Every Believer Called to Mission

From the Forum Magazine, Spring 2016 - view the full issue here

A few months into my job I had several encounters with local CRC pastors that have proved helpful to me in my new position as the professor of missiology and missional ministry at Calvin Seminary. “I have a church filled with really good folks,” the pastor will say to me. “They are hard-working, generous and eager to lend a helping hand to those in need. The only challenge is that they are insular as a group and are not good at reaching out to others.” 

This communal trait is not an isolated phenomenon among CRC churches in Grand Rapids or, for that matter, in Christian communities throughout North America. Decades before Darrell Guder and his colleagues coined the term “missional” in the late 90’s, Hendrik Kraemer, J.H. Bavinck and Lesslie Newbigin critiqued the “introverted” and “insular” Church in the West that had separated Christian identity from God’s mission, and called for a missionary encounter with Western cultures and not just far-off lands. Being a Christian means that there is an inherent, intentional calling of every follower of Jesus to live under the reign of God in every area of their lives: home, work, and public spaces. Being a Christian means we are called to seek opportunities to share with others the good news of what God has done in Jesus to rescue us and this world from the tyranny of sin, Satan and death.

There is a lot that these missionary theologians have to teach us about how to see ordinary events of daily life as opportunities to show how the Lordship of Jesus can bring shalom into our jobs, neighborhoods, and cities today. But faithful discipleship today requires more than simply restating what has been said in the past; it requires the courage and imagination to be guided by tradition as we attempt to follow the Holy Spirit’s leading in our contexts today. Scripture, the Holy Spirit, and the community of believers are needed for such a calling.

In 2013, the Institute for Global Church Planting and Renewal hosted the Missional Reading of Scripture conference at Calvin Seminary. Plenary speakers N.T. Wright, Christopher Wright, Darrell Guder, and Michael Goheen explored how the Bible not only conveys Christian truths and moral principles but also tells the story of God’s ongoing mission in the world. Like any good piece of literature, they argued, this unfolding biblical story invites the church into this drama as we participate in God’s mission in the world today. Reading Scripture as a story of God’s mission helps us make sense of the Bible and of our world today. But this hermeneutic also raises practical questions as we move from Bible reading to faithful living in our context today.

The 2015 Missional Living of Scripture conference revolved around this central question: what does it look like to align your ministry with God’s creative and redemptive work in your city? The conference gathered ministry practitioners, scholars, students, and community members to examine the way God’s mission impacts our day-to-day life, our ministries, and  our cities.

Speakers came from divergent contexts, both rural and urban, in Latin America, Europe, and North America. The diversity of contexts and experiences provided stories, frameworks, and practical tools for ministry and preaching. A few examples from the conference speakers will offer a taste of the rich experience. Christopher Wright and Michael Goheen explored the relationship between biblical interpretation (hermeneutics) and Christian living (mission and ethics). Ruth Padilla DeBorst drew on her current ministry in Costa Rica to show the ways in which faithful discipleship requires an embodied prophetic critique of the prevailing cultural milieu in Western society. Ida Kaastra-Mutoigo discussed community development through the work of World Renew; Eric Jacobsen discussed a missional theology of place and practical ways of analyzing the built environment of the neighborhoods around our churches; and Christopher Brooks drew illustrations from his pastoral work in Detroit, Michigan as he put forward a holistic approach to ministry in his urban context.

After the conference I received an email from an evangelical pastor who attended the conference that reminded me of why I was first drawn to the Reformed tradition during my early ministry days. The email read:

“I have always been drawn to the Neo-Calvinist tradition and this conference reminded me why. [It] was utterly unique … there are plenty of conferences that celebrate reformed theology and gospel-centered piety, and there are others that talk about social justice, others which talk about worship, preaching and mission, and still others which talk about the intersection of faith and culture. But, the conference at Calvin Seminary uniquely brought all of these themes together … and within the context of a rich and beautiful liturgical experience.”

Reading this email inspired me to reflect on why my wife and I felt called to join the Christian Reformed Church and the faculty of Calvin Theological Seminary. God has called his church to play an integral part in his mission in the world. This mission is cosmic: encompassing the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus in word (evangelism), deed (justice, mercy and love of neighbor), and our communal life (the pursuit of shalom). Given this reality, places like Calvin Seminary have a strategic role to play in helping support churches that desire to be faithful participants in God’s mission. This requires finding ways of nurturing Christian leaders to embody a deep and winsome Reformed theology and missiology in the contexts to which God calls them. 

The Institute for Global Church Planting and Renewal at Calvin Seminary seeks to be a critical link between academia and the church, enabling the seminary to learn from the needs of the church so that it can provide theological resources to help the church address the pressing issues in our world today. Embodying this posture of learning is a vital quality of the kind of Christian hospitality that the Institute seeks to cultivate. As the director of the Institute, I look forward to learning from pastors and local church leaders as we seek together to cultivate faithful communities of Christians whose rich theological heritage gives shape to an embodied life together that blesses all nations and peoples. In the weeks ahead please visit the forthcoming blog, www. theologyfromtheroad.com to find out more about the work of the Institute for Global Church Planting  and Renewal.