Why We Plant 3: Mission
Missions, Founded on the Lord Jesus
In many missionary circles, we often hear, “The Church doesn’t have a mission. God has a mission, and His mission has a Church.” Quite right! God the Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, came into this world by the Father to love and save lost mankind. This sending is the mission itself. The words of Jesus relate directly to this: “As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.” (John 20:21)
We do not abstract the Church’s mission from the mission of God the Son. It is that of loving and saving lost humanity through the power of the Lord’s birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension.
Sponsored
Today, many believe that Christian mission is merely a matter of proclamation. It has been this way for some time. Pearl Buck, in her novel The Good Earth, recounts how missionaries in Imperial China distributed tracts in English—an unintelligible language to all but the missionaries themselves. The hero of the story, a poor farmer, merely stuffs them in his shoe to fill a hole.
First, we must remember to contextualize the gospel. Second, we must also remember that the gospel remains good news, even when we proclaim it poorly! Many will conversely say that social action is the issue, quite apart from proclamation. This is every bit as imbalanced. When we look to Jesus, we see him beginning his proclamation in the synagogue at Capernaum,
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
Luke 4:18, 19
Unlike the Gospel of Caesar (of which there were many), which did nothing to alter the daily realities of life, the gospel of the Lord Jesus brings about true change. It leads to rebirth in the Holy Spirit as well as physical healing, redemption from poverty, and vindication for the oppressed. This is the reason Jesus heals the sick and gives bread to those who hunger. It is not a show of power but a sign of the good news itself. If we do not likewise balance the gospel we proclaim, we certainly err.
Crucified With Christ, Arisen for Missions
You may remember in Paul’s letter to the Galatians that as soon as Paul lays the gospel he preaches before the apostles gathered in Jerusalem, they merely ask him to “remember the poor,” which, he says, is the “very thing I was eager to do.” (Galatians 2:10)
Shortly thereafter, Paul recounts,
I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.
Galatians 2:20
This is not merely how Paul understands salvation or justification. It is how he understands the whole Christian life.
Where Missions Lead: the Baptismal Fount & Faith in Christ
Through the baptismal waters, God has washed and made us new, joining us to Jesus in his death and resurrection. We, therefore, have the great and high calling to join His divine mission. This mission includes proclaiming good news to the poor, releasing the captive, restoring sight to the blind, and setting at liberty those who are oppressed.
In this spirit, today’s missionaries understand that their task is not merely to proclaim. It is to open hospitals, feed children, undermine oppressive governments, and seek justice for the victims of human trafficking and the unborn. This social action is undoubtedly political, as anything that happens in the context of this world is. We need not be afraid of it. The gospel has always undermined the secular authority, and it always will. This is because Jesus is not merely the King of heaven but of this world as well. This is the reason that the Church joyfully joins His mission, proclaiming the kingdom in all that we do and say.
What Does This Have to Do with Church Planting?
We must acknowledge that often we in the Church operate with a peculiar feeling that nothing we do will last. We feel that we are fighting a losing battle. However, this is not the case! Jesus reminds us that the gates of hell will not prevail against his Church. Gates are defensive positions, not offensive ones. The Church never plays defense, but always offense. We forget that the destiny of all creation is to be a Temple for the Lord of creation and his bride, the Church. In other words, the Church is inevitable; she will prevail.
Established congregations fall back into defensive positions. They tend towards maintenance instead of mission. We must maintain programs, numbers kept steady, and air conditioners in constant repair. Church plants, unconcerned with these things, have the golden opportunity to raise the stakes, attack the gates of hell, and win! Effectively, this means evangelizing pagans, comforting the sick, bringing hope to the poor, and racking up the score.
Church planters are also missional. They establish congregations in the very cultures they seek to reach. The two plants I’m working on seek to make disciples in university towns and campuses. We do so by planting student ministries that are officially chartered on the campuses. Because we aren’t “campus-centric,” meaning focused on our physical plant, we can be “campus-centric” in a missional way. This involves spending a great deal of time on the campus. Our members serve as professors, administrators, graduate assistants, RAs, and student organization leaders. We meet in one plant, four blocks from the campus, and another, directly on the campus. In short, our mission field is very tightly defined. In that context, we can draw students into not only the proclamation of the gospel, but the gospel work of serving the poor and bringing the hope of the faith to our town.
Lastly, church plants support global mission. In our new church plant, we have a couple who are missionaries to a closed country in Asia. We have mission contacts throughout the world and support missions locally, regionally, and globally. This is accomplished with 10% of our total budget. We can do so because we are not paying a mortgage or doing deferred maintenance. Because our overhead, compared to established parishes, is quite low, we can set practices in motion to build a culture that will last for many years to come.
Photo by: Samuel Yongbo Kwon on Unsplash
Do Anglicans Care as much about Mission(s) as Evangelicals?
It was a sunny day in Glasgow and the preacher was speaking to thousands of people in one of the large parks of the city. I had attended with a number of friends from a Christian campus ministry in Edinburgh where I was working on my PhD in Divinity (focus, World Christianity. Shameless plug: buy…
Today in the Spirit: World Missions Sunday C
In our BCP 2019, we have the required liturgical observation of a World Mission Sunday every year during Epiphany.
