Liberating Mission

Excerpt from Ed Stetzer:  Monday is for Missiology:  Missional Voices II

Roxburgh amends the "gospel, church, culture trialogue" to reflect his aforementioned themes in another type of "relational" triangle:
In this paradigm, Roxburgh claims the whole of the missio Dei is about what God is doing in all of creation. The calling of the church is to ask the larger questions of what God is doing in the creation and to be the "sign, witness, and foretaste of that work."

According to Roxburgh, so much of the missional conversations in North America place the church as the "goal, end, subject and purpose," and "this preoccupation continues to prevent Christians in North America from engaging the kind of missionary dynamic Newbigin so eloquently presented to us." [3] At the same time, he affirms the function of the church in mission:

The argument here is not to diminish the incredible dignity, vocation and, even, ontological priority of the church. This acting and working of God in Christ is in and through the church. The church is that which has, even before the creation itself, been in God's purposes in terms of how the work of Christ is made tangible and expressed in creation. [4]

Alan and I have only met once when we led the "Beyond the Church Doors" conference sponsored at Dallas Theological Seminary. I found him to be a deep thinker and a challenging communicator. I have read (I think) all of his books and use them when I teach on the missional church.

Alan Hirsch
Another of today's leading missional practitioners, Alan Hirsch, is the founding Director of Forge Mission Training Network, co-founder of shapevine.com, and author of such books as Untamed: Reactivating a Missional Form of Discipleship, co-authored with Deb Hirsch (2010), ReJesus: A Wild Messiah for a Missional Church, co-written with Michael Frost (2008), The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church (2006), The Shaping of Things to Come: Innovation and Mission for the 21st-Century, co-written with Frost (2003), among others. His writings have been widely cited in assisting the church as it sorts through the intersection of Christology, missiology, and ecclesiology within today's evangelical landscape.

In his book ReJesus, Hirsch cites the same Trinitarian grounding of the missio Dei by Bosch that Guder does earlier, but Hirsch reflects the fullness of Bosch's expansion of the missio Dei to another "movement." In Transforming Mission, Bosch writes, "The classical doctrine of the missio Dei...[is] expanded to include yet another 'movement': Father, Son, and Holy Spirit sending the church into the world." [5] Hirsch is quick to assert that it is important to see the cycle continuing with the triune God sending the church into the world, while at the same time, refusing to revert to the previous ecclesiocentric approach.

Once the missio Dei becomes the framework for mission, Hirsch believes that the subsequent role of the church is participation in the liberating mission of Jesus (referred to by the Latin term participati Christi). Hirsch echoes Bosch:

Mission takes place where the church, in its total involvement with the world., bears its testimony in the form of a servant, with reference to unbelief, exploitation, discrimination, and violence, but also with reference to salvation, healing, liberation, reconciliation, and righteousness... Looked at from this perspective, mission is...the participation of Christians in the liberating mission of Jesus...It's the good news of God's love, incarnated in the witness of a community, for the sake of the world. [6]

Therefore, according to Hirsch, the church is not a religious institution but rather a vibrant community of believers who partake in the way of Jesus and his work in the world. Further, he argues that the function of the church is "humble participation in his grand scheme -- the kingdom of God. We neither determine our own agenda nor merely imitate God's, but rather participate in the marvelous plan of God according to his call and guidance." [7]

Hirsch warns that it is a great error to equate the church with the kingdom of God. In his paradigm, the kingdom is much broader than the church-- in a cosmic sense. He writes, "The church is perhaps the primary agent in the kingdom but must not be equated with it. We need to be able to see the kingdom activity wherever it expresses itself and join with God in it." [8] In a recent article in Leadership Journal, Hirsch asserts that the mission is an instrument of the church, a means by which the church is grown. But, he writes, to say the "church has a mission" is incorrect. [9] According to missional theology, Hirsch says, the more correct statement is "the mission has a church." [10]