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7
Church
What Do We Mean by 'The Church?'
by
David Chronic
Jesus reveals Himself in the world through His body. Jesus is the Word, contextualized anew in each culture and setting through His church. “It is surely a fact of inexhaustible significance that what our Lord left behind Him was not a book, nor a creed, nor a system of thought, nor a rule of life, but a visible community.” The whole core of biblical history is the story of the calling of a visible community to be God’s people, His royal priesthood on earth and the bearer of His light to the nations. The church is the community called to be the living interpretation of God’s story, the hermeneutic of the gospel. The church exegetes God’s vision for the world by incarnating His story in the world. In this way, the Word is spoken in every language in which the church is rooted and contextualized for every cultural situation in which the church lives.
The context of receiving God’s Spirit and mission is the whole community of disciples (Acts 2). Mission is not the calling of a few but of the whole church. Because church and mission belong together from the beginning, “a church without mission or a mission without church are both contradictions. Such things do exist, but only as pseudo-structures.” This is one reason why we resist the para-church paradigm. This paradigm claims that the church has a specific domain cut out from the world in which its pastors or priests serve the spiritual needs of its congregation. Christians may work as Christians outside of the church sphere, but that is “para,” or alongside, the church. This unfortunate mentality drives a thick wedge between church and mission. In contrast to this paradigm, we affirm that the church is missionary by nature. The life of Christians in the world is missionary. The church goes out into the world through its members. The church is not confined by the walls it constructs. That is why churches can be planted in non-Christian organizations, business-places and sub-cultures through the presence of Christians who gather and serve together in the name of Jesus. Although Christians may need to work within the para-church mentality, it is a concession to a disobedient church, not a model for the church.
Some have attempted to work beyond the para-church paradigm, comparing communities such as WMF to monastic orders. Although there are reasons to resist this comparison, there is one strong similarity to monastic orders that we do affirm, namely, our vision of the future. In contrast to the institutional church’s vision that saw the future as the continuation of the present and the establishment of the kingdom of God in the church, the monastic tradition saw the future in radical discontinuity with the present reality and the church as a sign but not realization of the kingdom. The institutional church’s hope for the future legitimized their actions, claims and power in the present. The monastic communities denounced that power, its claims and its legitimacy. Today, that which equates with the institutional church believes in the continuation of the present. Although the future will bring great calamity and destruction, the church’s power in the present will be transferred to its power in the future. Thus, the institutional church defends its power in the status quo.
Like the monastic orders, WMF has a different view of the future. Signs of the kingdom of God are breaking into this world as a pledge and foretaste of its consummation when God will renew all things. The monastic communities call the church to read and explain these signs but not to control them, because all power belongs to the Lamb. Because the kingdom of God subverts all other ultimate claims to power, the monastic communities qualify and at times denounce other claims to and use of power.
The church’s waiting in the present is characterized by its hope for the future. The church is the messianic community that proclaims the Messiah, lives under His anointing and anticipates His return. The church is also messianic in its hope and prayer. We cry, “Maranatha! Come Lord Jesus!” We look to the Messiah’s coming for the complete liberation of humanity and creation, the real exodus from sin and torment, and the real return from exile. The hope of the church is based on what God has already done in Jesus and what He has promised to do. We anticipate (prolepsis) the future promises of God through our present experience.
The church anticipates the return of the Messiah in suffering love. Jesus held out His wounds to his disciples and said to them, “As the Father sent Me, so I send you” (John 20:21). The church is the body of the crucified Christ. Just as the Son was sent bodily into the world, so Jesus sends His body into the world with the promise that it will bear the wounds of suffering love.
The messianic community also anticipates the Second Coming by prophetically pointing to the “not yet.” We articulate the heart of God and express the emotion of God for salvation, justice, holiness and renewal in the world. The disciples of Christ call these things that are not as if they already were (Romans 4:17). This is the prophetic nature of the church. But a world that rejects the Light and chooses the darkness reacts violently against the prophetic. Jesus said, “If they persecuted me, they will persecute you” (John 15:20). We are the body of Christ and therefore bear the marks of persecution (2 Timothy 3:12).
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xv Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralistic Society, p. 222.?
xvi David Bosch, Transforming Mission, p. 372.
xvii The following could also be said of Ralph Winter’s sodality (missionary band/modality ecclesial structure) proposition; see Winter’s “The Two Sructures of God’s Redemptive Mission,” http://www.uscwm.org/mobilization_division/resources/web_articles_11-20-01/Two%20Structures%20for%20Mob%20/two_structures.html. While the terminology is helpful, one still asks what is the connection between sodalities and modalities??
xviii 2 Corinthians 1:21
xviv Galatians 6:17; I Thessalonians 2:15
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Comments
Greg Carlson
A paper like this is greatly needed! When working with young adults in the Christian Ministries dept. at Trinity, many have a need to wrestle with ecclesiology. In fact, I would like to use this article for my Intro to Ministry class.
Ralph Neighbour
I would agree with this but feel it does not go far enough. The Basic Ecclesia is the literal body of the Son, the Christ, on the earth today. It permits the Son to penetrate a segment of the world that is attached to the body members through relationships and/or geography. The role of Christ today is not to send his followers as salesmen to speak of Him, but rather to so inhabit and empower his ecclesia that He Himself will be manifested, revealing His Presence and Power. He Himself is the Witness. 1 Corinthians 14:24-26 clearly spells this out. I have written, over four years of pondering and study, a special treatise on this subject: "Christ's Basic Bodies." It is my earnest prayer it will lead to further awareness that the ecclesia is the most sacred treasure of God on the face of the earth today.
Antony Billington
Unfortunately, the pdf link doesn’t work.
David Befus
Where do all the resources spent on buildings fit in?
David Chronic
thanks Q for posting this article, and thanks for the comments! Ralph: great ideas on Christ as the witness. That is a beautiful image. This is what I was attempting to point towards in what I said about "indwelt", but you are right that I need to go further. Antony: you can find the full article on the wordmadeflesh website. David: I used to be adamantly against the buildings...and I still think many in the west are wrong-headed in their constructions. but I do think we need to consider building institutions (buildings included) that sustain and support missional communities. (see Hunter's "Change the World").
Gemechu
Its interesting.bless you.
Colby
Exeetmrly helpful article, please write more.
Comments are now closed
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