I’d like to thank David for his willingness to partcipate in my interview. I’ve never met him in person (yet), but I perceive a gracious spirit in this brother as well as a sharp intellect and a genuine heart for God and His people.
To David — a few thoughts in response to our interview. I’ll number them for ease of reading:
1. Like you, I have great respect for John H. Yoder. I particularly love his “hermeneutics of peoplehood” and his no-compromise statements on contra the “religious specialist” (the clergy). As a tag to this blog, I’ve quoted some of his words on this score.
Stanley Hauerwas is brilliant. One of the things that I appreciate about him is his passion and his unwillingness to sugar-coat his message. For that reason, he tends to polarize his audience. People love what he says or they hate it. Few sit in the middle. Personally, I believe we need more people of his tribe. When I think of people like Hauerwas and Tony Campolo (another mad man), Tozer’s words come to mind:
If Christianity is to receive a rejuvenation it must be by other means than any now being used. If the church in the second half of [the twentieth] century is to recover from the injuries she suffered in the first half, there must appear a new type of preacher. The proper, ruler-of-the-synagogue type will never do. Neither will the priestly type of man who carries out his duties, takes his pay and asks no questions, nor the smooth-talking pastoral type who knows how to make the Christian religion acceptable to everyone. All these have been tried and found wanting. Another kind of religious leader must arise among us. He must be of the old prophet type, a man who has seen visions of God and has heard a voice from the Throne. When he comes (and I pray God there will not be one but many) he will stand in flat contradiction to everything our smirking, smooth civilization holds dear. He will contradict, denounce and protest in the name of God and will earn the hatred and opposition of a large segment of Christendom.
It’s been my observation that such people are often hated, abused, personally judged, and trashed by a certain portion of the Christian population; yet God uses them to effect lasting change in His church.
2. You write: “I was really discontent with the unquestioned assumptions that drove the status quo …” You get three cheers for that sentence 
3. You also said: “I saw young pastors getting killed.” A large portion of my email is from such folks, though some of these folks aren’t so young.
4. Another memorable statement: “Everything I was learning from Scripture and the history of the church suggested this was more a creation of American business than faithfulness to being God’s people in the world. Does that sound harsh? Whoah sorry!”
[Cough], you’re joking right? Have you not read Pagan Christianity? No, I don’t think you were harsh at all. We’re tracking very closely here. I would simply add that it’s not just the mega-church movement that is creating “churches” patterned after GM and Microsoft. It’s most traditional/institutional churches today. Size is really irrelevent here. Mega-churches just blow the problem up more so that it’s easier to see. Would you not agree?
5. Again you say: “I hope people reflect on what we’re doing! And probe the assumptions that drive us to do what we do in the name of church. I hope for a renewed faithfulness in our time to being God’s people in the world.” We’re tracking 100% here. Scarey.
Question on this score: Do you think it’s possible that there are assumptions that you yourself have about church and leadership that haven’t been probed yet?
6. Regarding what comes first mission or church — missiology or ecclesiology, I think it boils down to how one defines mission. For instance, if we define “the mission” as God’s Eternal Purpose, as I do, then mission proceeds ecclesiology because it produces the ekklesia. But if we define it through the lens of D.L. Moody, which is so often the case today, then it simply means bringing the gospel to lost souls and seeing them converted. Evangelism flows out of the ekklesia. It’s what she, the organism of the church, does biologically when she is following her spiritual instincts. But it’s not the only thing she does. Nor is it the most important. God’s purpose goes far beyond the saving of lost souls (or whatever language one likes to use for that).
I personally think that within the modern missional movement there’s massive confusion on the difference between what Luke calls “the work” and “the church.”
The work is the regional, traveling, itinerant ministry of apostolic workers. The goal of the work is to produce local, corporate expressions of Jesus Christ (ekklesias). Workers, however, are produced by the church. Which comes first? It’s a chicken-egg situation. The church produces workers and workers raise up the church.
I’m really not sure how helpful it is to argue over what comes first, mission or church. To my mind, that line of thinking often leads us to the same place that fruitless Word vs. Spirit debates take us. Not very far.
I could be wrong about this, but I think it’s far more important to understand what God’s mission is exactly. I’ve done some surveys on this question among my friends in the missional church movement, and one thing stands out. When that question is raised, things get really murky.
That brings us back to the question of the Eternal (or Ageless) Purpose of God, as Paul calls it in Ephesians. I believe that this is the critical issue of the missional church conversation today.
7. You talk about how you’ve seen missional communities meeting in various places. Most are not bigger than 200 members. Some are smaller than 40. My question: What do these particular communites look like exactly?
Specifically, what do their corporate gatherings look like? Do they have the typical (500 year old) Sunday morning order of worship with songs led by a worship team or leader, a sermon given by a pastor, offering, etc.? Or do they map more to the NT vision of open-participatory gatherings under the headship of Jesus Christ? And what does their day-to-day life like together look like? I’d be interested in hearing this.
Please also add what your own congregation looks like in their corporate gatherings and in the daily life of the assembly. If the readers of this blog were to visit and observe your church for two solid weeks, what would we see? Give us a blow-by-blow of a typical week or two in the life of David Fitch’s church.
8. A final question: Some of the readers of this blog were tracking with you until you begain explaing the leadership schema of your church.
First, in your answer, it didn’t appear that there were any other leaders aside from pastors or shepherds.
Second, you seem to draw a distinction between pastors and shepherds. You said you have 3 pastors and 12 shepherds. Can you ‘splain?
Third, how is your view of the pastor (as an office/role) different from the office and role of the modern Protestant pastor which has no biblical merit?
I look forward to your answers ….
From the pen of John Howard Yoder
“The whole concern of Reformation theology was to justify restructuring the organized church without shaking its foundations.”
“There are few more reliable constants running through all human society than the special place every human community makes for the professional religionist . . . But if we were to ask whether any of the N.T. literature makes the assumptions listed — Is there one particular office in which there should be only one or a few individuals for whom it provides a livelihood, unique in character due to ordination, central to the definition of the church and the key to her functioning? Then the answer from the biblical material is a resounding negation [no].”
“The conclusion is inescapable that the multiplicity of ministries is not a mere adiaphoron, a happenstance of only superficial significance, but a specific work of grace and a standard for the church.”
“Losing the specific and original trait of the primitive community, the church by and large became again subject to the usual anthropologically universal pattern of the single, sacramentally qualified religionist. By and large . . . this pattern has continued to our day in churches of every polity and theology.”
“Let us then ask first not whether there is a clear, solid concept of preaching, but whether there was in the N.T. one particular preaching office, identifiable as distinctly as the other ministries. Neither in the most varied picture (Corinthians) nor in the least varied (Pastoral Epistles) is there one particular ministry thus defined.”
i have read both “Pagan..” and “Reimaging….” with great intrest and profit. I long ago came to many of the same conclusions about the “institutional” church as distinct from the Body of Christ, or “organic” church. But I arrived there by different route. Have you read “the Two Babylons”by Hislop covering much of the same ground you do in “Pagan Christianity”? I have recently been told that Hislop’s scholarship was faulty. Maybe, but your (and Barna’s) research proves that his premise is correct. The other more solid source is Christ’s messages to the churches in Rev.2&3. All the developments chronicled in your book are found there as a predictive warning to the churches, both those historic, then present, and subsequent developments within the institution throughout the period designated as the “things which are”. While the warning message to the churches was mostly ignored, the responsibility of the individual believer is to the Lord, ,i.e. to “hear what the Spirit saith to the churches”. The critical issue is “Do I ‘have ears to hear (heed)’ what it is the Spirit of the Lord is saying? He is not just saying it to the body at large, but to me individually as well, making it my personal responsibility to hear. This is what I was lead to realize when I come to see (25-30 yrs. ago) that there were major defections from NT church truth on the part of the institutional church, resulting in symptoms common to churches every where of every stripe. The effort to reconcile as I observed it with how the NT describes it drove my search. Your thots? In Christ Tim VP
Tim, I’m aware of Hislop’s book and have never been impressed with it. Beyond the historical problems, the book is virtually impossible for the average person to read. It’s written from a completely different mindset than PC, and covers a great deal of different material and vice versa. The goal is quite different as well.
First of all Frank, many thanks for engaging me. If it weren’t for friends like you, I would not be challenged nor grow from interactions as valuable as these.
Let me start with question 6. I think I get what you and others are talking about when you make that distinction between the guiding telos of God being Mission and therefore Mission is prior to the church, versus say D L Moody, who made the evangelism of souls into personal salvation a mission of the church, therefore for him, the church is prior to mission. In this sense, I am very much on board with you and others who follow this same line.
Where I’d like to push for more clarity is just how much the church is God’s chosen means to engage the world. In other words, Mission is unthinkable in God’s economy of salvation, without the church. In response to Gerhard Lohfink’s question from his book of the same title, “Does God Need the Church?”: the answer is “yes” in the sense that God chose to redeem all of creation while choosing to safeguard humanity’s freedom and living as human in history. God’s chosen means therefore to redeem the world was through the creation of a people whose social existence bears witness to the comprehensive scope of God’s salvation for the world. This is where God would show forth (proclaim out of a visible reality) his mighty works into the world (1 Peter 2:9). This is the Story from the beginning of God’s covenant with Abraham to the formation of Israel, and to the culmination of God’s revealing in Jesus Christ thereby birthing a people to embody (“the body of Christ”) and carry on this mission until He returns. To summarize then why the church is so important to us Hauerwasian Yoderian Anabaptist Missionalites (I just made that word up!), I offer the famous quote from Lohfink in his book which I quoted at the end of The Great Giveaway. Here goes:
“It can only be that God begins in a small way, at one single place in the world. There must be a place, visible, tangible, where the salvation of the world can begin: that is, where the world becomes what it is supposed to be according to God’s plan. Beginning at that place, the new thing can spread abroad, but not through persuasion, not through indoctrination, not through violence. Everyone must have the opportunity to come and see. All must have the chance to behold and test this new thing. Then, if they want to, they can allow themselves to be drawn into the history of salvation that God is creating. Only in that way can their freedom be preserved. What drives them to the new thing cannot be force, not even moral pressure, but only the fascination of a world that is changed.” p 27.
Salvation like this, in other words, demands a concrete place (Lohfink’s words). To me this is why the church must be truly “incarnational” (concrete) in the ways Hirsch and Frost and others talk about it. This church is not attractional so much as attractive. The gospel is lived in a way that is visible to, engaging in and redeeming of the surrounding context. It must inhabit and discern and capture and heal as well as bless the surrounding community with its presence as Christ’s body. In this way it becomes a visible foretaste of the Kingdom that is coming.
But it is never as simple as the cheap modernist contextualization where we go into a context and discern where the hurts are and design a church and translate the gospel message in a way that would meet these needs. This is not what I think Alan (Hirsch) means when he says ecclesiology comes “out the back end” of mission. But it is the way a lot of missional practitioners that I meet all over the country have interpreted him and others. Contextualization must be more incarnational than that. This to me is the problem of inviting an alcoholic into an alcoholics anonymous meeting. The goal becomes overcoming alcoholism. And the alcoholics together largely stay within the frame of other alcoholics calling on Jesus (or another higher power) to achieve a personal goal. Instead all we sin-aholics of all kinds must be invited into a community of God’s all-encompassing Mission, His Story of reconciling the whole world into Himself thereby redeeming all of creation. In the process, every part of our lives (including our addictions) are re-oriented into a way of life born out of the salvation in Christ.
It is scary thing to say (because many of us are so disappointed with our churches) but in the sense described above, the church is the epistemological foundation for doing ministry in the world. I believe Yoder is the primary influence here (the Politics of Jesus), by which Hauerwas becomes more explicit on the epistemological priority of the church in a post-foundationalist world. To say somehow that ecclesiology precedes missiology however is to miss the entire point. For there is no dualism here. Ecclesiology is missiology and vice versa.
I’ve got to go teach, and do some meetings and get two hours of writing in. But I hope to visit the blog today and tomorrow from time to time. I’ll sure try to respond to those other questions about our church today or tomorrow. Hope that is alright. I’m honored.
David Fitch
I don’t have much time to respond thoroughly to all the great comments, but I do wish to say a few things to David (Fitch). Note that two David F’s are commenting on this blog. How often does that happen.
David, I don’t really see anything in your comment that I’m inclined to disagree with. The ekklesia is most certainly God’s witness of His Son in the world, it’s a colony from heaven living upon this earth as well as the signpost, foregleam, and foretaste of God’s ultimate future. Yet all of those things cease from becoming the tribal language and good theological rhetoric when it’s actually lived out and embodied by a body of believers who know Christ as their All together.
The quote by Lohfink, for instance, has been my experience in living in organic church life over the last 21 years. So when I read that, many scenes fill my mind as to how his words were fleshed out. I believe it’s possible, however, that such beautiful language can remain in the frontal lobe without being experienced. Hence my interest in asking you questions on the practical/experiential level, which I do hope you will answer as you find the time to do so.
Let me take a stab at probing this nerve a little more deeply. I believe that the majority of the missional conversation today does in fact view God’s Mission through the lens of D.L. Moody. This is irrespective of whether or not one argues that the church should be attractional or missional … or whether missiology precedes ecclesiology or vice versa. When the layers are peeled back and the core is in full view, it boils down to these 3 ideas:
1) God created the church and sent the church in the world to save the world. Hence saving/redeeming the world is His Mission.
2) the church primarly exists to save the world.
3) because of point 1 and 2, the church is an afterthought. It was Plan B. in the mind of God. Meaning, if humans had not fallen, there would have been no need for the church.
Others here have quoted some of the missonal thinkers in their comments. I’ve excerpted some of their statements, zero-ing in on statements that demonstate the above. But most missional books echo the same thoughts.
Chris Wright: “God’s own mission within the history of God’s world for the redemption of God’s creation.”
Guder: “mission is the result of God’s initiative, rooted in God’s purposes to restore and heal creation.”
That the church primarly exists to save the world … and that God’s Mission is to redeem the world is THE unchallenged assumption that stubbornly remains in the bloodstream of modern evangelicalism. And it’s almost impossible to crack.
God’s eternal purpose, which is expounded in Ephesians and Colossians by an ancient, broken apostle, stands outside the reaches of redemption. Redemption is merely a contingency program … a recovery plan to get humans back on track so that they can fulfill God’s original intent. Central to that intent is the ekklesia, which was not an afterthought in the mind and beating heart of God. Instead, it has been His passion from eternity, and it has to do with something primarily for God Himself.
I believe one of the fundamental reasons why we can’t easily see God’s eternal purpose today (beyond the fact that the salvation of the world has been pounded into our heads since the 19th century) is because we have been conditioned to begin the Biblical story with Genesis 3, with the fall of humans. Instead of with Genesis 1 and 2 … which preceded the fall. And with Ephesians, which unveils God’s eternal thought and desire *before* creation.
I’ve written on this subject elsewhere recently in more detail (should any one care to look more deeply into it – see the link below). But to my mind, this is where the missional conversation must go in the days ahead. If it doesn’t, I believe we will continue to repeat the last 1700 years of church history and stop short of fulfilling that grand, high, and glorious purpose that provoked creation and thus fail to meet the central desire of God’s heart.
God’s Eternal Purpose: A Critical Addition to the Missional Conversation -
http://beyondmissional.missionaltribe.org/2009/01/06/hello-world/
What a great discussion! I really enjoyed what was said about how one defines “mission” and “the work” and “the church”. In discussions like these, I think it’s essential to strip down to the bare concrete and evaluate what foundation one is building on. Something that disturbs me when talking with others about being “missional” is that the picture I derive from our conversation is that of an inverted pyramid; an individual mistakes God’s mission, or eternal purpose, as his/her own, and therefore turns it into a “thing”, something he/she can manage, rather than allowing it to be a manifestation of God’s nature. The same goes for God’s “work”. There is no work to be done except that which has been done through Christ… He is the work of God… He is THE WORK. So, essentially, all work is Christ’s work, if it is to be fruitful, it is to be initiated by Him, and then if it is to last, it must continue getting it’s life supply from Him. It’s the whole vine and branch idea. However, what we tend to do, is receive freely the life that Christ has quickened within us and then we cut ourselves off from the vine and plant that branch in the ground. We think we can not only sustain ourselves on the life that still dwells within that “branch”, but also graft others into it as well. Then we wonder why it withers and dies.
This describes what I see going on in many gatherings today. Most of these meetings are done solely for the purpose of trying to sustain the life of a branch that has been cut off from the vine- a job as fulfilling as caring for a garden of cut flowers. Once we see things start to wither, then our goal becomes trying to get Christ to come live in our branch and give us life again- in effect, trying to graft Christ back into us, rather than the other way around. Abiding in Christ needs to be our mission and only through that can Christ’s Work be done through us.
Frank,
The missiology/ecclesiology debate (which came first?) is interesting to me, but I think I’m with you on this one (if I understood you correctly). It seems that Jesus called us to be both a gathered (ecclesiology) and a sent (missiology) people. Both of these aspects of the church were carried out by the Holy Spirit. A preference for one or the other leads to problems.
I’ve also noticed that many people are willing to question the church’s missiology, and parts of their ecclesiology. But, they rarely move into the basic structure. I don’t know if Fitch falls into this camp or not, because I haven’t read enough by him.
Anyway, great interview, and great follow-up questions. I hope he decided to respond.
-Alan
Please forgive me if I am intruding into a 2 way conversation between you and David Fitch but I wanted to thank you for interviewing David and also for responding in this way.
If I may add a thought or two, I cannot see how a “missional theology” that presupposes the Missio Dei suggest anything other than “mission precedes ecclesiology”.
If I may throw in a few quotes myself:
Christopher J.H. Wright: “Fundamentally, our mission (if it is biblically informed and validated means our committed participation as God’s people, at God’s invitation and command, in God’s own mission within the history of God’s world for the redemption of God’s creation.” (p.23 The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative)
David Bosch: “Mission is understood as being derived from the very nature of God. It is thus put in the context of the doctrine of the Trinity, not of ecclesiology or soteriology. The classical doctrine of the missio Dei as God the Father sending the Son, and God the Father and the Son sending the Spirit is expanded to include yet another ‘movement’: Father, Son and Holy Spirit sending the church into the world.” (Transforming Mission, p. 390)
Darrell Guder: “The ecclesiocentric understanding of mission has been replaced during this century by a profoundly theocentric reconceptualization of Christian mission. We have come to see that mission is not merely an activity of the church. Rather, mission is the result of God’s initiative, rooted in God’s purposes to restore and heal creation. ‘Mission’ means sending, and it is the central biblical theme that describes the purpose of God’s action in human history.” (Missional Church, p. 4)
Frank: I hope you and David will address the question of whether mission is ultimately grounded in God’s redemptive purposes (i.e. to restore and heal creation) or, as you put it, whether it is grounded in God’s (pre-Fall) eternal purposes.
That to me is a far more interesting conversation than the one about whether mission precedes ecclesiology.
Peace! And thank you again for pursuing this conversation with David. And, again, forgive me if I am intruding into a two party conversation.
“The work is the regional, traveling, itinerant ministry of apostolic workers. The goal of the work is to produce local, corporate expressions of Jesus Christ (ekklesias).”
My deepest concern is that we so quickly blow by statements like this one and continue to promote our narcissistic ecclesiology. We seem to be dissatisfied with this being a sufficient description of church life. It is easy to talk a lot “about” Christ, but really be infatuated with everything else but him. Are we first seeking to exalt the church or Jesus? It is only through the Person of Jesus that we know “the work” and we understand ekklesia.
I prefer to steer clear of all the church drama and squabbling over “missional” and which “ology” comes first. The few years I have spent within participatory meetings that have Christ as the Head… have shown me the simplicity of Body life gathered around the centrality and supremacy of Jesus Christ… and the immaturity of those believers who wish to discuss anything else.
Many thanks to the work of men like Yoder, Tozer, and Hauerwas. Flawed men they are… but never-ceasing in their concern to follow the Person of Christ in all things instead of being distracted by the gnashing of teeth that comes by endless discussions on the church. I am convinced that if we don’t start having more conversations about the Person of Jesus (written and living), we are doomed to repeat the mistakes of generations past.
We have made human need the focus of everything and have forgotten that God wants something for Himself!
We got stuck in the “emergency plan” and have abandoned the original plan. God still wants His house, His body, His bride, His family, and His one new man that can express His divine attributes in a shared-life community. And this is His goal!
Don’t get me wrong. He loves us and cares about our needs. He sent His Son to redeem us, heal us, deliver us, etc. But that was all still a part of the “emergency plan.” The purpose of this “e-plan” was to get us back on track with His eternal purpose. Please see the following: Eph. 1:7-14; Eph. 3:3-12; Eph. 4:11-16; Col. 1:24-28; Col. 3:9-11.
His purpose has everything to do with His Son. Ephesians chapter one makes this very clear. He wants to sum up all things in His Son (Eph. 1:9, 10). He wants His body to express the fullness of His Son (Eph. 1:22, 23). And He wants His Son to fill all things (Eph. 4:10).
I believe when we have an over emphasis on evangelism and mission we end up with very shallow results. We may have lots of numbers, but they may be all zeros! God is looking for quality much more so than quantity. The Father is looking for the measure of Christ (Eph. 4:13). This is true fruit.
In my view, we should not be focusing on the fruit (a.k.a. numerical growth). We should be focusing on the life. If there is the life of Christ flowing in a group, then the fruit will organically be produced at the right time. There are seasons in the life of the Church and one of those seasons is the harvest time. The key is for each believer to learn how to “tap into” the life supply within them so this divine life can flow into the Body (Col. 1:27). Then, just like a tree, everything will develop in due time.
You wrote: “I could be wrong about this, but I think it’s far more important to understand what God’s mission is exactly. I’ve done some surveys on this question among my friends in the missional church movement, and one thing stands out. When that question is raised, things get really murky.”
Frank…I think you are right on to press the question of what God’s mission is. As Alasdair MacIntyre pointed out in “After Virtue”, we cannot know the “good” of anything if we do not know the purpose for which that “anything” exists. If I remember correctly, he used the analogy of a watch: we can only know whether any particular watch is a good watch if it fulfills the purpose that a watch is to fulfill. However, even in the case of watches, we must decide what the purpose is….if it is to tell time or simply be a fashion statement or something to hurl at the cat. A cat-directed object doesn’t have to keep good time and neither does a piece of bling.
How do we ascertain whether a gathered assembly of believers (a.k.a. the “church”) is in fact a “good” church if we are not clear as to what the purpose of the church is?
So, the question of understanding God’s mission (or purpose) is a critical question…otherwise, we lack an essential standard against which to measure our attempts at “church.” i.e. we can only know the “good” church if we understand the purpose for which the church exists.
Milt: I absolutely agree…Simply suggesting that a church is a good church because it is increasing in numbers is wrong-headed unless we presuppose that the purpose of the church is to just get bigger numerically.
Going with both your and Frank’s arguments as to the eternal purposes of God as differentiated from the redemptive purposes of God is, to my limited mind, a critical (squared) matter. e.g. it seems to me that if we judge according to the redemptive purposes of God, then we end up with something like Moody’s model…get ‘em saved and ready for the glory train. If we judge according to the eternal purposes of God, then we find a much richer vision of the good church as a people who are being filled to the measure of the fullness of God. (Eph. 3:19)
I would think that a church that is filled with the fullness of God will be a redemptive church. However, I think I have experienced churches that are redemptive without necessarily being filled with the measure of the fullness of God.
I would love to see a discussion develop as to how the eternal purposes of God shapes us into being a peaceable people…i.e. how can a church who is shaped by the eternal purpose of God ever stand on the side of violence?
Thank you, Frank, for providing space for this wonderful discussion!
Frank and Milt:
Who are some of the other voices that are currently speaking the same language as you guys regarding God’s true purpose?
Peace
J
J., DeVern Fromke, Stephen Kaung, Jon Zens, Alan Levine, and Gary Welter quickly come to mind.
Also Bill Freeman, Manfred Haller, and Gilbert Bilezikian
Great conversation. May I be simplistic? I think God is a Father who, from eternity past, wanted His children to be safe and secure at home with Him. Right now many of His kids are trying to find their way home and many could really care less about what their Father wants because they have not been given the truth about who their Father is. Where will they find this truth if not from and through the Church. Therefore the Church has always been at the heart of the Fathers mission, both to have fellowship with His family and to offer a way of accomplishing His desire to have that family restored to Him.
Great conversation that I am so glad to have stumbled upon. It seems the distinction between redemptive purpose and eternal purpose is critical. God’s mission is not just for his redemptive purpose but for his eternal. Thus, it is not to get us to a pre-Genesis 3 state because Genesis 2 was not the goal of God’s mission.
It seems much of the missional conversation I am hearing revolves around the healing of the broken world which really is only part of the fruit of the big mission (Jesus’ accomplishing redemption came out of his living as a human for God’s original mission.) What is troubling is that the focusing on the redemptive purpose (and mission) reduces down to a WWJD mindset rather than a living, vibrant relationship with the indwelling Christ.
Am I tracking with you guys?
I usually read these blogs with Wikipedia up so I have some idea as to what some of these words mean, and I’m sorry for the lack of brevity in this reply – but the conversation is very dear to me, and here is why:
Eve (the first woman) is formed from Adam (the first man’s) side. The Church (the bride of Christ) is formed from the second Adam’s (Jesus) side. She’s not some totally “other” creation – She’s taken from out of His side. She is a part of Him – and Him a part of Her. Only “together” are they one or whole.
The goal is love, relationship, companionship, interaction, “togetherness”, “wholeness”. … (it is not good for man to be alone)
Come to find out – He is so much more than a husband – and She is so much more than a wife. Their relationship causes reproduction – and He becomes a father – and She – a mother. Children are brought into that “relationship”, that “togetherness”, that “oneness”. Their house is filled with happiness and laughter (children) – and lots and lots of things to do….
I understand – that from here an analogy can break down quickly. However …. a couple of observations:
1. She is NOT merely a reproductive machine – and the means to His end goal of filling the earth and subduing it. She is His lover, His companion, His friend, His “wholeness”, etc. If She NEVER has a baby – that will remain unchanged.
2. But… She does have babies – and they were never meant to be brought into anything except – love, companionship, relationship, wholeness, oneness. In fact, the “healing” of the broken – is to find these things that He created when He created Her for Himself. We are healed only when we find what He created us for (Him and Her), and become a part of that interaction.
3. That interaction between Him and Her (when it is as He created it to be), will ALWAYS reproduce. It’s an abnormality for it to be otherwise (many of our modern “churches”). (Sure there are lots of babies out there – born totally out of context of that union – and wondering what in the world they are here for)
It’s only the union of Him and Her – where (true) mission actually even is created or even can exist.
Ecclesiology (ideally) is concerned with “Who SHE is” – and (ideally) is concerned with what, how, when, where … that union exists between Him and Her. Mission – apart from that context – is illegitimate.
My context: “Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him, “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?” (Mt 26:52-54)
Relationship can ALWAYS trump mission – but instead becomes the very thing that causes it to happen.