Mission – The Organising Principle

By MICHAEL FROST

 

I am regularly asked to define what I mean by the phrase missional church, and when I'm asked I get the impression people are looking for a description of a new ‘model’ or a particular style of church. Used to recent innovations like the seeker-sensitive church, the mega-church, the emerging church etc, they assume the missional church must be another such newly minted approach that can be described in a few brief statements. My standard answer is to say that a missional church is any church that allows mission to be its organising function. It's not about a particular style of worship or an innovative mode of leadership. It's not even concerned with any particular set of creedal statements. Any church of orthodox biblical beliefs can, in theory at least, become missional.

 

A MAJOR REORIENTATION

Missional church is not a new trend or the latest new technique for reaching postmodern people. It is a way of doing and being church that transcends the particular predilections or preferences of its members. It is a radical challenge to many churches because it is not proposing an ‘add on’ to what that church might currently do. It is proposing a complete reorientation of the church, a reshaping of its life, a rediscovery of mission as the activity around which everything else is coordinated. So, what does it mean to make mission the organising function of a church?

ORGANISED AROUND MISSION

It's not uncommon to define church by its functions and the four primary functions that most people seem to agree on are: worship, discipleship, fellowship and mission. Any church that isn't serious about all four of those functions isn't being all that the New Testament anticipates a church should be.

 

When I talk about mission being the organising function, I am not proposing that it become the most important function or even its highest priority. I am simply suggesting that we allow the mission of the church to organise how we worship, how we equip disciples, and how we build community.

 

The idea of an organising function is not that foreign when you think about it. We have allowed worship to be the organising function for hundreds of years now. We disciple believers by teaching them the Bible, and the reformers placed the chief Bible-teaching tool, the sermon, right in the middle of the worship service. Worship organised discipleship. Likewise, the experience of Christian fellowship was mediated through our joint participation in worship together. Worship organised community. And of course we have often allowed worship to organise our mission by boiling mission down to recruitment and then telling our members to go out and invite all their friends and family to come to church on Sunday. Many traditional churches allow the biblical function of worship to organise their conduct of the other functions.

 

A missional church is one that wants to experiment with what it would look like if mission was made the organising focus, without dominating the other functions of church life. First, though, we need to broaden our idea of mission. Rather than simply seeing it as the recruitment of non-believers into church worship services, I suggest we see mission in the broadest sense, as both the announcement and the demonstration of the lordship of Jesus. It is not simply competition with other religions, or expanding the faith, or building up the kingdom or social or political activity, although there

is merit in all these things. In the broadest sense (to quote David Bosch), ‘mission is, quite simply, the participation of Christians in the liberating mission of Jesus, wagering on a future that verifiable experience seems to belie. It is the good news of God's love, incarnated in the witness of a community, for the sake of the world.’ ¹

 

Therefore, the Church is not called so much to ‘undertake’ mission, but to be constituted by the mission of God, anchored in the coming reign of Jesus. This isn't to disregard the missionary activities of the Church, but to understand that they must be allowed to be subsumed by the broader mission of God.

 

Mission, then, is an expression of worship. The interconnections are obvious when you start looking for them. Jesus told his disciples, ‘A new command I give you: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.’² When we experience the unconditional love of Jesus, it will be expressed as love for others. Here is an indissoluble union between worship and community. When unbelievers observe this love it becomes missional. Thus the Christian community witnesses to the reign of God. In these two verses I defy you to unravel worship, community, discipleship and mission from each other. In this way, when I feed the hungry in Jesus' name, I am worshipping God. So it is when I shelter the homeless or visit those in prison. Indeed, in his parable of the sheep and the goats, Jesus says, `whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me'.³ These missionary activities are subsumed under the broader mission of God.

 

This might seem like rudimentary ecclesiology, but it's important to understand these foundational assumptions from the outset. When I argue for a mission-shaped church I am not saying that mission ought to take priority over worship, community or discipleship. I am not even arguing for a mission-­centred church, as some have presumed. I don't see how it's possible not to be a worship-­centred church. Or a community-­centred church. Or, for that matter, a discipleship-centred church. I believe all four functions lie at the centre of the church and are deeply reliant upon, and stimulated by, each other.

 

It's not about deciding which function to put at the centre. Nor is it about which function should take priority. It's impossible to separate them anyway, and not only theologically. It is impossible to separate them in the practice of ministry.

 

What's the harm in imagining what could happen if we let other activities be oriented around mission? For example, think about your experience (if you've had one) on a short-term mission trip. The team's life is organised around mission, and yet the team still finds time to worship, perhaps each morning at the team devotions and planning meeting. Likewise, although the daily activities are orientated around mission there

is a deep bond of community that usually develops among team members. And most people who've been on such trips say they matured greatly as a disciple of Jesus because of their experience.

GETTING BACK TO PAUL

Likewise, in missional churches worship, fellowship and discipleship still occur, but they are catalysed by and organised around the missional task at hand. Worship might not happen on Sundays at 10.00am. Bible-teaching might not occur via a sermon in the worship service. Community won't simply be a cup of tea after

 church. But worship, discipleship and community will still happen. Indeed, I suspect they will happen more richly and more effectively when catalysed and organised by the mission of the church. This more closely approximates to the experience of the early church and forms a much more helpful framework for making sense of Paul's letters to the churches.

 

A NEW WAY OF DOING CHURCH

Missional church is not just about doing church services in a cafe or a pub. It's not to be limited to any new technique or strategy. It's about a congregation of believers allowing their worship life, their sense of community and their processes for discipling each other to be organised by the specific mission to which God has called them.

 

To (mis)quote Mr Spock, ‘It's church, Jim, but not as we know it’.

 

¹ David J Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission American Society of Missiology), Orbis Books,   1992 American Society of Missiology), Orbis Books,  1992

 

² John 13:34,35

 

³ Matt 25 40