I was excited to learn recently that Barefoot Ministries (located here in Kansas City) has republished the wonderful little book (approx 70 pages) titled, “A Walk Through the Bible.” I would highly recommend the book for those who are new believers and need a good summary of the biblical narrative; as well as those who may have forgotten how extraordinary the biblical story really is.

Newbigin distinguished between missions and mission. The church both “does mission” and “is a mission.” Missions are specific activities undertaken by a human decision to bring the gospel to places or situations where it is not heard. These efforts have quantifiable results. But while missions activities are a part of healthy churches, they do not adequately describe the fullness of God’s work in the world.

The concept of missio Dei, however, captures Newbigin’s wider intention. The mission of the church is less a “missionary mandate” than a participation in the ongoing work of redemption. The missio Dei is God’s mission – the grand story of creation, fall, and redemption. And it is a “story,” not a list of propositions. Propositions are helpful in particular times and places, but are enculturated by language and ethos. The story, however, rooted in time and place, transcends both. When we attempt to export a set of propositions from one time and place to another, we are usually operating in a colonial mode.

The Church is less the agent of God’s mission than the locus of that mission. The missio Dei is the ongoing work of God in the world in which we are all invited to participate. More than a project out there, it is a posture wherever we live.

The church therefore becomes the place where the story is lived and mission is practiced in the real world. Newbigin identifies six characteristics of a missional community:

1. It practices corporate praise, thanksgiving, gratitude, and grace;
2. It declares truth that challenges the reigning plausibility structure
3. It establishes relationships within a local neighbourhood
4. It encourages mutual service in the priesthood of all believers
5. It expects mutual responsibility rather than individualism
6. It nurtures hope and a re-imagined vision of the future

In the discussion on leadership I appreciate Keifert’s emphasis on leadership being more about time than about a position. He speaks about the leader cultivating segments of time to assist the congregation in discerning what God is doing in their local context. It is about taking the time to create environments for people to dwell in the Word. It is about having the time to be patient — to hear from God and to hear from each other.

Another topic that I found interesting dealt with Keifert’s journey towards the missional church conversation. He shares how it involved both “failure” and “discovery.” The failure involved disenchantment with his own ministry experience in a traditional church. The discovery included the reading of Newbigin’s “Foolishness to the Greeks.”

I think Keifert’s journey parallels the experience of many. There is a deep sense of  uneasiness, frustration, or even failure in a current ministry setting. Church leaders recognize something isn’t right about how they do ministry. They sense that something has changed, but they are unsure about the essence of the change, or what changes might be necessary. At some point, however, they “discover” that others have experienced the same anxiety. They “discover” authors that begin to give language to these changes. Perhaps, like Keifert its Newbigin, or Bosch; or more recently, maybe it is Guder, Van Gelder, Hirsch, or Frost. But regardless of the author, they rediscover the missionary nature of God and His church, and the reality that the church is sent into the mission field that is now North America.

This has certainly been my journey. I wonder about your experience. Has failure + discovery propelled you into the missional conversation?

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!)

The Gospel and Our Culture Network

As Newbigin’s writings gained a larger circulation and the British programme received greater recognition, a version of the Gospel and Our Culture conversation began to emerge in the United States. A network began to take shape in the mid-1980s and by the early 1990s, under the leadership of George Hunsberger, the Gospel and Our Culture Network (GOCN)[1] was publishing a quarterly newsletter and also convening a yearly consultation. “By the mid-1990s, the movement in the United States had begun to find its own voice beyond the influence of Newbigin, and the Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company began to publish a series of books under the moniker The Gospel and Our Culture Series.”[2] To date the following volumes have been published in this series:

George Hunsberger and Craig Van Gelder, eds., The Church Between Gospel and Culture: The Emerging Mission in North America (1996).

Darrel L. Guder, ed., Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America (1998).

George Hunsberger, Bearing the Witness of the Spirit: Lesslie Newbigin’s Theology of Cultural Plurality (1998).

Craig Van Gelder, ed., Confident Witness — Changing World: Rediscovering the Gospel in North America (1999).

Darrel L. Guder, The Continuing Conversion of the Church (2000).

James V. Brownson, ed. StormFront: The Good News of God (2003).

Lois Y. Barrett, ed., Treasure in Clay Jars: Patterns in Missional Faithfulness (2004).

While the Gospel and Our Culture Network does not offer a precise definition for “missional church,” they do provide what they refer to as “indicators of a missional church.” The indicators are an effort to identify what might be some of the key aspects that contribute to the church’s unique ability to better understand and therefore connect with the diverse cultures within the North American context.

1.  The missional church proclaims the gospel.

What it looks like: The story of God’s salvation is faithfully repeated in a multitude of different ways.

2.  The missional church is a community where all members are involved in learning to become disciples of Jesus.

What it looks like: The disciple identity is held by all; growth in discipleship is expected of all.

3.  The Bible is normative in the church’s life.

What it looks like: The church is reading the Bible together to learn what it can learn nowhere else – God’s good and gracious intent for all creation, the salvation mystery, and the identity and purpose of life together.

4.  The church understands itself as different from the world because of its participation in the life, death, and resurrection of its Lord.

What it looks like: In its corporate life and public witness, the church is consciously seeking to conform to its Lord instead of the multitude of cultures in which it finds itself.

5.  The church seeks to discern God’s specific missional vocation for the entire community and for all of its members.

What it looks like: The church has made its “mission” it priority, and in overt and communal ways is seeking to be and do “what God is calling us to know, be, and do.”

6.  A missional community is indicated by how Christians behave toward one another.

What it looks like: Acts of self-sacrifice on behalf of one another both in the church and in the locale characterize the generosity of the community.

7.  It is a community that practices reconciliation.

What it looks like: The church community is moving beyond homogeneity toward a more heterogeneous community in its racial, ethnic, age, gender, and socioeconomic makeup.

8.  Peoples within the community hold themselves accountable to one another in love.

What it looks like: Substantial time is spent with one another for the purpose of watching over one another in love.

9.  The church practices hospitality.

What it looks like: Welcoming the stranger into the midst of the community plays a central role.

10.  Worship is the central act by which the community celebrates with joy and thanksgiving both God’s presence and God’s promised future.

What it looks like: There is a significant and meaningful engagement in communal worship of God, reflecting appropriately and addressing the culture of those who worship together.

11.  The community has a vital public witness.

What it looks like: The church makes an observable impact that contributes to the transformation of life, society, and human relationships.

12.  There is a recognition that the church itself is an incomplete expression of the reign of God.

What it looks like: There is a widely help perception that this church is going somewhere – and that “somewhere” is a more faithfully lived life in the reign of God.[3]

One final note from the writings of the Gospel and Culture Network: Darrell Guder emphasizes the importance of having congregations formed by hearing the Bible “missionally.” He points out that when missional renewal is happening, different kinds of questions are brought to the Bible. He writes:

Congregations are open to being challenged, to looking hard at their deeply ingrained attitudes and expectations. The missional approach asks, How does God’s Word call, shape, transform, and send me . . . and us? Coupled with this openness is the awareness, that biblical formation must mean change, and often conversion. Christian communities may discover that their discipling will require repentance and that their way of being church will have to change.[4]

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

3. Walter C. Hobbs, “Method,” in Treasure in Clay Jars: Patterns in Missional Faithfulness, ed. Lois Y. Barrett (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 160.

4. Darrell L. Guder, “Biblical Formation and Discipleship,” in Treasure in Clay Jars: Patterns in Missional Faithfulness, ed. Lois Y. Barrett (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 70.

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.

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.

I believe the best place to look to answer this question is a wonderfully insightful doctoral dissertation by Michael W. Goheen titled “As the Father Has Sent Me, I Am Sending You”: J.E. Lesslie Newbigin’s Missionary Ecclesiology. A pdf file of the nearly 500 page paper can be found here.

Following is an extended excerpt (with a few added links) of chapter ten, The Nature and Relevance of Newbigin’s Missionary Ecclesiology, where Goheen addresses the above question:

The book Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America (Guder 1998) presents an opportunity to examine the relevance of Newbigin’s ecclesiology in the North American context. The book is clearly indebted to Lesslie Newbigin. The co-ordinator of GOCN/NA and one of the authors of this book, George Hunsberger, wrote his doctoral dissertation on Newbigin (1987).

Newbigin’s thought is also clearly influential in Darrell Guder’s Be My Witnesses (1985). The authors of Missional Church explicitly acknowledge that debt early in the book (Guder 1998:5). Their ecclesiology can be seen as an attempt to take the insights of Newbigin and formulate them in the North American setting. Moreover, this book represents what might be called an “official ecclesiology” of the Gospel and Our Culture Network in North America. It is co-authored by six leaders of that movement.

Three central features characterize the ecclesiology of this book: it stresses the negative legacy of Christendom, it emphasizes the communal witness of the church, and it accents the critical side of the church’s relation to culture. All three of these features are important in Newbigin’s writings. Newbigin believes that Christendom is one of the primary factors that cripples a missionary consciousness in the church. He also emphasizes the communal dimension of mission: “The central reality is neither word nor act, but the total life of a community enabled by the Spirit to live in Christ, sharing his passion and the power of his resurrection.” The importance of a critical stance toward culture is captured by numerous phrases he employs: discriminating nonconformists, radical dissenters, radical critics and misfits with a relationship of conflict, dissenting otherworldliness, and radical discontinuity with its cultural context.

While all three of these ecclesiological features are found within Newbigin’s writing, a comparison between Newbigin and Missional Church reveals differences at each point.

First, Newbigin’s analysis of Christendom is much more ambivalent than that of the authors of Missional Church. The evaluation of the latter is entirely negative while Newbigin sees many positive features in Christendom. He believes that the Christendom settlement was a worthwhile attempt to translate the universal claims of Christ into social and political terms. Through this thousand-year period the gospel permeated many aspects of social, political, moral, personal, and economic life and western culture continues to live on the capital of that period. Undoubtedly it was his missionary experience in a country where the gospel did not have a lengthy history that enabled Newbigin to evaluate the Christendom experiment much more positively.

For the writers of Missional Church Christendom necessarily distorts and even eclipses the church’s mission. Acceptance of power contradicts the posture to which the church is called. For Newbigin Christendom posed many dangers to the church’s mission — dangers that were unfortunately realized. Nevertheless Christendom provided an opportunity for the church to work out the claims of Christ’s Lordship in its mission. He believes that faithfulness to the mission of the church demanded that it not refuse responsibility for the public order. Faithfulness to Jesus who was Lord of history and culture required the church to bring politics under the authority of Christ in spite of the dangers and temptations. Part of the history and legacy of Christendom is what Oliver O’Donovan calls the ‘obedience of the rulers’, the fruit of which remains in the West to the present day (O’Donovan 1996:212-216). Missional Church leans toward an interpretation of Christendom that neglects important emphases in Newbigin’s writing.

Second, while Newbigin affirms the importance of the communal witness of the church, he believes that the primary missionary encounter between the church and the world takes place in the callings of individual believers in society. On the one hand, “the most important contribution which the Church can make to a new social order is to be itself a new social order” (1991h:85). On the other hand, the church must “equip its members for active and informed participation in the public life of society in such a way that the Christian faith shapes that participation;” believers are to act as “subversive agents” in a culture shaped by a story that is in tension with the gospel. Christians ought to seek responsible positions of power and leadership to shape the public life of culture (1991h:84). Newbigin does not contrast the individual and communal dimensions of the church’s mission but maintains them with equal emphasis.

The most striking contrast between Newbigin’s missionary ecclesiology and the ecclesiology formulated in Missional Church is found at this point. Newbigin believes that the primary way in which the church pursues its missional calling in culture is by “continually nourishing and sustaining men and women who will act responsibly as believers in the course of their secular duties as citizens” (1989e:139). Here, in the life of believers in culture, the primary missionary engagement takes place. This insight permeates the rest of his ecclesiology.

By contrast, Missional Church does not mention the mission of believers in culture. This remarkable difference between Newbigin and the authors of Missional Church shows up at other points as well. For Newbigin the importance of the mission of the laity demanded ecclesial structures that would equip them for their task. Yet, in an otherwise helpful discussion in Missional Church, there is no mention of ecclesial structures that would prepare the laity for their callings (Guder 1998:221-247).

When Newbigin focused his ministry on training leadership in Madras, a constant refrain was how to find ways to enable the laity in their callings. In Missional Church we find an excellent discussion of leadership but, again, no mention of the training of the laity for their callings in public life (Guder 1998:183-220). What burned brightly in the heart of Newbigin and found expression throughout his missionary ecclesiology is noticeably absent from Missional Church. There emphasis on the communal dimension of the church’s mission has eclipsed the mission of the laity –the place Newbigin believed the primary missionary encounter takes place.

A third difference between GOCN and Newbigin regards the latter’s emphasis on the importance of a positive cultural calling of Christians as members of society along with a critical stance. There are two sides to the calling of the church in its cultural context: solidarity and separation; affirmative involvement and critical challenge; cultural development and antithesis. The authors of Missional Church have highlighted the second of these pairs; they tend to label any attempt at exercising culturally formative power as ‘functional Christendom’ (Guder 1998:116). We find an allusion to “nonconformed engagement” but the fear of cultural power cuts off any development of this topic in terms of responsible involvement (Guder 1998:117). Strong statements on the church as an alternative community highlight the prophetic task of the church but little guidance is offered for the positive participation of the church in cultural development.

On the one hand, mission to the culture is not an attempt “to wield power in the dominant culture, but instead to demonstrate by the church’s own life together the renewing and healing power of God’s new community” (Guder 1998:116). On the other hand, the authors recognize that it is impossible to withdraw from the culture and that the vast majority of the church’s life will be lived as part of the dominant culture. Questions arise: What does it mean for the church to be a “distinctive culture” (Guder 1998:114; cf. Clapp 1996)? Clearly the church does not develop its own comprehensive language or begin to develop an alternative economic system. The authors acknowledge that the church participates in the language, economic system, customs, and social arrangements of the dominant culture. How then are individual members of the church to live under the rule of Jesus Christ in their lives that they share with the dominant culture? The authors argue that the “church as an alternative community can make a powerful witness when it chooses to live differently from the dominant society even at just a few key points. An important task of the church is to discern those key points at which to be different from the evil of the world” (Guder 1998:127).

While this emphasis on “points of dissent” (Guder 1998:127) or “key points of difference” (Guder 1998:129) is helpful, there is no guidance for the people of God on how they can be an ‘alternative community’ in the rest of their lives. The formulation that reduces mission to the gathered, communal representation of God’s people does not offer any guidance on how they can live under Christ’s Lordship in the majority part of their lives that they share with the dominant culture. In fact, Newbigin’s unbearable tension is relieved by reducing a missional challenge to a few key points of dissent.

Furthermore, Guder believes that any attempt to reclaim the missional calling of the church will require serious reflection on a spectrum of theological ambiguities that Christendom has left behind.

For a list of some of these ambiguities check out Kruse Kroncile’s post on the same article. Michael also has a link to download the article.

In one portion of Guder’s article he introduces what has come to be known as “the Newbigin Triad.” Lesslie Newbigin proposed a series of questions that spoke to the need of reclaiming the missionary nature of the western church. These questions were organized around the key emphases of Gospel, Church, and Culture.

Newbigin stated that it was essential that we constantly ask these fundamental questions:

Gospel:

What is the Gospel and how does the Gospel form and confront the church? What has happened to the Gospel in the course of western Christendom? How do we reclaim the fundamentally event character of the Gospel over against more abstract, propositional renderings of it? How do we engage the fundamental translatability of the Gospel?

Church:

What is the church and what is its purpose? How do we reclaim the church’s essential vocation as witness to the gospel, as light, leaven and salt, as Christ’s letter to the world. How does the church after Christendom learn what it means to “lead its life worthy of the calling with which it has been called?”

Culture:

What is the interaction between the church and the cultures in which it is planted? How does the gospel through the church both confront and affirm cultures as ways in which witness becomes concrete. Here again, we are asking about the fundamental translatability of the gospel, recognizing that the Gospel “destigmatizes” every culture by affirming it as a potential bearer of gospel. How does the witness to the gospel become appropriately embodied in diverse cultures, while continuing to confess the one message of the one Triune God?

If you are interested in a few of the books and journal articles by both Newbigin and Guder that I have found helpful check out my missional reading list.