God for the World —Church for the World: The Mission of the Church in Today's World, by Shirley C. Guthrie,

Session 1

Getting Started: Which Church? Whose Mission?

You Will Need:

• Bibles
• Book of Confessions
• Newsprint and markers (optional)

Introduction

The world—and space—abounds with missions. NASA has its mission control. Right now, somewhere, there is a military person on a reconnaissance mission. Somewhere, perhaps in a retirement community for church workers, someone is writing his or her memoirs, which the writer fondly refers to as "my mission stories."

And you, with this book, are about to begin a series of discussions about the mission of the church in today's world. Before we can jump to those discussions, we must first know what we mean by church and talk about its mission. The purpose of this first session is to develop a common understanding of these two key words: church and mission. Don't even think about yawning; there may be more to these words than you might expect.

The Church

Assignment 1. What comes to your mind when you hear the word church? Make a list.

What comes to your mind when you think about the church? Some people may think first of a building. For instance, "I belong to the First Presbyterian Church at the corner of Main and Elm Streets." Or, "I left my coat at the church."

Others think about people--the people in their local congregation whom they know and who are missed when they are not in "their pew" at worship services, or in the church school class, or at family night supper. "Where is Miss Sally today? Is she sick?" "Have the Johnsons gone to visit their children in Kansas City?" "I haven't seen the Kims in worship lately."

Some think about an institution. Asked what "the church" says about some theological, ethical, or political issue, for instance, they talk (approvingly or disapprovingly!) about what the pope says in Rome, or the Southern Baptist Convention, or (if they are Presbyterians) what the presbytery or General Assembly has said about it.

Some (at least eventually with a little prodding) may think about the worldwide community of Christians that includes all Christians in all the different churches all over the world -- the church we confess when we say we believe in the "one, holy, catholic church."

In different contexts and situations, different pictures come to mind when we talk about church. That is also true of the way we will use the word in this study. We will always keep in mind both a narrower and broader definition:

1. We will think first of all about a local community of Christians -- your church -- that has a mission to fulfill in the city, town, or countryside where you live.
2. We will be thinking of a particular denomination, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), a "community of communities" in partnership with one another in presbyteries, synods, and the General Assembly to fulfill a mission in our own country and around the world greater than any single congregation can fulfill alone.
3. We will be thinking about the worldwide family of churches in the Reformed-Presbyterian tradition. Denominations in the Reformed-Presbyterian tradition have their origin in the Swiss Reformation and especially count John Calvin as the founder of the tradition. More than three hundred churches in North America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Central and South America belong to the World Alliance of Reformed Churches. Some bear the name Presbyterian and some the name Reformed, but they have in common their distinction from churches in other traditions (such as the Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Anglican-Reformed, or Baptist).
4. We will also be thinking about all the other Christian denominations and traditions around the world that are called to bear witness to and serve the one God we all confess in our different ways, the God we come to know in the pages of the Old and New Testaments.

Before we are finished, we will also have to talk about the relation between the Christian religion and the other great religions of the world. Christians make up only about one-third of the world's population, but the God we believe in is at work also outside the Christian circle among people of other religions and people with no religion at all. Part of the church's mission is to discern and bear witness to what God has done, is doing, and promises to do among them, too.

The "Mission" of the Church

Assignment 2. What comes to your mind when you hear the word mission? Make a list.

What comes to your mind when you think about the church's mission? Many of us probably think first of "missionaries," people the church supports to take the Christian gospel to people in other parts of the world. We think of what we used to call "foreign missions" and now call "global or worldwide missions." While missionaries are an essential part, the church's mission is far more than what a few especially called people do "over there" or "out there" somewhere.

If we are to understand the church's mission in a larger and deeper sense, we have to do three things:

1. We have to listen again to what mission means in the Bible;
2. We must criticize a disastrous misunderstanding among churches in the Reformed-Presbyterian tradition (as well as other churches) that crippled their mission; and
3. We must pay attention to the way the church in our time has rediscovered the original understanding of the church and its mission.

If you look up the word mission in a biblical concordance, you will find very few entries. But if you look up send, sending, or sent, you will find several pages of references. To have a mission is to be given a task that a person or group of people is sent to fulfill. That is also our ordinary understanding of the word. We speak of a "diplomatic mission" that a representative of a nation fulfills abroad, or of a "military mission" of American troops, or of the "mission" of the Red Cross in a disaster area. What is unique in a biblical-theological understanding of mission is who does the sending, who is sent, and what they are sent to do. In this case it is God or Jesus who sends, and those who are sent are sent to do something very specific God calls them to do.

Keep in mind that in the Reformed-Presbyterian tradition, it is the community who validates the call. That is, both the individual and the community feel God's call for a particular person for a particular task. So we often speak of a part of the church calling someone to a task. This could be a part of the church outside the PC(USA). God often calls through community.

When God calls us and sends us out, we are not necessarily sent out alone. Jesus sent disciples out two by two (Luke 10:1-11). Sometimes we are called to go with, or alongside, someone else.

We find the "sent out" theology of mission throughout the Bible. In the Old Testament, God told Abraham to get up and leave home, and sent him to a new land with the promise and command that through Abraham and his descendants "all the families of the earth shall be blessed" (Gen. 12:1-3). Later, through the prophet Isaiah, God promised to send a "Servant" through whom the people of Israel would be a "light to the nations" (Isa. 42:6; 49:6). God not only promised to be Israel's God and go with them on their way but also gave them a task to fulfill in the world.

In the New Testament it was, most important, Jesus who was sent by God. He was sent to announce and bear witness to the coming of the kingdom of God and the rule of God's justice and compassion in and for the world. Then Jesus called and sent out his disciples to share his mission. In other words, Jesus and his followers were sent to be "evangelists" who gave witness to the good news (evangel) of what God was doing and promised to do through them. Or, to use another New Testament word, they were called to be apostles, a word that means "people who are sent."

Assignment 3. Look up and discuss these passages: Luke 4:42-44; 10:1-11; John 3:17; 4:34; 5:30; 20:21; Matt. 10:5-10; 28:18-20; Acts 1:6-8. Who does the sending? Who is sent? What are they sent to do?

According to the New Testament, if we want to talk about the mission of the church, we have to talk first of all about the mission of Jesus, then understand the mission of his followers in light of his mission. That is what we will talk about in the next session. Before that, we have to identify and correct the misunderstanding of the church that we mentioned.

According to John Calvin and the early Reformed confessional statements of the Reformation period, the "marks" or distinguishing characteristics of a true church are "pure" preaching of the word of God and the "right" administration of the sacraments, with proper church discipline sometimes added.

Assignment 4. Using a copy of the Book of Confessions, look up how the definition of a true church is expressed in the Scots Confession (written in 1560), Chapter XVIII par. 3.18; and in the Second Helvetic Confession (1566), par. 5.004, 5.125, 5.134-135, 5.165.

This orthodox doctrine of the church is still present in confessional statements in our time. What is wrong with it is not what it says, but what it does not say. It says nothing about the church's having a task or mission to fulfill in the world. Some have argued that the reason for this omission is that Calvin and his early followers were necessarily so preoccupied with reforming the church from within that they had no time to think about the church's mission in the world outside the church. Others have argued that the early Protestants assumed that the New Testament emphasis on the missionary task of the church was no longer necessary since Europe (their "world") had already been Christianized. In any case, talking about the church only in terms of what goes on inside the church led to two misconceptions that became actual barriers to the church's understanding of itself in terms of its missions.

In the first place, thinking of the church only in terms of preaching, sacraments, and internal discipline resulted in the idea that the main function of the church is to tend to the spiritual and psychological needs of its own members. It encouraged people to join the church only because of what it has to offer them and do for them and their families. The orthodox definition of the church, in other words, led to what some theologians in our time have called "consumer religion" or "narcissistic Christianity" that asks only what I "get out of" joining and belonging to the church and how it "pays off" in my life.

Second, thinking of the church only in terms of preaching, sacraments, and internal discipline led to a disastrous split between clergy and laity -- between "professional" Christians on the one hand, who do the preaching and administer the sacraments and pastoral care; and laypeople on the other hand, who have nothing to do but listen to what the preacher says, receive the sacraments, and receive the pastoral care the minister offers. If the church has a task to fulfill outside the inner circle of church members at all, it is the task of "paid Christians," hired to do God's work in the world on behalf of its members, who have only to enjoy the "benefits" of being Christians and belonging to the church. Active clergy and passive laity, first- and second-class Christians -- that is what the orthodox definition of the church could and often did lead to.

A New Understanding of the Church and Its Mission

In the twentieth century, Reformed-Presbyterian churches (along with most churches in other Christian traditions) rediscovered the original New Testament understanding of what God calls and sends the church to be and do.

In the first place, we learned that to be a Christian, and to be a Christian church, is not just to enjoy our fellowship with other Christians and to enjoy all the good things God promises to give us and do for us. To be a Christian is to be given a mission to fulfill in society and the world around us. Christians enter into the company of God's people by baptism, hear God's word preached, are nourished on their way by the Lord's Supper, and discipline their lives in order to be sent back into the world as servants or "ambassadors" of Christ (2 Cor. 5:20). They are people who believe in and follow the Christ who came not to be served but to serve and give his life for the world (Mark 10:45). Christians believe in the Christ who said to his followers not only, "Come to me . . . and I will give you rest" (Matt. 11:28), but "Go!" Jesus said in John 20:21, "As the Father has sent me, so I send you" (John 20:21). To be a Christian is to be called out of the world in order to be sent back into it with a job to do. It is not only to be blessed, loved, and saved by God but also to be a blessing and to love and serve the world God loves and plans to save.

Assignment 5. Look up and discuss how this new understanding of the church is expressed in The Confession of 1967, 9.18 and 9.31-33. Who sends? Who is sent? What are they sent to do?

Second, we have learned (are beginning to learn!) that the mission or sending of the church is given not just to a few extraordinary Christians with a special calling but to the whole Christian community and all its members. Only a few may be called to stand behind a pulpit or baptismal font or Communion Table. Only a few may be called to be a missionary to Africa, Asia, or Arizona. But the task and privilege of the ministry of reconciliation is given to all Christians, clergy and laity alike. Every Christian is called and sent out to be a missionary, minister, servant of God -- "evangelist" -- not just part-time but full-time, whatever his or her occupation. This means you too!

Assignment 6. In the Book of Confessions, look up and discuss how this understanding of the church's mission is expressed in A Brief Statement of Faith (1991). Once again: Who sends? Who is sent? What are they sent to do? How is this statement of the church's mission like that of The Confession of 1967? How is it different?

We will talk in future sessions about just what the church (including yours) is called to do to fulfill its mission in the world and how we can go about it. But first we have to talk about what the good news is that we are called and sent to bear witness to. That is what we will do in the next session.

For Further Reflection and Study

1. In what ways, if any, has your understanding of the word church been changed by what you have read so far in this study?
2. What are some examples of "consumer religion" or "narcissistic Christianity" in the life of American churches today? Are there evidences of it in the Presbyterian Church? What about your congregation?
3. What do you think about the idea that every Christian and church member is called to be an "apostle" of Jesus Christ and an "evangelist" who bears witness to the good news about God in Christ? In what ways could--or should--you fulfill that calling in your daily life?

Study Helps

Be My Witnesses, by Darrell L. Gruder (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1985).

The Great Commission: Biblical Models for Evangelism, by Mortimer Arias and Alan Johnson (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1992).

How Shall We Witness? Faithful Evangelism in a Reformed Tradition, edited by Milton J. Coalter and Virgil Cruz (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995).

Great resource books for mission and evangelism.

Book of Confessions: Study Edition (Louisville: Geneva Press, 1999).

This study edition includes all the confessions in the Book of Confessions, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), with a brief introduction to each discussing its historical context and main characteristics. It also includes a document, "The Confessional Nature of the Church," which will be helpful to those who are interested in the distinctive characteristics of the Reformed-Presbyterian tradition in general in relation to other Christian traditions.

Christian Doctrine: Revised Edition, by Shirley C. Guthrie (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994).

Faith Seeking Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Theology, by Daniel L. Migliore (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1991).

These books were written for laypeople and beginning theological students and provide help in dealing with theological issues that arise.

Mission Yearbook for Prayer and Study (Louisville: Mission Interpretation and Promotion, Congregational Ministries Publishing, PC(USA), 2000).

Available from Presbyterian Distribution Service, this publication celebrates the national and international mission and ministry of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). It presents the presbyteries and synods, the overseas mission and partnerships, and the work of the General Assembly Mission Council. The inclusion of prayers, lectionaries, hymns, and minutes for mission makes this a valuable resource for daily prayer.

Turn to the Living God: A Call to Evangelism in Jesus Christ's Way (Louisville: Office of the General Assembly, PC(USA), 1991).

This forty-page document is a resolution adopted in 1991. It would be a helpful companion for teachers and students of this study of the mission of the church.

Leader Helps

Choose the activities that are best suited for your group and the amount of time available.

1. Welcome the group. Explain that this study will help us look at the mission of the church in today's world. If the participants do not know one another, have a time for introductions and getting acquainted. Discuss any ground rules or provide information particular to your group and setting.
2. Open with prayer. Ask for the presence of the Holy Spirit who may guide you throughout the study to new insights and deeper levels of understanding.
3. Do Assignment 1. List on newsprint what comes to mind when people hear the word church. Remind the participants of the end of the Apostles' Creed, where it says, "I believe in the holy catholic church . . ." Ask what the holy catholic church means. (Answer: The worldwide community of Christians.) Discuss the meanings of church from the narrow to the broad as described in this study.
4. Do Assignment 2. What comes to mind when you hear the word mission? Bring out what the writer says about mission.
5. Do Assignment 3. Look up the Bible passages and answer questions contained in the assignment.
6. Do Assignment 4. Ask someone to read from the Book of Confessions. The writer of this study says that something is left out of these definitions of "true church." What does he say was left out? (Answer: The church's task or mission.) The writer says that thinking only in terms of what goes on inside the church can lead to two barriers to mission: consumer religion and a split between clergy and laity.
7. Reflect on the study. Discuss question 2 in For Further Reflection and Study.
8. Do Assignment 5. Have one volunteer read from The Confession of 1967; then discuss the questions.
9. Do Assignment 6. Read especially lines 52-76 from A Brief Statement of Faith in the Book of Confessions.
10. Reflect on the study. Discuss questions 1 and 3 in For Further Reflection and Study.
11. Prepare for the next session. Ask the participants to read session 2 before the next meeting.
12. Close with prayer.