Category Archives: Mission

Mission without Christ?

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Rob has picked up on an article by Stephen Bevans I read while ago and have been meaning to blog.
The article gives a good backdrop to the pressure that we have to move Flow from a pneumatology to christology. To quote a line form the paper “Mission in obedience to the transcending immanence of God’s Spirit can avoid the danger of what William R. Burrows calls the over-objectification of the Christ-event, that is, preaching the gospel as if one controlled its message, or as if that message could be exhaustively expressed in objective, rational categories.”

I have always found this to be a difficult issue to address and ask myself how much of the desire to introduce Christ stems from my own conditioning rather than following the presence of christ that is in Flow and present through the trinity. Perhaps I am beginning to think the unthinkable as Bevans suggests below in his conclusion

“To think deeply about the Holy Spirit,” writes John V. Taylor, is a bewildering, tearing exercise, for whatever he touches he turns inside out” (Taylor 1972: 179). The Spirit is the Spirit as God turned inside out; the Spirit given to Jesus turned him inside out and opened him up to the vision of God’s reign among women and men; the Spirit lavished through Jesus turns his disciples inside out as they include unthinkable people and go to unthinkable places. Thinking missiologically about the Holy Spirit can turn the church inside out, and perhaps make it more responsive to where God is really leading it in today’s world.

Balance

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In mission terms we often talk about the missionary imagination happening in terms of a balance between a culture, tradition and bible triangle. Often people talk of using tradition and ritual as a place to root discipleship or as a resource for creativity. With the emerging post christendom context and the gravitation pull of tradition, I think we need to explore the balance in a new way and give it a different sort of prominence in the mission task.

In church on the edge, the tradition balance comes not from a replication of ritual but using traditional language a resource to locate the work in a christian tradition. As we talk about Flow and often when reworking bible passages talk about Jesus as a sufi or wise man and it would be easy to completely miss the christian underpinning. However using words like church connects with the echo of the memory that gen y still hold, or gives an opportunity to locate the project in the christian story but also importantly enables us to balance out the gravitation pulls that can come with the usual way of approaching the triangle. Then as communities of faith become more important ritual can be revisited but in a way that does without the purposed dominance that many people ascribe them, and rather genuinely allows for a reciprocal re-working that values the culture, tradition, bible balance.

echos

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I have been reflecting around the issue of Flow and christology recently. Jonny pointed me to this great article “God inside out – towards a mission theology of the Holy Spirit”. It challenges the adage that the father sends the son – the Father and son send the spirit – and the trinity sends the church and unpacks the centrality of the spirit.

The article started me thinking about the Trinity as an echo. For a while now I have had the vague idea of church being an echo of the trinity of coming from God and continuing in the unfolding revelation of God. (if the spirit sends the church what does this say about the divine nature of the church).

The reduction of G-d to the trinity is problematic and avoids the transcendent nature of G-d beyond our understandings (not mention the other characteristics of God within the biblical narrative that do not readily fit the Father Son Spirit image).

G-d echos through the creation, all our images and encounters are echos of G-d that we are swept up with (missio dei) and join the echo of G-d towards the fulfillment of creation. The power of the echo can transcend the blocks of institutions and break beyond the walls of our imaginings, it calls us forward, beyond and out of what we know, to be more and less (at times) of what we are, towards unity as the bride of christ.

Which way are you pulled?

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We often talk about holding the tension in emerging church between Bible Tradition and Culture. Yet the critique is that tradition is the strongest (see being missional today) In conversations recently and reading around what many people are doing it would seem the dominant pull is towards tradition, and a lack of value on culture. I wondered if it was possible scale/measure your positioning in the triangle. Do you lean towards tradition, or bias culture?

missionary catalyst

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Dave challenges my worldview on my missional engagement and approach of the past few years. Read about it here. This is why it is so great to be part of the community of practice and glocal expression of church that is StreetSpace. I cant wait till we have our first gathering (hopefully in autumn 2010) get in touch if you are interested in linking up.

Missional Advent 11 – Disbelief

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Reality is suspended for Elizabeth when she is told she will give birth in her advanced years, and her husband is struck dumb. Zechariah gets his voice back when the child is born and named. At the appointed time Zechariah is released, and he gives praise to God and points the way to Christ. In our disbelief we try to voice our questions but perhaps we should remain silent and simply witness the growing presence of Christ around us.

Missional Advent 8 – Gift

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Freely given, God gave Christ to us in absolute trust. A gift offered without any preconditions or expectations. In todays culture young people are often surprised when someone explains they are a volunteer, and when we do not expect something in return. To give ourselves freely with expectation, to be a gift to those you serve, takes us to the heart of incarnational mission.