Thursday 14 July 2011

Theology of Tailored Missions

Most Christian leaders - and most thoughtful Christians - are aware that God is a God of mission.  It is known as the missio dei.  God has a purpose that relates to his world in which we live.  All Christians are called to share in that purpose in some way.  There are a few things that stand in the way of this being fully realised.

"Church" is the context in which we not only enjoy fellowship and engage in worship, it should also be the place where individual gifts are recognised, and where they can be developed.  It should also provide the context in which they are being deployed.  However, there are scores of things that take up our time and other resources within church life so that mission is pushed down the agenda.  Many of these are valid activities, so we are often doing what we ought to do but at the expense of the one thing we should be doing.

Passages such as 1Corinthians 12 that speaks about the "body of Christ", Romans 12 and Ephesians 4 make us aware that there is considerable diversity when it comes to the gifts and roles given to various Christians.  Helping people to recognise their gifting, or how their gifting has developed or changed can be demanding of our time.  Most rural church leaders are already overloaded with work so if this task depends on them it might not get done.

If we do go down this road of affirming gifts and roles could there be a danger of things getting out of control?  Yes if we are not prepared to manage the process properly.  But dare we let the Holy Spirit really work in our congregations to release more ministry?

Discovering how the different gifts work together is another challenge.  If it is true that God has a unique purpose for every individual Christian within his mission then it follows that every local church is a combination of these uniquely enabled Christians.  If the sovereignty that bestowed these gifts also put them together in a local church then this also has a purpose - a unique collective purpose for every individual church in God's plans.

Our starting point for developing tailored mission strategies must therefore be to discern what God has put together and how the various parts complement one another in a common aim.


See additional theological reflection below.