culture?”[5]

Newbigin’s missiology was largely formed by the mission theology that took shape within the International Missionary Council (IMC) conferences of the 1950s through the 1970s. Perhaps the most significant of these conferences was the one convened in Willingen, Germany in 1952. At Willingen the conference recognized that the church could be neither the starting point nor the goal of mission. “God’s salvific work precedes both the church and mission. We should not subordinate mission to the church nor the church to mission; both should, rather, be taken up into the missio Dei, which now became the overarching concept. The missio Dei institutes the missiones ecclesiae.”[6] It was here that this idea (not the exact term) missio Dei first surfaced. When discussing the paradigm shift that began at Willingen, David Bosch writes:

Mission was understood as being derived from the very nature of God. It was thus put in the context of the doctrine on the missio Dei as God the Father sending the Son, and God the Father and the Son sending the Spirit was expanded to include yet another “movement”: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit sending the church into the world. As far as missionary thinking was concerned, this linking with the doctrine of the Trinity constituted an important innovation. Willingen’s image of mission was mission as participating in the sending of God.[7]

While the Trinitarian foundation for mission theology was later formulated as the missio Dei by Karl Hartenstein,[8] and still later given fully expression by Johannes Blauw in his 1962 book The Missionary Nature of the Church,[9] Lesslie Newbigin articulated his own expression in The Open Secret.[10] Central to Newbigin’s understanding of mission is the work of the Triune God in calling and sending the church, empowered by the Spirit, into the world to participate fully in God’s mission. This theological assertion understands the church to be the creation of the Spirit: which exists in the world as a “sign” that the redemptive reign of God’s kingdom is present; it serves as a “foretaste” of the eschatological future of the redemptive reign that has already begun; and it serves as an “instrument” under the leadership of the Spirit to bring that redemptive reign to bear on every dimension of life.[11]

In the following extended excerpt from an outstanding PhD dissertation on Newbigin’s missionary ecclesiology, Michael Goheen provides an excellent summation of the significance of Newbigin’s lasting influence on mission theology:

First, Newbigin’s work has served as the catalyst for bringing the issue of mission in western culture to the forefront of the agenda of mission studies. The appearance of his book The Other Side of 1984 marks a major milestone for a missiology of western culture. With unusual skill the book crystallized a number of issues which have stimulated vigorous discussion. The stream of books and articles written by Newbigin since that time has continued to focus the issue for many people. The Gospel and Our Culture movements in Britain, North America, and New Zealand, the Missiology of Western Culture project headed up by Wilbert Shenk, and a growing stream of publications on the issue bear witness to the stimulus that the work of Newbigin has produced in the last couple of decades.

Second, Newbigin played an active and central role in the International Missionary Council and the Commission of World Mission and Evangelism of the World Council of Churches. After serving as a missionary in India for twenty-three years, Newbigin took the post of general secretary of the IMC and then director of CWME of the WCC. His influence was formative for many of the discussions throughout since 1948. Newbigin was shaped by the theology, missiology, and ecclesiology of the early ecumenical movement. Yet when there was a dramatic challenge to that paradigm, Newbigin was able to appropriate many of the insights of the new challenge. His flexibility along with his commitment to tradition makes his insight for the current ecclesiological discussions significant.

There is a third reason for focusing on the work of Newbigin. Not only has he provided an impetus for renewed reflection on the issue of mission in western culture and been an active participant in the ecumenical movement, Newbigin has also paid close attention to ecclesiological questions throughout his long and distinguished career as a recognized leader in the context of three settings: as a missionary in India; as an ecumenical leader in a global context; and as a missionary to the West. A glance at his bibliography reveals at once the interest that Newbigin has had in ecclesiological issues in his published work. His record as a missionary, bishop, ecumenical administrator, and pastor all testify to his commitment to the local church. Indeed, it is his vast experience in struggling for a missionary church in many different contexts that has nourished his deep and valuable theological reflection on ecclesiology. It is precisely the missionary ecclesiology developed by Newbigin that has been foundational for and formative of both his work within the ecumenical movement and his call for a missionary encounter with western culture.[12]

2. Craig Van Gelder, The Missional Church and Denominations: Helping Congregations Develop a Missional Identity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 2.

3. For a complete biographical sketch of Newbigin’s life see: Paul Weston, Lesslie Newbigin: Missionary Theologian (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 1-16. See also, George Hunsberger, Bearing the Witness of the Spirit: Lesslie Newbigin’s Theology of Cultural Plurality (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998).

4. Van Gelder, The Missional Church and Denominations, 2.

5. Lesslie Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), 1.

6. David Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1991), 370.

7. Ibid., 390.

8. John A. McIntosh, “Missio Dei” in Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions, ed. A. Scott Moreau, Harold Netland and Charles Van Engen (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000), 631-633.

9. Johannes Blauw, The Missionary Nature of the Church: A Survey of the Biblical Theology of Mission (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1962).

10. Lesslie Newbigin, The Open Secret: Introduction to a Theology of Mission (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995).

11. Van Gelder, The Missional Church and Denominations, 3.

12. Michael W. Goheen, “As the Father Has Sent Me, I Am Sending You”: J.E. Lesslie Newbigin’s Missionary Ecclesiology” (PhD diss., Utrecht University, 2000), 22.

For those who are interested in doing more research on the missional church conversation, here is the 12 page bibliography that was a part of my dissertation.

Missional Church Bibliography

Here is another small section of chapter one of my dmin project. This portion follows a discussion on the marginalization of the church in America, as well as part one shared in the previous post.

To achieve a move from treating the church as a vendor of religious services to being a body of people sent on a mission there must be a renewed emphasis on the nature of the church and its missionary encounter with a post-Christian society. Hunsberger provides one way of framing the necessary transitions that must take place in the beliefs and practices of the church. He believes there are at least three practical shifts that can lay the foundation for sound theological and missiological “rethinking” in the life of the local church.

First there will need to be a shift from program to embodiment. “It makes a difference whether a church is oriented toward producing programs and services for potential consumers, or whether it is committed to cultivating habits of life that help us be faithful to the gospel together.”[1] Programs are not necessarily wrong; they simply need to be subservient to the purpose of the church, which is to be an instrument of God’s mission. Programs are not for the simple consumption of church members but are for the purpose of growing members so they can be sent out into the world to participate in what God is already doing in the lives of people. Mike Erre in Death by Church speaks to this transition when he writes:

The church was birthed out of the mission of God, and not the other way around. This means that we don’t take Christ to a region or people group, but we instead show up and pay attention to the work that Jesus is already doing. We have to move away from the current mind-set about church, ministry and mission and think again about our participation in the ministry of Jesus in the world. This change is difficult for us because it means we are no longer the initiators or sustainers of mission and ministry. Instead, we are focused on discerning the movement of God’s Spirit as we week to join Him in what He is already doing. This involves waiting, asking, seeking, knocking – disciplines and activities that cannot be mass-produced or consumed.[2]

The second shift that Hunsberger believes must be embraced by the church is a shift from being clergy dominated to being laity oriented. In other words, the emphasis must shift from the “professional Christians (clergy), who are center stage in the gathered church, to Christian professionals who are ministering in the world and in the workplace.”[3] Martin Luther’s idea of the priesthood of all believers was that all Christians were called to carry out their vocational ministries in every area of life. Every believer needs to be encouraged to fully understand how their vocation plays a central part in God’s redemptive Kingdom.[4] Mike Regele speaks to this dynamic of vocational ministry for all believers when he writes:

If the local congregation is the primary unit of mission in the twenty-first century, then the individual members of the local congregation are the primary agents of mission. We have the opportunity to again image the lay person as playing not just a supporting actor role but a lead role in the mission of Christ’s church in the world. The Pauline notion of being ambassadors for Christ takes on renewed meaning, not just for those who enter into “full-time Christian work” but for those who work, period. Each one of us must be captured by the vision of playing this role in every activity we undertake.[5]

The third shift, which is perhaps the most crucial in assisting the church in the development of a missional mindset, involves a shift from recruitment to mission. Hunsberger rightly contends that the two words, “recruitment” and “mission” move in opposite directions. “Recruitment is the orientation inherent in the vendor church, which tries to attract people to be regular and committed consumers of its programs and services – that is, to be satisfied customers. Mission moves in an opposite direction. It moves outward. It is concerned about giving the gospel away, not getting people in.”[6]

Robert Warren in Building Missionary Congregations makes a helpful addition to this third shift by highlighting the point that when the church moves its emphasis off of the needs of the church and on to the needs of the world, the typical pastoral role will also change:

A church effectively engaged in mission will see that participating in the missio Dei will involve shifting emphasis from a focus on the life of the local church, and a concern to keep everyone happy (which too easily passes for ‘pastoral concern’), to a concern for the world in its needs, joys and struggles. The work, for example, of engaging with the sick, the grieving and the dying, as well as with the moral issues of such roles in society as those concerned with wealth creation or medical ethics, is indeed pastoral. It is the shift form the maintenance and ‘keeping people happy’ mode in which the church all too often operates, into engagement with these situations that will bring the church into the pastoral-in-mission mode of operating. [7]

Conclusion

While religious interest remains strong in American culture, people are increasingly examining alternatives to Christianity to supplement their religious beliefs and behaviors. In a chapter titled “Post-Enlightenment Culture as a Missionary Problem” author Lesslie Newbigin argues that the missiological dilemma is not reaching a secular society, but more troubling, reaching a society that is thoroughly pagan. Newbigin writes, Western society “is a pagan society, and its paganism, having been born out of the rejection of Christianity, is far more resistant to the gospel than the pre-Christian paganism with which cross-cultural missions have been familiar. Here surely, is the most challenging missionary frontier of our time.”[8]

Scottish missiologist Andrew Walls further emphasizes both the gravity and urgency of the challenge when he writes:

It is now too late to treat Western society as in some sort of decline from Christian standards, to be brought back to church by preaching and persuasion. Modern Western society, taken as a whole, reflects one of the great non-Christian cultures of the world. There is one department of the life of the Western church that spent centuries grappling with non-Christian cultures, and gradually learned something of the processes of comprehending, penetrating, exploring, and translating within them. That was the task of the missionary movement.[9]

The church in America must once again engage in the task of the missionary movement of which Walls speaks, however today those same missiological efforts of the past must be directed towards Western society. It is essential that the church in America recognize that it is now living in a mission field which requires sound missionary thinking and activities. Furthermore, it is necessary that the church gain a clear understanding of the missio Dei,[10] the mission of God, and see how it, the Church, is to be sent into the world to actively participate in what God is already doing. Instead of being shaped by mission statements, business models, or marketing and church growth techniques; the church must be shaped by participating in God’s mission. Ed Stetzer writes:

A proper understanding of the biblical and theological basis of being on mission begins with an understanding of the nature of God. He is a missionary God – in this and every culture. . . . The missionary posture is the normal expression of the church in all times and places. The theological concept of missio Dei, the mission of God, recognizes that God is a sending God and the church is sent. It is the most important mission in the Scriptures. Jesus Christ is the embodiment of that mission; the Holy Spirit is the power of that mission; the church is the instrument of that mission; and the culture is the context in which that mission occurs. . . . The source of missionary identity is located in the nature of the triune and sending God, and is connected ontologically with the very existence of the church. . . . The church needs to realize that mission is its “fundamental identity.”[11]

What does this imply for the church in America that faces the challenge of doing ministry in a post-Christian, pagan, pluralistic context? First and foremost it means that the church must recapture the missionary nature of God and His church, and as a result see, as Stetzer states, that mission is its fundamental identity. It is essential that the church once again become a missionary people who move beyond a Constantinian model, that presumed a churched culture, to an apostolic, missionary approach intent on penetrating the vast unchurched segments of society. It means the church will “need to be turned inside out in order to bring those outside in. It will not suffice to simply invite the seeker to come to us to hear the gospel on our turf. Instead the church will have to be the church in the world – gathering for worship in order to go out in mission.”[12]

In the final chapter of Foolishness to the Greeks, Newbigin provides a clarion call to the church to activate its missionary calling as God’s instrument sent into the world on His behalf, when he writes:

The church is the bearer to all the nations of a gospel that announces the kingdom, the reign, and the sovereignty of God. . . . It is not meant to call men and women out of the world into a safe religious enclave but to call them out in order to send them back as agents of God’s kingship.[13] (emphasis added)

The contemporary church is in desperate need of a self-understanding that will empower it for ministry in this changing world. That self-understanding, however will come only when the church fully embraces the reality that it is in fact a called people – but as Newbigin states, it is called for the unmitigated purpose of being sent.

2. Mike Erre, Death by Church (Eugene: Harvest House, 2009), 136.

3.  Hunsberger and Van Gelder, 345.

4.  Gene Edward Veith, God at Work: Your Christian Vocation in All of Life (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2002)

5.  Regele, 220.

6.  Hunsberger and Van Gelder, 345.

7.  Robert Warren, Building Missionary Congregations (Glasgow, Scotland: Church House Publishing, 1995), 26.

8.  Lesslie Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), 20.

9.  Andrew Walls, “Western Society Presents a Missionary Challenge,” in Missiological Education for the Twenty-first Century, ed. J. Dudley , Charles Van Engen, and Edgar Elliston (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1996), 19.

10. For a brief history of the concept of mission as missio Dei, see David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1991), 389-93.

11. Stetzer, 78.

12. Gibbs, 236.

13. Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks, 124.

Following is another section of chapter one of my dmin dissertation. This comes immediately after a discussion on the marginalization of the church, which I shared a portion of here.

While the disestablishment of the church from the dominant seat of culture is disturbing to many Christians in North America, it is seen as a positive development by others because they believe the church can now “recover its identity as shaped by the scriptural story rather than the cultural story,” [1] and in turn regain something of its “genuine mission in the world.” [2] Some would argue that the church, as a result of buying into the cultural story of consumerism, materialism and pragmatism has veered away from its self-understanding as rooted in the mission of God and assumed other agendas. [3]

In the book The Church Between Gospel and Culture, theologian George Hunsberger offers three distinct ways people view the nature of the church. He argues that the manner in which people perceive the church becomes determinative for the church’s agenda. The first view is what Hunsberger labels the “Reformation Heritage.” With this view he argues that Protestants have inherited a particular view of church – the right preaching of the gospel, the right administration of the sacraments, and the exercise of church discipline – that has left us with an understanding of the church as “a place where certain things happen.” [4]

Hunsberger labels the second view as the “Contemporary Variation.” He believes that while the church in North America is not far removed from the view that church is “a place where certain things happen,” a more accurate description of the way people view the church would be as “a vendor of religious goods and services.” [5] From this perspective, members are viewed as customers for whom the religious goods and services are produced. The participants expect the church to provide a wide range of services from favorite music and children programs to fellowship opportunities and marriage enrichment options. With such a model, evangelism evolves into membership recruitment, which may more accurately be called “capturing market share.” The livelihood of this kind of church “is dependent on having a sufficient number of satisfied, committed customers.” [6]

The third view of the nature of the church is identified as the “Missionary Vision” or as Hunsberger more often refers to as “a body of people sent on a mission.” [7] The central point with this view is that the church is to be understood as a people called and sent by God to participate in His mission for the world. Or as Lesslie Newbigin states in The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, “It seems to me to be of great importance to insist that mission is not first of all an action of ours. It is an action of God.” [8]

Hunsberger’s taxonomy of how people view the nature of the church raises three very important issues surrounding the missionary posture of the church. First, when people within the church hold to a view that the church is “a place were certain things happen,” they become inwardly focused and expend their resources on maintenance rather than mission. The church becomes a place where the needs of its members take precedence over the needs of those outside the organization. In early 2006 researcher Thom S. Rainer wrote:

In a recent survey of churches across America, we found that nearly 95% of the churches’ ministries were for members alone. Indeed, many churches had no ministries for those outside the congregation. Many churches seem to exist only for themselves. While there certainly should be ministry available for church members, often the balance between external and internal ministries is heavily skewed toward internal. When churches seek to care and minister only to their own, it’s a likely sign that decline is in motion and that death may be imminent. [9]

Or as Bill Easum writes in Unfreezing Moves, “Most Protestant congregations are stuck in the muck and mire of their institutions with little or no movement toward joining Jesus on the mission field. To them faithfulness means supporting their church and keeping it open.” [10]

Second, when a church adopts the view that it is “a vendor of religious goods and services,” it in turn relies on church growth strategies and marketing techniques to attract customers, or new members to the church. However, in the religious climate of today, marketing approaches seem to be wearing thin, especially among younger generations. After discussing the negative image of Christianity among younger people, David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons conclude that “no strategy, tactics, or clever marketing campaign could ever clear away the smokescreen that surrounds Christianity in today’s culture. The perception of outsiders will change only when Christians strive to represent the heart of God in every relationship and situation.” [11]

After discussing the mounting problems of connecting with the majority of the population that report alienation from the form of church that relies on marketing techniques and church growth principles, Alan Hirsch offer this candid critique:

How do they access the gospel if they reject this form of church? And what would church be like for them in their various settings? Because what is clear from the research . . . is that when surveyed about what they think of the contemporary church growth expression of Christianity, [their response ranges] from being blasé (“good for them, but not for me”) to total repulsion (“I would never go there”). At best, we can make inroads on the blasé; we can’t hope to reach the rest of the population with this model – they are simply alienated from it and don’t like it for a whole host of reasons.

What is becoming increasingly clear is that if we are going to meaningfully reach this majority of people, we are not going to be able to do it by simply doing more of the same. And yet it seems that when faced with our problems of decline, we automatically reach for the latest church growth package to solve the problem – we seem to have nowhere else to go. But simply pumping up the programs, improving the music and audiovisual effects, or jiggering the ministry mix won’t solve our missional crisis. Something far more fundamental is needed. [12]

Eddie Gibbs speaks to a possible reason behind the move that so many churches make toward marketing strategies to reach those outside the church:

Churches throughout the Western world find themselves increasingly marginalized from society as they endeavor to relate the good news to people whose assumptions and attitudes have been shaped by modernity and postmodernity. Our post-Christian, neopagan, pluralistic North American context presents crosscultural missionary challenges every bit as daunting as those we would face on any other continent. Unfortunately most pastors and church leaders have had no missiological training. Consequently they resort to marketing strategies in place of missionary insights in their attempts to reach out to a population that is becoming increasingly distanced from the church. [13]

The theological and missiological concerns associated with the first two issues surrounding the understanding of the nature and activity of the church leads us to the third and most pressing issue – and one stated in the previous quote by Eddie Gibbs – that the church is in dire need of instruction in the area of mission. Again, Gibbs writes:

The majority of church leaders throughout the Western world find themselves ministering in a rapidly changing cultural context that is both post-Christian and pluralistic. Consequently their outreach ministries are as crosscultural as those of their more traditional missionary counterparts seeking to make Christ known in other parts of the world. Consequently they are in as much need of missionary training to venture across the street as to venture overseas. [14]

2. Hall, 36.

3. Reggie McNeal, Missional Renaissance: Changing the Scorecard for the Church (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2009), 22. See also Rodney Clapp, A Peculiar People (Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity, 1996) and Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon, Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony (Nashville: Abingdon, 1989).

4. Hunsberger and Van Gelder, 337.

5. Ibid.

6. Hunsberger and Van Gelder, 339.

7. Ibid, 341.

8. Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluarlist Society (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), 134.

9. Thom S. Rainer, “Seven Sins of Dying Churches,” Outreach Magazine 5, no. 1, (January/February 2006), 16.

10. Bill Easum, Unfreezing Moves: Following Jesus into the Mission Field (Nashville: Abingdom, 2001), 10.

11. David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons. Unchristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity And Why it Matters (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007), 226.

12. Alan Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2006), 37.

13. Gibbs, 36.

14. Ibid., 27.

I haven’t been doing much with the blog the past several weeks, primarily because I have been trying to do some writing for my dmin project which needs to be completed in the next few weeks. Here is a small portion of chapter two which involves identifying the ministry problem, which in my case is the marginalization of the church in North America (and my local context) as a result, at least in part, to the lack of sound missionary thinking and activities.

The following portion comes after a brief discussion on the shift into a period of Post-Christendom taken from Douglas John Hall excellent little book The End of Christendom and the Future of Christianity.

The magnitude of the marginalization of the church during this time of post-Christendom has been expressed by many. In the introduction of The Church Between Gospel and Culture, George Hunsberger writes about the crisis in the life of churches in North America: “The crisis, most simply put, is that the social function the churches once fulfilled in American life is gone.” [1] Eddie Gibbs in the book Church Next argues that “mainline denominations are facing an avalanche of problems that place question marks over their future. Some of these problems are so pressing that they may even threaten the denominations’ survival.” [2] In the book Death of the Church author Mike Regele offers a concise summary of the multiple issues involved in the marginalization of the church when he writes:

At the brink of the twenty-first century, the king who knew not Joseph is the collective culture of which we are a part. The combined impact of the Information Age, postmodern thought, globalization, and racial-ethnic pluralism that has seen the demise of the grand American story also has displace the historic role the church has played in the story. As a result, we are seeing the marginalization of the institutional church. [3]

The marginalization of the church that these and other authors [4] speak of can be validated in an array of church statistics and trends. In 2005 Sally Margenthaler painted this picture of the American church landscape:

Despite what we print in our own press releases, the numbers don’t look good.   According to 2003 actual attendance counts, adult church-going is at 18 percent nationally and dropping. Evangelical attendance (again, actual seat-numbers, not telephone responses) accounts for 9% of the population, down from 9.2% in 1990. Mainline attendance accounts for 3.4% of the national population, down from 3.9% the previous decade.  And Catholics are down a full percentage point in the same ten-year period:  6.2% from 7.2% in 1990. Of the 3,098 counties in the United States, 2,303 declined in church attendance. [5]

More recently David Olsen, Director of the American Church Research Project [6] and author of The American Church in Crisis has compiled comprehensive data on the state of the church in the United States. The research provides reliable attendance numbers for each of the 3,141 counties in the U.S., for each state, and for the nation as a whole. [7] One of Olson’s most significant findings is the apparent “halo effect” [8] that has been evident in the majority of polls on church attendance. Polls conducted by organizations such as Gallup and The Barna Research Group have consistently reported weekly church attendance in the range of 40 to 47 percent over the past four decades. However, Olson and other sociologists [9] effectively argue that church attendance numbers are in reality much lower. A study published in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion compiled data from more than 300,000 Christian congregations in the United States and found that the churches totaled 52 million people in attendance, or 17.7 percent of the American population in 2004. [10] The research of the American Church Research Project showed that 17.5 percent of the population attended an orthodox Christian church on any given weekend in 2005. [11] The total percentage was broken down into three major church categories including; evangelical at 9.1 percent, mainline at 3 percent, and Roman Catholic with 5.3 percent. [12]

One addition insight gleaned from Olson’s research is the simple fact that the growth of the American church is not keeping up with the robust growth of the American population. From 1990 to 2006 the population of the United States grew by 52 million people, which happens to be the same number of people who attend church on any given weekend. “In 1990, 52 million people attended worship each week – in 2006 the number remained unchanged. However, because of the sizable population growth, the percentage of Americans who attend church is declining.” [13]

While population growth and church attendance figures vary in different regions of the country the numbers are alarming regardless of location. Olson writes:

America’s population is growing at dissimilar rates throughout the nation. The Sunbelt states (the southernmost states from Virginia to Southern California) continue to grow most rapidly in population, while the Great Plains region and the Rust Belt (the industrial cities bordering the Great Lakes) have stagnant growth rates. The rate of population growth creates a major impact on whether the church can keep up with the increase in the population. In Arizona, for example, church attendance grew 7.3 percent from 2000 to 2005, robust growth by any standard. However, the population grew by 15.3 percent during that same period, producing a new attendance percentage decline of 7 percent. Typically, the faster a region’s rate of population growth, the more difficult task the church faces in keeping up with those increasing numbers. . . [However] in no single state did church attendance keep up with population growth! [14]

Paralleling Olsen’s finding on those who are moving away from religious affiliation the 2008 Religious Landscape Survey conducted and published by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life discovered that the fastest-growing segment of religious affiliation in the county is the nonaffiliated (16.1 percent of adults age eighteen and older). [15] Furthermore, those moving into the unaffiliated category outnumber those moving out by greater than a three to one margin. Throughout the previous two decades, this percentage of unaffiliated Americans had held between five and eight percent, meaning that the unaffiliated group has more than doubled in the past ten years. In the face of such startling statistics some researchers are predicting that if current trends continue, sixty percent of existing churches in America will disappear before the year 2050. [16]

Specifically focusing on Southern Baptist Churches, Ed Stetzer has written on the concerning trends of evangelistic impact in the vast majority of SBC churches in North America. [17] Stetzer cites statistics from the Leavell Center at New Orleans Baptist Seminary that “tell a disconcerting story – 89 percent of churches in the Convention are not effectively reaching the lost. According to the study, only 11 percent of the churches are experiencing healthy growth. [18] Stetzer goes on to describe the criteria used by the Leavell Center to measure church growth health as the following:

*  10 percent total membership growth over five years
*  at least one person baptized during the two years of the study
*  a member-to-baptism ratio of 35 or less in the final year of the study
*  for the final year of the study, the percentage of growth that was conversion growth must be at least 25 percent

Furthermore, when reporting on membership trends in SBC churches Stetzer contends that if current trends continue, over the next 50 years “projected membership of SBC churches would be 8.7 million in 2050, down from 16.2 million in 2008. . . . Using U.S. Census projected population figures, SBC membership could fall from a peak of 6 percent of the American population in the late 1980s to 2 percent in 2050.” [19] In The Fall of the Evangelical Nation, Christine Wicker offers a troubling summation of the wide variety of statistical data when she writes:

Evangelical Christianity in America is dying. The great evangelical movements of today are not a vanguard. They are a remnant, unraveling at every edge. Look at it any way you like: Conversions. Baptisms. Membership. Retention. Participation. Giving. Attendance. Religious literacy. Effect on the culture. All are down and dropping. [20]