Van Gelder on Missional Church

November 22, 2008 | Filed Under dmin project, missional, theology |

Here is a link to a short video (17 minutes) on the Allelon website that I believe is worth the time. The video is an interview conducted by Alan Roxburgh with Craig Van Gelder.

Van Gelder is professor of congregational mission at Luther Seminary in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He is author of “The Essence of the Church,” “The Ministry of the Missional Church,” “The Missional Church in Context” and editor of “Confident Witness — Changing World” and “The Church Between Gospel and Culture.” (All of which are excellent, but the last two are my favorites)

There are a couple of issues raised in this video I think are important to consider. First, I appreciate Van Gelder’s emphasis on the theological foundation of missional church. Like many others in the missional church conversation, Van Gelder sees the necessity to shift the starting point for any discussion on the topic of mission.

Instead of beginning with questions surrounding the mission activities of the church, we must start first with questions concerning the missio Dei, or what is God’s mission in our context. I am reminded of Bosch’s quote that “It is not the church which undertakes mission; it is the missio Dei  which constitutes the church.”

Second, this emphasis on participating with what God is doing raises the crucial issue of discernment. When we start with God’s mission it is imperative that we think well when we observe and ask, “What is God doing in my neighborhood, workplace, or school?” And the follow-up question, “In light of our gifts and resources, how does God want us to participate with Him?”

With this issue of discernment in mind, I want to ask a couple of questions.

As the church, what do we need to do differently to discern where and how God wants us to participate in our communities?

In what ways might your church do things differently in your context?

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5 comments so far
  1. Jonathan Dodson November 22, 2008 3:56 pm

    I agree. Van Gelder has done some great thinking and writing on missional church. He offers a rare integration of biblical theology, missiology, and practical theology.

    I actually just gave a talk on this topic at the Acts 29 Bootcamp: Spirit-led Ecclesiology: Following the Spirit thru Church Planting. Van Gelder has been one of my influences in this. I suggest that the role of discernment is often replaced by apostolic moxie or academic models/methods, jettisoning the role of the Spirit in planting. To cut to the chase, I think we can gain more discernment by asking the Spirit what he is doing in our cities and in our churches when we encounter unplanned change. The Spirit has been at work in our cities, towns, and villages long before we arrived, yet we frequently plant as if we bring a denovo work. When we encoutner resistance or barriers or unplanned change, we force our agenda or create a new one without inquiring of the Spirit. Simply creating a habit of asking and listening to the Spirit when our culture shifts, our target people change, our city suffers, our church changes, our people push back, etc. Simply asking the question in every circumstance and following the SPirit’s leading would lead to much greater discernment in church planting and contextualization of the gospel

  2. Bill Kinnon November 22, 2008 7:31 pm

    That was shot almost exactly two years ago, in Eagle, ID. Craig is a good guy.

  3. Brad Brisco November 22, 2008 7:43 pm

    Jonathan, great comments. I think you are right about “apostolic moxie” replacing the hard work of asking and depending on the Spirit.

    Bill, I thought you probably had something to do with the video. I knew it had been around for a while but didn’t realize it was the first in the series.

  4. Bill Kinnon November 23, 2008 12:57 pm

    It’s kind of sad that Allelon is no longer doing these conversations on aregular basis - I shot the last one in April with AlRox & Colin Greene.

    That being said, Imbi and I have just shot an interesting conversation between Dave Fitch and Ed Stetzer in Chicago last week. The one hour conversation will go up in chunks over the course of the next month or so. (I won’t get to the edit for about ten days.) It will be available for embedding via Vimeo - and will show up on my blog as well as Allelon, I believe.

  5. Brian McLaughlin December 3, 2008 11:27 am

    I finally got around to watching this and enjoyed every minute. I greatly appreciate Van Gelder’s works and contributions to missional ecclesiology. Thanks for passing it along.