Grace: the key to missional church
0 Comments Published by Durand on Saturday, June 30, 2007 at 7:39 AM.
I’ve got admit, I’ve been struggling to balance all that I’m reading these days relating to the church. I’ve watched a lot of adjectives get attached to “Church” through the years. “Seeker”. “High Impact”. “Purpose-driven”. “Simple”. “Emerging”. I could do this for hours…
But the one that’s caught my attention lately is “missional”. I’m a missionary, for crying out loud. Of course I’d notice. But it’s taken me longer to catch the sense.
You see, in most of the what I’ve read and heard, people dive straight into discussing the mission of the church for today and what it ought to be doing. But I listened to a short interview with Craig Van Gelder from Luther Seminary that helped me understand how becoming a missional church begins with God’s mission, not the mission of the church.
The church is really about God’s mission, God’s purpose, God’s activity. It’s about understanding what God’s purposes are from the wisdom of Scripture and then understanding what God is doing and wants to do through discernment of the times by means his Spirit. Then you can brace yourself to dive into ministry, and probably in directions you may not have anticipated.
I confess. I’m an over 50 year-old male born and raised in North America. Cut me and I tend to bleed pragmatism. It would be easy for me to jump to the “action points” and “preferred outcomes”. I can live for months on the adrenaline of one decent “accomplishment.” But what we do as a church comes out of who we are as a church.
Grace defines who we are. Believers are both recipients and instruments of grace. Churches must reflect an utter sense of submission to God’s authority, dependence on God’s power, and commitment to God’s purposes and mission.
Christians are intended to engage the world for the spread of the Gospel and for good of the world, but by first consecrating themselves to God and what he in his grace is doing. He’s created the church as a community of those who know and wish to extend God’s offer of grace.
To whom much is given, much is required.
NDR
LINK TO THE INTERVIEW WITH DR. VAN GELDER
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