In an interview on The Missional Blog, Frost said
our christology should lead to our missiology which in turn will lead to our ecclesiology
That is an interesting way of guiding the conversation. When we come to grips with the Jesus found in the gospels, it defines our mission as we translate it into our lives, our world and our culture. Thus, church is an outgrowing and a byproduct of moving from Jesus to His mission for us. I agree with him that many times we start with how to do church and then try to figure out mission as a byproduct of that.
I said this in the 'comments' the other day, but I think you could define missional as living in a way to stay outside the 'stifling equilibrium' of our traditions, denominations and doctrines. Never abandoning them, never abolishing them, but as Jesus did - fulfilling them - renewing them and their meaning in our lives.
In other words it is recognizing the tendencies of our human condition to seek comfort and predictability and finding ways to live continually outside of that. Finding ways to live outside of our own might or ability and instead, engaged in the adventure of depending on God and following his design for your life.
Thoughts...
6 comments:
I think we can get lost in all the talking and debating and trying to "orgazine" who and what we are as a church. I think it's fairly simple, and we people just make it way way harder than nesseassary. Christ commissioned us to Go! To Love! We are His hands and feet, we must show the love, share the hope, and give of ourselves completely to others to be able to become more like Christ. I just posted about the Advent Conspiracy and linked an article over at my new blog. Hope you can stop by and check it out. God Bless, Robin
http://girlforgod.wordpress.com
All good comments. Robin, you're right. We have been commissioned by Christ. The only thing that came to my heart when I read this was ISAIAH 58. I think this passage says so much about the Church and our responsibility as a Body. I've been thinking about writing a post focusing on that. we'll see.
Blessings all.
I agree, mostly.
Rather than moving from Jesus to His mission for us, I would like us to assert that we never move from Jesus, but increasingly become Christ, together, which is lived out daily in what we might call mission. So we never move to His mission for us, per se, we move deeper into the Spirit of Christ and His mission: redemption.
I agree with Frost in his desire to move outward from Christ; because let’s be honest, without Him, this whole thing we call church – we, us – is nothing. To loosely quote Clive Staples, what a seemingly good person does is not them at all, but the Christ-life working good through them. And so we – the church – never move far from Christ as we live out mission (missiology) together (ecclesiology). But all I really am arguing at this point is semantics.
Robin - I totally understand what you are saying. I too agree that we over-complicate our Christian faith, however, God has called us to accomplish certain things and it takes organization to do that - and organization takes thought, debate and a continual rethinking.
Karli - Get to writing! :)
JD - At least in my mind the equation doesn't take us away from Jesus, but starts with knowing him (which is a life-long journey) but it has to start with understanding him (even as that understanding will continue to change over our life time) and then finding mission and then growing community/church out of that. But you are right, 'knowing' Jesus is a constant moving towards. Def Semantics.
Kevin,
I think the last thing I would want to add is that we must remember ourselves as a part of the whole - both a part of the Body and a piece in the One story - so that our understanding of mission and community be seen from the perspective of Body rather than a collective of like-minded individuals.
I say this because I think it is so hard for us to escape our individualistic ideologies, and often that carries over into how we view mission and church.
We move, or ARE moved rather, together, at every single point and place, closer to the name of our becoming - Christ's bride. Always together, always on mission, always in Christ. Ramble ramble ramble...
Kevin- I'm getting to it :) TRUST me.
JD- I like what you said about seeing ourselves as part of the whole- being a part of the Body and recognizing our piece in the One.
A piece- meaning, we are still individual. But rather than recognizing our uniqueness first and our togetherness last, I think it is important for us to see the WHOLE before the part. Like you said, it is hard to escape our individualistic ideologies. However, if we first recognize ourselves as ONE perhaps we will see our individuality as a compliment to the Body rather than a distraction.
Again, this all leads back to CHRIST (and his Body) first.
this is a great convo.
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