The church is a footnote to following Jesus

The essence of a missional vision is to align with the purposes of God. But what does that mean? Working toward such an alignment forces a congregation to answer two questions:

Where does the congregation locate itself? What is the congregation’s self-identity?

Location is about more than a street address. It is about investigating how the church locates itself between the culture it’s in and the reign of God that forms it.

All our congregations and all parts of the church need to ask about our relationship to the culture. Is our church accommodated by the culture? Does it uncritically embrace the values and obsessions of the culture? Is it “at home” with the myths and ideologies of the culture? Is it captive to the aspirations and interests in the culture?

Or do we see our congregation as a pilgrim community, a community of exiles whose allegiance is to another sovereign, one whose citizenship is in another kingdom? Are we a people whose membership is defined not by race or ethnicity or ties of blood and nationality but by our common submission to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, in whom there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male and female?

Separation of church and state: Since the midpoint of the third century of the Christian movement, the alliance between the church and the power of the state gave birth to what we now call Christendom. The state became increasingly identified as Christian. The church increasingly became a chaplain to the state’s interest, providing ritual blessing to the emperor and offering prayers for the state’s interests.

This relationship between church and state led to the church’s inability to function in a missional capacity in the culture. Progressively the church lost its critical distance from its culture and its ability to do other than champion the interests of the state. This unholy alliance between the church and the culture lasted for almost 1,000 years.

The advent of the Reformation at the midpoint of the second millennium seemed to hold a promise that the church would recover its pilgrim identity and sever its compromised relationship with the state. Unfortunately, despite the reasons and energy with which they severed their relationships with Rome, Martin Luther, John Calvin and, tragically, Ulrich Zwingli could not disengage from their identification and alliance with the state.

The church, even for these ardent Reformers, was identified with geographic location and physical space. The phrase “Eius regio, cuius religio” (to each region its own religion) became the norm. The church’s identity and membership was defined by the bounds of the emperor’s rule or by national political boundaries.

This preoccupation with geography led to the elevation of sacred space: The church became the building. Church buildings became the visible expressions of faith, the defining symbols of the society’s religious affiliation. Church no longer represented the community of those gathered around Jesus, who pledged allegiance not to temporal rulers and their earthly kingdoms but to God and the purposes of God’s kingdom in the world.

Moving again toward missional: In the Radical Reformation Anabaptists seemed ready to follow its logical and faithful conclusion what it meant to pledge allegiance to God’s kingdom and to follow Jesus in life. These radical reformers were determined, despite enormous cost, to disengage from the unholy alliance with the state. Their thoroughgoing biblical commitment led our forebears to a serious exploration of Jesus’ definition of the identity of Christian communities as those who are “in the world but not of the world” (John 17:16-19).

One consequence of the commitment to live out the implications of this confession is that the Anabaptists were one of the first groups since the early church to recover a missional consciousness that gave energy to fresh mission initiatives.

Missional people understand that the church happens where the Messianic ministry of Jesus is exercised, where the people of God understand their call in light of God’s purpose, where witness is made to Jesus Christ and where service shaped by God’s intent for healing and hope in the world is offered and the consequences joyfully accepted.

This means the church is a footnote to following Jesus. Jesus did not establish the church or a specific church. He did not organize local congregations. He did not appoint disciples to different ministries within elaborate structures. He did not convene a synod. He did not set a budget. He did not indicate what kind of sanctuary people should use to worship. Jesus didn’t even take offerings.
This is not to suggest that Jesus was an accidental figure who was so movement-oriented that he despised organizations or institutions. Jesus saw himself as the fulfillment of the Messianic expectations of the Jewish people. He understood that in his incarnation God was inaugurating a new dispensation called the kingdom of God. In him the hopes of Israel were being realized.

When his ministry began, Jesus called together a following community of 12 disciples. Jesus provided the activity around which this community’s life was organized. He announced the kingdom, fed the hungry, engaged sinners and the marginalized and healed those who were diseased. When he called the disciples to announce the gospel, they proclaimed Jesus as the good news of God’s making in a broken and hurting world.

The community, then, is Christ-centered. It is not the emperor or a building that shapes the identity of the Christian community but Jesus.

The way the Messianic community is constituted makes it impossible just to enjoy its existence without active participation in its ministry. The fruits of the Messiah’s own ministry are not gifts intended to be cherished as personal possessions but are intended as power for a cause.

Some perceptive scholars have said the book of Acts could be read as the Acts of the Spirit.

In Acts 1:8, Jesus said, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” The Spirit is the power at work through the disciples.

From its beginnings, the church appointed fallible men and recognized the ministries of frail women. Under the power and the leadership of the Spirit, the witness of generations of fallible women and men was made effective; soon all of Asia Minor and many regions in Europe had heard of the Messiah and accepted his lordship.

The missional character of the church is found here: We are born into the church by the Spirit of God, who empowers every believer to be a “sent one” who gives witness to Jesus, the Messiah.

The New Testament uses two words to describe the church. We are most familiar with “ekklesia,” a dynamic, organic concept that means the “assembly of the chosen or called-out ones,” referring to the gathering of ones chosen to vote or determine the future of the “polis.” When used of the church, it refers to the assembly of those chosen for a specific purpose—to witness to God’s kingdom.

The other word used in the New Testament to refer to the church is “paroikia” (“the house added to the others”). That means the church exists for the sake of the others. The real object for the church is the nations, the whole of humanity. All God’s plans and all God’s initiatives are directed toward announcing, demonstrating and working out his purposes as well as symbolizing it with a fitting celebration that anticipates and invites all humanity (Revelation 7:9).

Viewing the church as “paroikia” means the church is not the center and not an end in itself. It is temporary. Praise and worship of God is what is permanent.

It also means we take the society to which the house is added as seriously as we can. It is a call to intentional, imaginative engagement. The missional church vision is the vision for a community that is attentive to what God is doing in the world.

The church of Christendom allowed itself to become a servant of the status quo. The missional church we envision and seek to embrace is, by God’s Spirit, an agent of transformation—an instrument of healing and hope—overcoming racism and xenophobia, caring about the hungry and the oppressed, ministering to the unloved and the lost.

We must live by the new kingdom values reflected in the life of the Messiah, who announced that the Spirit called him to announce good news to the poor, to bind up the brokenhearted, to set at liberty the oppressed, to give recovery of sight to the blind and to announce the year of God’s forgiveness, welcome, love and grace to all people (Luke 4:18-19).

That same Spirit waits to empower us for our witness in the world.

Stanley Green is executive director/CEO of Mennonite Mission Network.