Language is a pesky medium. Everyone knew that sooner or later someone with name recognition would come out and announce the term “missional” fell under the weight of its varied meanings. In the last week those 140 space communiques known as “Tweets” announced that “missional church” is redundant and that “missional” is the new junk drawer.

I would venture a guess that most who have used the word never read the book by Guder titled, The Missional Church. Even fewer will have read his book, The Continuing Conversion of the Church. In the best sense of semper reformanda, Guder contends that the church in every context and age must experience conversion from the barnacles it attracts as it passes through culture. He never suggests there is a pristinated version of church but opens the reader up to understand that when the church becomes complacent in its self-criticism it eventually loses its voice as it takes on the worst characteristics of the culture in which it finds itself.

Yes, Ed Stetzer regularly tweets in love and favor of the church. What he does not do is suggest it is perfect, just not worth bashing.

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We begin offering articles from a host of contributors from around the world who engage their context or others with the “mission of God.” We begin today with Russ Rankin. You may find more information about Russ on our Contributors Page.

The Kingdom Principle

Several years ago I accompanied a friend on hiking trip. Our objective was more than just spending a few days in the great outdoors. The location was a restricted-access country in Asia where mission work is forbidden. My friend, a strategy coordinator for an unreached people group, asked me to join him on the trip high in the mountains to locate and mark with a GPS villages previously untouched by Westerners. His desire was to count doors, do a needs-assessment and hopefully encounter men of peace through whom he could introduce the Gospel to a secluded people. As a journalist, I planned to do a feature package on the people and the challenge of bringing the Gospel to them.

We spent our first day navigating dusty trails and narrow goat paths straight up a mountain nearing 10,000 feet. At one point, having run out of water, we resorted to drawing and filtering from streams that were no more than mud puddles. Periodically, we encountered people living on the mountain; villagers tending to crops on semi-flat fields or goat herders on patches of mountain grass. At one rest stop, two members of our team engaged a couple of farmers in light conversation and gave them tracts in their language.

In our ignorance, we didn’t realize those farmers were heading down the mountain to a village at a lower trailhead. I can imagine their report to the local officials: white devils were on the mountain handing out (illegal) materials. To our dismay, as we broke camp the following morning we saw coming up behind us a trail of military vehicles. Needless to say, the language barrier didn’t mean much as the officials angrily interrogated our leader and hauled us all off the mountain.

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Dr. David Dunbar is President of Biblical Theological Seminary in Hatfield, PA. Dave has been offering thoughts on the school’s theological convictions in his “Missional Journal.” Biblical Seminary continues to press through to “missional theological education.” Some want to talk about missional theology. Biblical is committed to missional theology. Rather than nuance theology in missional terms, Biblical is committed to theology that is rooted and rises from the missio dei. You may follow the links in the footnotes and read the complete statement of theological convictions that guide Biblical Seminary in its theological project. Biblical Seminary now offers a MA in Missional Church Planting. Thanks to Dave for allowing us to post his article here at MissioScapes.

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“Through a Glass Darkly”

With these words St. Paul (1 Cor. 13:12) contrasts the limitations of our present spiritual vision and understanding with the fullness of knowledge that will be ours at the return of the Lord.  This metaphor may be helpful as we consider the last of Biblical Seminary’s theological convictions.

The Necessity of Cultural Engagement

We are committed to ongoing engagement with culture and the world for the sake of our witness to the gospel, and to continual learning from Christians in other cultural settings.[1]

There are three points I want to make about this statement:  1) culture as the context for mission, 2) culture as a way of seeing, and 3) the need for cross-cultural learning.

1.    Culture as context

By “culture” we refer to the traditional ways of thinking, speaking, and acting that characterize a particular group of people. In our highly mobile Western world, we must think of culture not as a single entity but as a complex interplay of contrasting and even competing ways by which different groups construe their world.

This diversity of cultures is one reason the church in North America must now think of itself as a missionary church. We are surrounded by groups of people who do not share our way of viewing the world. To bring the gospel to our world we will need to engage in the missionary task of translation.  We must communicate the truth about Jesus in ways that are faithful to Scripture and effective in crossing cultural boundaries.

Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, understands this challenge better than most. “When Paul spoke to Greeks, he confronted their culture’s idol of speculation and philosophy with the ‘foolishness’ of the cross, and then presented Christ’s salvation as true wisdom. When he spoke to Jews, he confronted their culture’s idol of power and accomplishment with the ‘weakness’ of the cross, and then presented the gospel as true power (1 Cor. 1:22-25).”[2] In affirming one gospel, Keller nonetheless argues that different “forms” of the gospel are appropriate to people of differing cultural backgrounds.

So, in the context of his own ministry in New York City, Keller recognizes that people with religious backgrounds understand the concept of sin as an offense against the law of God.  These people can therefore be reached with the more traditional evangelical summary of the gospel which presents the cross as divine provision for human sin and guilt.

But Keller notes, “…Manhattan is also filled with postmodern listeners who consider all moral statements to be culturally relative and socially constructed. If you try to convict them of guilt for sexual lust, they will simply say, ‘You have your standards, and I have mine.’ If you respond with a diatribe on the dangers of relativism, your listeners will simply feel scolded and distanced.”[3]  For this audience Keller finds it more effective to speak of sin not as guilt but as idolatry.

My point is not to argue the rightness or wrongness of Pastor Keller’s specific approach to preaching, although I agree with much of his article. The point is rather to emphasize the missional challenge we face. Careful interpretation of Scripture must now be combined with careful interpretation of culture(s) if we are to witness faithfully to our generation.
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Something is leaking. According to an article in the USA Today dated August 6 (taken from The Tennessean), someone’s computer sprung a leak. That is, an email was leaked which altered the course of the upcoming NAMB Board of Trustees meeting. Someone left the gate valve open and water sprung from a circuit board inviting unintended readers a look-see into upcoming discussions by the “executive committee” of the NAMB BoT. In an environment of trust in people and process “leaking” would not be necessary.

If we were the GCR Task Force we would avoid “watergate.” You see, we are familiar with “leaking computers.” Well, maybe not leaking computers, but leaking sources. During our time with the now defunct SBCOutpost, read SBC Drudge Report, there were many willing to “blow the whistle” on questionable tactics yet they feared reprisal. Over and again we bantered back and forth about “anonymous sources.” Some pontificated with erudition. In the end the atmosphere was the problem. In an organization, institution, intending to bear the Gospel of Jesus to the world one would assume ethical decisions would run through the ethic of Jesus. In order to move us from the pragmatic and narrow agendas of a few, we would declare an end to secret meetings from the outset.

Rather than offer an expose’ on the countless secret meetings held over the past 30 years, we would schedule all meetings inside a local church building. From the now famous or infamous meeting at the Cafe du Monde to the present hour our history is full of examples of these private meetings. The stakes are too high to undermine the process behind the cloak of secrecy. Sometimes symbolism is as important as substance. We hear much about the Great Commission being given to the local church, then we would plan to meet there. Our history is full of meetings held at airports. Sometimes the outcome of those meetings has been less than profitable.

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