I’m not sure if I would have read On the Side of the Angels, by Joseph D’Souza and Benedict Rogers, if I hadn’t been sent a review copy. Heck…I hadn’t even heard of it. After reading it, I hope that neither of those statements will be true for others.

The subtitle is Justice, Human Rights and Kingdom Mission, and that captures what this book is about very well. I get discouraged when mission is limited to evangelism. There is a growing understanding that mission encompasses more, but that is also causing some to speak out and emphasize evangelism over a more wholistic understanding of mission.

On the Side of the Angels serves as a good introduction to the importance of justice and human rights within mission. It offers some accessible and foundational theology alongside stories of the broken structures of our world.

A few quotes that capture the heart of the book:

“Far too many Christians in the world today are engaged in a mission consisting soley of words, ‘preaching good news’ and ‘proclaiming freedom.’ That is a curious departure from the example of the early church, and it seems to be a development of a more modern mission trend, where ‘verbalizing’ the Christian faith is seen as the only way of representing and witnessing to Christ in our world.” (pg. 16)

“Evil is present in the world not only in our individual hearts but also in structures and systems designed to oppress, degrade, abuse, and kill others. If we are not intentional about bringing change and transformation into both lives and societies, it will not happen. To love people is to act on their behalf.” (pg 176)

The picture to the right is Lesslie Newbigin. It’s not exactly the kind of picture that will score an author a big book deal these days. Glance at the back cover of the best sellers rack, and you’ll see lots of hip, yet pensive, looking people. Or perhaps pensive, but hip.

Lesslie doesn’t really look like either. That’s why you should read his books.

With a growing list of books that I want to read, I’m accepting the reality that I’m not going to read them all. In fact, I’m finding freedom in saying no to many so I can say yes to the best. New books about how a church should, could, or might engage with it’s culture come out every week. Some are good. Some are fluff. But so many owe the origin of their thinking, at least some of it, to Lesslie Newbigin.

Newbigin’s bio will tell you all you need to know about why you should read him. You can find a good summary on WIkipedia, but for the sake of summarizing said summary… Newbigin was raised in the UK but spent 33 years in India in the middle of the 20th century. When he returned to the UK in 1974, he saw how much it had changed. In his time away, the UK, like much of Europe, had moved the Christian faith from the center of culture to the edge.

His experiences in India helped him to see the UK in a way that others could not. It was Newbigin who helped shift Christianity to see that it must rethink how it must engage with culture from the margins instead of the center. It is a message that the church, including me, is still trying to learn.

So where should you start? Thanks for asking. The Gospel in a Pluralist Society is considered his most important work, with Foolishness to the Greeks getting mentioned a lot too. Those are the two I’ve read so far. My buddy Todd has a series of posts interacting with The Open Secret and mi amigo Dean loved Proper Confidence. And if you’re on a tight budget (and have an aversion to libraries), you can always dip into the hundreds of article available for free on Newbigin.net.

Get your Lesslie on.

(This post is part of a series reflecting on David Bosch’s six distinctives for a missiology of Western culture. See the introductory post for a little background.)

A mission to the West will have to be ecumenical.

Yesterday, I sat in a room full of Austin pastors, most of them in recently planted churches. I have come to know a number of them in my time here, and I’m thankful for their hearts. They were from a wide variety of denominational, and theological, backgrounds. (Chris Marlow also blogged about it this morning.) Our conversation focused on the history of Austin, and how a spirit of cooperation among the churches has not always existed. I’m proud to be part of a group of pastors who are focused more on our shared mission, and less on our differing theologies and practices.

In the mid 90s, my wife and I had the chance to go to Nepal. A friend led the trip and I recall several conversations with him focusing on the nature of denominations in Nepal. At that time, there weren’t any, and I remember him wanting to do all he could to help protect the church in Nepal from any sense of difference within.

I’m not one to rail on denominationalism. But, I can also agree with Bosch when he asserts that “an explicitly critical attitude toward denominationalism, something we not only invented for ourselves but also exported to the ends of the earth.”

I am blessed by the relationships I have with other Austin pastors, as well as nationwide through Ecclesia Network. These are relationships where there is potential for theological disagreement here and there. Yet we agree on a core orthodoxy, and beyond that, we agree on, and unite in the Missio Dei.

Next post: contextual

(This post is part of a series reflecting on David Bosch’s six distinctives for a missiology of Western culture. See the introductory post for a little background.)

a mission to the West must be countercultural, though not in an escapist way

I wasn’t planning on spreading the posts in this series a week apart. But, maybe it’s providence, since we had some discussion last night that stirred some thinking for me on this topic.

A few years ago, I sat in one of my core classes at Mars Hill called Faith, Hope, and Love. The lecturer was Dan Allender, and the class served as the foundation for much of the theology (and therapy) that was taught there. In our first session, we watched a few clips from The Lion King that focused on interactions between Rafiki and Simba.

As we discussed the clips, the idea emerged that Rafiki was seen as a fool, yet his words had invited Simba to desire and hope. His folly was a subversive invitation to life. Dan went on to make the following comments (though he said them in the context of therapy, I think they hold true for the church as well):

The work of a therapist is to be a fool. In that foolishness is the breaking and transforming of paradigms. Rafiki has reframed reality and in that has told a deeper truth then what could be viewed as nominative truth. Yet, in play a therapist knows how to play with reality.

In the Old Testament, we see the prophets often acting in ways that seemed foolish to those who heard them…and even to us today. I wonder what it means to have a missional stance of a prophet toward our culture. Not as the angry prophet who denounces all, but as the fool — the voice that is engaged with culture in ways that sound insane, but invites us to abandon our destructive patterns in the pursuit of life.

Next post: ecumenical

(This post is the introduction to a series reflecting on David Bosch’s six distinctives for a missiology of Western culture. See the end of the post for links to the rest of the series.)

David Bosch was a missiologist in South Africa who died in 1992. A car accident took his life only a year after he published Transforming Mission — a monumental work which I blogged about last January.

Not long ago, I came across a used copy of Believing in the Future: Toward a Missiology of Western Culture. This was an essay Bosch wrote and presented in 1992, and then was published as a short (69 pages) book a few years after his death. (Since Eugene Cho once told me he only reads books by dead guys, I’m hoping he will consider Bosch if he hasn’t already.)

To state it too simply, Bosch says that the church in Western culture must view it’s work as mission in the same way it views mission to other cultures. Chapter 4 is entitled Contours of a Missiology of Western Culture, and I think it is one of the most important chapters I have ever read when it comes to thinking about the church. I had to restrain myself from highlighting too much.

Equally striking was the conclusion, where Bosch touches briefly on six other elements he thinks are necessary to develop a true missiology of Western culture. He was writing ideas in 1992 that are just starting to make their way into mainstream church conversation in the last few years. He mentions that our missiology must be ecological, countercultural (though not escapist), ecumenical, contextual, a ministry of the laity, and it must flow from a local, worshiping community.

I resonate with these ideas so much that I’m going to try to do a series on them in the days, or maybe weeks, to come.

Update — Here are the links to each post in the series:

• ecological
• countercultural
• ecumenical
• contextual
• laity
• a local, worshiping community

Many of my conversations with other church planters of late have centered around worship services/gatherings. I am usually the one raising the topic as I have been curious to learn from the experiences of others as we shape our strategy for Austin Mustard Seed.

One thing has been significant in these conversations. I’ve talked to several planters who think they started doing their public gatherings too soon, sometimes much too soon. It seems that the weight and the expectation that comes with a worship gathering overpowers the intimacy that existed prior to it. While I have talked to others who don’t feel that way, I have yet to talk to someone who thought that they waited too long before they launched public gatherings.

Some go so far as to not have worship services at all. I don’t fit in that camp, because I think there is something to be said for the collective coming together to celebrate the work of God in a community. I think is it important for all of us to recognize that we are a part of something bigger than we are — bigger than we are able to control or manage.

The question for me has been shifting in emphasis from when to what. In our efforts to do the best possible gathering, it can become a black hole. The gravity of what is required draws resources and energy, and attention is easily diverted from both relationship and mission. The church loses focus on itself as a community, and church becomes something we go to.

Knowing that this gravity exists, I have been wondering how it might be possible to put it to use. When spacecraft are to be propelled great distances, they often use the gravitational pull of the sun or a planet to gain momentum. As they whip around the large object like a sling shot, they are hurtled off in a new direction with greater speed. What might it look like to have worship services function as missional gatherings of this nature? What could it mean to use the large gathering not to draw in all of our resources, but to refocus and hurtle the body back out to be the sent people of God?

I’m sure that few would disagree with my thinking on this. So how does our language or our gatherings need to change? How do we need to restructure of our gatherings to create an outward momentum rather than an inward pull?

As we call people (back) to faith in God through Jesus Christ, we must help them to articulate an answer to the question ‘What do we have to become Christians for?’ At least part of the answer to this question will have to be: ‘In order to be enlisted into God’s ministry of reconciliation, peace, and justice on earth.’ It should be natural for Christians to be committed to these values. In a sense … there is already very much believing in Western society. What we do not need, then, is to introduce more religion. The issue is not to talk more about God in a culture that has become irreligious, but how to express, ethically, the coming of God’s reign, how to help people respond to the real questions of their context, how to break with the paradigm according to which religion has to do only with the private sphere.” — David J. Bosch, Believing in the Future

‘Mission’ is a word that spans the total distance between God and the world’s salvation. The whole dynamic of the church’s life may be conveyed by this single verb.” — Paul S. Minear in Images of the Church in the New Testament

“The goal of our missional life is not to grow churches. The goal of church is to grow missionaries. The goal of the gospel is not to get people to church. The result of the gospel is that people will find each other and gather because of the deep meaning of a common experience.” (pg 168)

While reviewing some of my underlines after reading The Tangible Kingdom, the quote above stood out. It seemed to capture the main ideas of the book so well.

For anyone who appreciates the writings of Michael Frost or Alan Hirsch (The Shaping of Things to Come, The Forgotten Ways, Exiles), I’d recommend The Tangible Kingdom. As I’ve described it to a few friends, it is a book written from the firsthand of experience who has started a faith community here in the United States holding on to many of the concepts that Frost and Hirsch offer in their writings. However, it isn’t written as a prescription. Though he offers lots of personal illustrations, Hugh Halter does a good job of emphasizing practically how things might shape without creating a model to be followed.

On the crest of a starting a new church community, the arrival of this book was beautifully timed for me because it expresses so well a lot of things I’ve been thinking about … and develops some thinking beyond where I’ve been able to take it. It will be a book I will ask our board and our core group to read as we dream forward.

Oh yeah, and it’s endorsed on the back cover by both Mark Driscoll and Brian McLaren. How many books can you say that about?

Belong. Believe. Become.

I think it was first in The Divine Conspiracy that I read the words above. Since then, I have heard the concept developed in many books, presentations, and discussions.

The core idea is that this is a healthy way for one to move into the community of those who follow Jesus — the church. Rather than trying to force people to become an acceptable person before they are part of the community, they should be allowed to belong, and then be transformed within the community. Not a bad idea.

This morning, I feel like it is incomplete. I’m wondering what it would mean to include because somewhere in there — probably in the first spot. The invitation of the church to the world is not just that they might receive something from the church. It is not that they would just be saved. The invitation of the church is to come alongside as we partner with God for the redemption of creation. Here’s how Lesslie Newbigin says it in The Gospel in a Pluralist Society:

To be chosen, to be elect, therefore does not mean that the elect are the saved and the rest are the lost. To be elect in Christ Jesus, and there is no other election, means to be incorporated into his mission to the world

I spent most of this week at the Ecclesia National Gathering. Ecclesia is a relational network of churches who seek to be joined first and foremost in shared mission. I dig that. As we are moving into church planting, I have sensed a desire to be a part of something bigger than we are and not just go it on our own. To be joined with others where our primary commonality is mission seems to me to be finding union in what should be most important.

If that goes for churches that are connecting with others, shouldn’t that go for individuals as well?
There are people all around us who are disconnected from any church, but care about many of the things that God cares about — from global inequalities to environmental abuse to personal wholeness. What would it mean for a church community’s primary stance toward those outside of the church to be an invitation to join with others in causes of shared concern?