I am participating in a conversation based upon the book Missionshift: Global Mission Issues in the Third Millennium. The book is published by B&H Academic and edited by David Hesselgrave and Ed Stetzer.
Missionshift takes a look at missions in the past, present, and future. Each topic has a main essay followed by several responses. Several of us have been asked to reflect upon each of these essays along with their respondents.
The official description of the book is as follows:
“Veteran missionary David Hesselgrave and rising missional expert Ed Stetzer edit this engaging set of conversational essays addressing global mission issues in the third millennium. Key contributors are Charles E. Van Engen (“Mission Described and Defined”), the late Paul Hiebert (“The Gospel in Human Contexts: Changing Perspectives on Contextualization”), and the late Ralph Winter (“The Future of Evangelicals in Mission”). Those offering written responses to these essays include: (Van Engen) Keith Eitel, Enoch Wan, Darrell Guder, Andreas J. Köstenberger; (Hiebert) Michael Pocock, Darrell Whiteman, Norman L. Geisler, Avery Willis; (Winter) Scott Moreau, Christopher Little, Michael Barnett, and Mark Terry.
Thoughts on Charles Van Engen’s essay entitled “’Mission’ Defined and Described”
Van Engen says (p. 12), “The authority of the mission enterprise is not the denomination, mission agency, self-proclaimed apostle, large relief agency, or a more advanced culture. The Sender is Jesus Christ, whose authority defines, circumscribes, limits, and propels Christian mission.” I understand the foundation of what Van Engen is trying to say, I think, yet it reminds me of Physics class – all these facts are true in a vacuum. How many times am I doing anything in a vacuum? In the mission opportunities I have been involved in, I felt the way Van Engen described, but I felt alone in that understanding. You aren’t getting very far without agency and denomination support.
Van Engen mentions Neill’s warning several times: “when everything is mission, nothing is mission.” The confusing part is that our mindset should be all about mission. Or is it all about missional. I loved the description provided on pages 24-25 describing a missional church. This are things the church should be all the time. So is that making everything mission?
His definition of mission on page 27 is too much. K.I.S.S. is what I was taught in journalism. This definition must be simplified if doing mission is to be practical.
Eitel’s response to Van Engen:
Eitel helped me to better understand Van Engen’s points of the source of the sending out. I appreciated his explanation. I felt that he provided a good understanding of Van Engen’s points, while knocking him a little for overgeneralization.
Eitel said (p.34), “Creative tensions without biblically firm boundaries will result in compromises that undermine the message we have to offer to the world.” What a valid statement in a world of emerging and emergent churches.
Eitel treats likens current trends to distance for ecclesiastical authority with the counterculture movements of the 60s and 70s. Nice idea. Big Brother = Demonization. That melting pot of inclusivism we see in current thinking I believe leads Eitel to state (p. 35-36), “Highly individualized theological opinions are considered valid and real even if they may conflict with the Bible.”
My concerns I feel are echoed in Eitel’s words concerning the modern churches seeming embarrassment of the Gospel message to the point of watering it down to acceptable levels.
Wan’s response to Van Engen:
I appreciated Van Engen’s word studies of the Greek foundation of “mission” in the New Testament. I also agree with Wan in wishing Van Engen hadn’t stopped before unpacking the full Trinitarian aspects of his word studies. He provided the foundation and never built the rest of the structure. Wan picks this up and runs with it.
I appreciate the length Wan goes to in describing the Trinitarian relationships found in Van Engen’s references. However, his illustration borders on confusing in itself.
Wan brings up the point (p. 45) I was trying to make earlier about everything we do should be with a focus on mission. He says not to focus everything on the career missionary when a major portion of Christ’s calling is towards the individual believer and their daily walk.
Wan’s definition of “mission” is getting closer.
Guder’s response to Van Engen, Eitel, and Wan:
I think I would appreciate Guder’s coments under his heading “The Promise of Missional Hermeneutics” if I could actually understand what he said. I guess my M.Div. is not sufficient to follow his dialog.
Guder agrees with Wan’s emphasis of Trinitarian thought. I appreciate the way he connects that Trinitarian emphasis with the fact that God works in individuals but it is the body of those individuals that make up the church and corporate mission. Guder says that Paul did not say the toes carried out their mission and the elbows carried out their. No, the body carried out its purpose.
The remainder of Guder’s response seems to have some great points that were weighed to heavily down by academic defense. The conclusion of his response turns to a argument for the inclusion of Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics which I never saw the importance in the argument here.
Köstenberger’s response to Van Engen, Eitel, and Wan:
I love the way Köstenberger interacts in this conversation by listing twelve theses as guideposts in the discussion. While I may not agree 100 percent one each one of them, they sure provide great groundwork for understanding mission.
- The church’s mission – in both belief and practice – should be grounded in the biblical theology of mission.
- Reflection on the church’s mission should be predicted on the affirmation of the full and sole authority of Scripture.
- The church’s mission should be conceived primarily in terms of the church’s faithfulness and responsiveness to the missionary mandate given by the Lord Jesus Christ as recorded in Scripture.
- The church’s understanding of its mission should be hermeneutically sound.
- The church’s mission is to be conceived ultimately in theocentric rather than anthropocentric terms.
- The church’s mission, properly and biblically conceived, is to be Trinitarian in its orientation but not at the expense of neglecting the distinct roles of the three Persons within the Godhead.
- The contemporary context of the church’s mission, while important, ought not to override the church’s commitment to the authority of Scripture, its need to be grounded in the biblical theology of mission, and the understanding of its task in terms of faithfulness to the gospel.
- The church is the God-ordained agent of His mission in this world today.
- The way the kingdom of God is extended in this world today is through regenerate believers acting out their Christian faith in their God-assigned spheres of life: the church, their families, their workplaces, the societies in which they live.
10. There is no true lasting social transformation apart from personal conversion through repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
11. Human organization is perfectly compatible with an acknowledgment of God and his initiative in mission.
12. The church’s task today is to nurture, renew, and plant churches composed of a spiritually regenerate membership and constituted in keeping with the biblical teaching regarding church leadership.
Stetzer’s response to Van Engen, Eitel, Wan, and Köstenberger:
Stetzer adds significantly to the discussion in bringing out why even defining “mission” is important to begin with. Believers need to work together to complete the work God has given us to do in this world. Can we work together in doing that?
I understand where Stetzer is coming from in his responds to Eitel. I agree that Eitel seems to have a “thorn in his side.” But I also feel that the warning Eitel proclaims is definitely a warning and should not be taken too lightly.
Stetzer spends some “quality” time dealing with Köstenberger. Just like I indicated in my review of Köstenberger’s comments above, I don’t agree 100 percent, but I like the guideposts he provides. Stetzer, however, seems to take issue with what lies beneath those guidepost statements. My concern is that Stetzer wants to open the door a little wider than is acceptable. His focus seems to be on the freedom or “creative” aspects of modern missions. This is where I see the need to keep the warnings provided by many of these reviewers close at hand.
I don’t’ know why, but the picture of the middle age guy who uses hair gel to look cool, when the real goal is to cover thinning hair. I just had that image in my mind when I read and reread Stetzer comments on Köstenberger. It is a let the young guys do their thing. We have to interact with the current generation in different ways, practical ways, but not at the expense of the gospel. I never felt Stetzer going there, but I did feel him dancing close a time or two.
I agree with Stetzer’s closing comments about Van Engen original essay. Stetzer makes a very valid point, of which I am most guilty, of the need to recognize that someone can be right on one point and wrong on another. I tend to through the baby out with the bath water most of the time.
