Robust Christology

I remember sitting in the living room in 2003, reading a new book on the topic of church and mission. The book was written by two (at the time) unknown Aussies. The name of the book was The Shaping of Things to Come. The authors were Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch. While my understanding of the church’s engagement in a post-Christendom context was challenged by every page of the book, there was one image that captured my attention. I stared at the image for an extended period. I was experiencing a crisis. I was second guessing everything about how I had planted a church. I remember thinking “what have I done?” Not only regarding the steps I had taken to start a new church, but how I was now encouraging others to do the same. In that moment, the way I thought about church, mission and church planting fundamentally changed.

The image I am referencing has been reproduced below. While an updated version of the book was published in 2013, where this image was slightly revised, this is the image included in the original edition.

The premise of the image is that our Christology should inform our missiology, which in turn should determine our ecclesiology. Another way to say it might be that our understanding of Jesus should inform the way we do mission, which should influence our understanding of church.

One of the reasons this image grabbed my attention, was that I had planted a church in the opposite direction. I had a certain form of church in mind when I started. My ecclesiology was influencing or shaping my understanding of mission. The fact is, the church that I planted had very little missional engagement, in large part because of the ecclesiology we started with was focused on attracting people to the Sunday gathering. Frost and Hirsch described my personal experience when they stated:

If we get this the wrong way around and allow our notions of the church to qualify our sense of purpose and mission, we can never be disciples of Jesus, and we will never be an authentic missional church. Churches that have got this basic formula wrong never really engage in mission and so lose touch with Jesus. These churches spend all their time discussing (or arguing) about the forms of worship, the church furniture, and the timing of services or programs, and fail to recognize that our ecclesiology flows more naturally out of our sense of mission. These churches become closed sets as a result, and their experience of Jesus at the center fades into a memory of the time when they were really doing something. It becomes a matter of history rather than an experience of mission now. It is important to recover the idea that the church connects with Jesus through mission, not through getting church meetings right!

Starting with Christology and allowing it to shape the way I thought about missiology, revolutionized my thinking about mission, church and church planting.

However, a few years later I realized that this progression from Jesus to mission to church only “works” if we have a proper Christology. In other words, our missiology is not rightly formed by our Christology unless that Christology is fully informed. Unfortunately, the Christology held by many Evangelicals is a form of reductionism.

If you ask most evangelicals what comes to mind when they hear the word “Christology” they will respond by saying the cross. They equate Christology exclusively with the “person and work” of Christ on the cross. Christology is primarily about who Jesus was and what he did on the cross. It is reduced to atonement theories of how the death of Jesus on the cross is applied to my individual life.

Of course, any discussion on Christology must include the work of Christ on the cross. But it must include more. Our Christology should involve not only the person and work of Christ, but also the ways of Christ. It is not simply the gospel about Jesus, but it is the gospel of Jesus. It is not just about what Jesus did on the cross, but it also about what Jesus taught and how He lived. It is about his foundational teachings. How he articulated the good news. It is about the life he modeled. The way he lived.  

By embracing a broader, more robust view of Christology, it will lead to a more fully informed missiology. What I am calling a "Jesus Shaped Missiology." This type of missiology aims to equip churches with a richer, more dynamic understanding of Jesus, which in turn inspires a more active and contextually engaged mission in the world. This broader view helps the church move beyond a narrow focus on atonement to embody the full scope of Jesus' mission in everyday life. To illustrate this broader view of Christology, consider the image below.

This picture illustrates a comprehensive view of Christology. You will notice the centrality of the cross in the middle of the image. I am not minimizing Jesus’ atoning work on the cross. However, I am saying that other aspects of the life of Jesus have profound implications on the development of our missiology and our ecclesiology.

We start with the incarnation of Jesus, which is the ultimate act of divine mission, demonstrating God’s commitment to dwell among humanity and bring about reconciliation. The incarnation serves as an exemplar for the church, calling the body of Christ to incarnate in local communities, embodying the love and mission of Jesus in tangible, transformative ways​​.

Our missiology must be deeply shaped by the life and teachings of Jesus. The life of Jesus was marked by radical hospitality, solidarity with the marginalized, humility, prayerfulness, community, and rhythms. Among other things Jesus taught about the Kingdom, love of God and neighbor, repentance (metanoia), forgiveness, reconciliation, and disciple-making. Each of these should inform the ways and means of our missional engagement.

At the center of our Christology must be the topic of the cross. But in addition to the atoning work of Jesus, we should also consider how the cross is modeled in our daily lives. How do we as the body of Christ, live a cruciform-shaped life that embraces self-sacrifice, humility, and servanthood. How do we commit to living in a way that reflects the love and suffering of Jesus? How do we display the transformative power of the cross in everyday actions?

The same is true with the other aspects of the image. The resurrection, ascension, Pentecost and the second coming all have things to say about the way we think about Christology and the influence it has on the way we understand mission. Much more to come in future posts. I am also working on an e-book that will flesh all of this out further.