Rev. Matt Lacey of UMVIM recently hosted an online workshop entitled "What Is Mission?" featuring guest speakers Rev. Carol Lakota Eastin and Dr. David W. Scott, blogmaster of UM & Global. The 50-minute-long video features conversation among the three about the nature of mission, formative experiences in mission, and how congregations can engage in God's mission in the current context. Of particular interest in this workshop was conversation about the relationship between Native Americans and Christian mission. The video is recommended for congregational groups and school settings alike.
Dedicated to fostering conversations about the global nature of The United Methodist Church
Showing posts with label defining mission. Show all posts
Showing posts with label defining mission. Show all posts
Friday, November 4, 2022
Recommended Viewing: What Is Mission UMVIM Workshop
Monday, October 7, 2019
Defining Mission: Conversation
The following post is based on excerpts from UM & Global blogmaster David W. Scott's book, Crossing Boundaries: Sharing God's Good News Through Mission.
In Crossing Boundaries, I lay out a new definition of mission: Mission is cultivating relationships across boundaries for the sake of fostering conversations in word and deed about the nature of God’s good news.
While a full understanding of that definition and its practical implications for mission work in congregations is best grasped by reading the book, this series of blog posts briefly examines the four components of this definition – good news, relationships, crossing boundaries, and conversation. This post will examine the component of conversation.
Previous posts in this series have described how mission involves cultivating relationships across boundaries. Yet we cultivate those relationships not just for their own sakes, but for the sake of understanding the good news.
Understanding that good news is a process of mutual learning, not a monologue in which we seek to unload our information on others. You can’t have a true conversation if only one person is talking, or if one person is not listening when the other person talks. True conversation only happens when both sides talk and both sides listen.
Thinking of mission in this mutual way is a challenge for many Christians engaged in mission. Whether we think of mission as helping or mission as evangelism, there is a tendency for Western Christians to think of mission as a one-sided process. All too often, the attitude of Western Christians to their mission partners is “We have money, schools, medicine, etc., which we will give to you. We have the right understanding of God, which we will give to you. We do not need to receive anything from you.”
To see mission in this one-sided way is to misunderstand mission for a whole host of reasons. To be in mission, we must be willing to listen and receive, not merely talk and give. Listening and receiving recognizes the worth of others and the assets that others have. It affirms the genuineness of our relationship with them. It even helps us better understand the work God is doing and calls us to do in mission.
Listening to others recognizes the ability they have to discern the ways in which God is at work in their contexts (and perhaps ours, too!). Because mission begins with God, not with us Christians, God is already at work in all contexts before any missionaries show up. Missionaries never bring God to a context; they always go to join in what God is already doing.
Especially when our mission partners are Christians (which they often are, both domestically and abroad), we should expect them to have the same ability to perceive God’s action in the world as we do. Their level of material wealth, health, education, etc. in no way limits their ability to perceive God at work. The ability to perceive God is a spiritual ability, not an economic or social ability. Indeed, sometimes being more vulnerable or marginalized allows people to notice God in ways that those who are distracted with security or privilege overlook. One’s economic or social standing does not indicate one’s standing with God.
Regardless of assets, privilege, or religious affiliation and belief, we should expect everyone to have a unique view of God and God’s actions in the world that will be different than our own. This conclusion follows because everyone’s view of God is shaped by his or her unique life experiences and by his or her particular context.
While others may not be able to see God in some of the same ways we do, they will also be able to see God in ways that we cannot. Thus, there are things we will have missed about God and God’s action that they will have seen from where they are sitting. We can learn from those insights.
Thus far, I have talked about conversation as taking place between two sets of participants—us and our mission partners. This two-sided model needs expanding, though. for two reasons. Mission involves conversations between all mission partners, and between humans, the Bible, and human contexts. We should not presume that all those going out in mission nor all our mission partners have the same things to contribute to a conversation. Each person involved in mission has their own unique contribution to make to the conversation, whether missionary or mission partner.
Moreover, the conversation of mission does not just take place between people. The conversation of mission is also a conversation with God and with human contexts. God is an important part of the conversation because the conversation is about God’s good news. If we want to know more about God’s good news, then we should be willing to listen to God and share our understandings, hopes, fears, and confusions with God.
The conversation is also a conversation about the meaning of God’s good news in particular contexts. Thus, we need to pay attention to how our mission partners’ contexts and our own contexts shape the conversation in ways that go beyond the viewpoints of particular individuals. The previous post in this series discussed the significance of contexts.
Chapter 6 of Crossing Boundaries: Sharing God's Good News Through Mission is dedicated to helping congregations and individuals engage in such conversations about God’s good news with their mission partners. It includes practices to incorporate into good conversations, spiritual temptations to avoid in conversations, how actions can function as a form of conversation, and specific models of organizing mission-related conversations.
It is my prayer that the definition of mission laid out in this series of blog posts and the practical guidance in how to implement this definition that is given in Crossing Boundaries itself will help congregations and individuals engage in mission with renewed confidence and enthusiasm and to experience the rich spiritual blessings that come from doing so.
In Crossing Boundaries, I lay out a new definition of mission: Mission is cultivating relationships across boundaries for the sake of fostering conversations in word and deed about the nature of God’s good news.
While a full understanding of that definition and its practical implications for mission work in congregations is best grasped by reading the book, this series of blog posts briefly examines the four components of this definition – good news, relationships, crossing boundaries, and conversation. This post will examine the component of conversation.
Previous posts in this series have described how mission involves cultivating relationships across boundaries. Yet we cultivate those relationships not just for their own sakes, but for the sake of understanding the good news.
Understanding that good news is a process of mutual learning, not a monologue in which we seek to unload our information on others. You can’t have a true conversation if only one person is talking, or if one person is not listening when the other person talks. True conversation only happens when both sides talk and both sides listen.
Thinking of mission in this mutual way is a challenge for many Christians engaged in mission. Whether we think of mission as helping or mission as evangelism, there is a tendency for Western Christians to think of mission as a one-sided process. All too often, the attitude of Western Christians to their mission partners is “We have money, schools, medicine, etc., which we will give to you. We have the right understanding of God, which we will give to you. We do not need to receive anything from you.”
To see mission in this one-sided way is to misunderstand mission for a whole host of reasons. To be in mission, we must be willing to listen and receive, not merely talk and give. Listening and receiving recognizes the worth of others and the assets that others have. It affirms the genuineness of our relationship with them. It even helps us better understand the work God is doing and calls us to do in mission.
Listening to others recognizes the ability they have to discern the ways in which God is at work in their contexts (and perhaps ours, too!). Because mission begins with God, not with us Christians, God is already at work in all contexts before any missionaries show up. Missionaries never bring God to a context; they always go to join in what God is already doing.
Especially when our mission partners are Christians (which they often are, both domestically and abroad), we should expect them to have the same ability to perceive God’s action in the world as we do. Their level of material wealth, health, education, etc. in no way limits their ability to perceive God at work. The ability to perceive God is a spiritual ability, not an economic or social ability. Indeed, sometimes being more vulnerable or marginalized allows people to notice God in ways that those who are distracted with security or privilege overlook. One’s economic or social standing does not indicate one’s standing with God.
Regardless of assets, privilege, or religious affiliation and belief, we should expect everyone to have a unique view of God and God’s actions in the world that will be different than our own. This conclusion follows because everyone’s view of God is shaped by his or her unique life experiences and by his or her particular context.
While others may not be able to see God in some of the same ways we do, they will also be able to see God in ways that we cannot. Thus, there are things we will have missed about God and God’s action that they will have seen from where they are sitting. We can learn from those insights.
Thus far, I have talked about conversation as taking place between two sets of participants—us and our mission partners. This two-sided model needs expanding, though. for two reasons. Mission involves conversations between all mission partners, and between humans, the Bible, and human contexts. We should not presume that all those going out in mission nor all our mission partners have the same things to contribute to a conversation. Each person involved in mission has their own unique contribution to make to the conversation, whether missionary or mission partner.
Moreover, the conversation of mission does not just take place between people. The conversation of mission is also a conversation with God and with human contexts. God is an important part of the conversation because the conversation is about God’s good news. If we want to know more about God’s good news, then we should be willing to listen to God and share our understandings, hopes, fears, and confusions with God.
The conversation is also a conversation about the meaning of God’s good news in particular contexts. Thus, we need to pay attention to how our mission partners’ contexts and our own contexts shape the conversation in ways that go beyond the viewpoints of particular individuals. The previous post in this series discussed the significance of contexts.
Chapter 6 of Crossing Boundaries: Sharing God's Good News Through Mission is dedicated to helping congregations and individuals engage in such conversations about God’s good news with their mission partners. It includes practices to incorporate into good conversations, spiritual temptations to avoid in conversations, how actions can function as a form of conversation, and specific models of organizing mission-related conversations.
It is my prayer that the definition of mission laid out in this series of blog posts and the practical guidance in how to implement this definition that is given in Crossing Boundaries itself will help congregations and individuals engage in mission with renewed confidence and enthusiasm and to experience the rich spiritual blessings that come from doing so.
Monday, September 30, 2019
Defining Mission: Crossing Boundaries
The following post is based on excerpts from UM & Global blogmaster David W. Scott's book, Crossing Boundaries: Sharing God's Good News Through Mission.
In Crossing Boundaries, I lay out a new definition of mission: Mission is cultivating relationships across boundaries for the sake of fostering conversations in word and deed about the nature of God’s good news.
While a full understanding of that definition and its practical implications for mission work in congregations is best grasped by reading the book, this series of blog posts briefly examines the four components of this definition – good news, relationships, crossing boundaries, and conversation. This post will examine the component of crossing boundaries.
Last week’s post in this series described the importance of relationship for mission. Yet mission involves something more than just relating to those we already know who are like us in almost every way. It involves being sent across human boundaries to form relationships with those who are different from us.
To the extent that we have relationships, they are probably with people who are similar to us: people of our same race, same social class, same religious beliefs, same political views, etc. Research has shown that people even tend to form friendships with people who have a similar level of attractiveness!
For Americans, the trend to surrounding ourselves with people who are predominantly like us has increased in recent decades, driven by increased mobility, among other factors. New technologies have reinforced our tendencies toward self-selection and self-segmentation. We now use social media to surround ourselves with only the voices and views of those who are like us.
Yet Jesus makes it clear that we must love more than just the members of our own in-group. In the Sermon on the Mount, he says, “If you love only those who love you, what reward do you have? Don’t even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing? Don’t even the Gentiles do the same? Therefore, just as your heavenly Father is complete in showing love to everyone, so also you must be complete” (Matthew 5:46-48). Those who are like us, those who already love us, certainly deserve our love, but our love must not stop there.
The last verse, rendered in the King James Version as “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect,” was foundational for Wesley’s theology of sanctification. For Wesley, developing spiritually meant not only growing in love for others, but growing in love for others who are different from you.
There are many types of boundaries that Christians can cross in mission nowadays. Those boundaries include cultural, economic, racial, gender, ethnic, political, linguistic, religious, and more types. These boundaries operate on a variety of geographic scales. We can cross these boundaries locally, within our home countries, or internationally. Although the set of boundaries might be different in each setting, boundaries exist in every setting. Whether we are engaged in local, domestic, or international mission, it is clear we must be crossing boundaries for the sake of mission.
When we cross boundaries in mission, we must be prepared to take both similarities and differences seriously. We must always affirm the core similarity of our common humanity with those among whom we are in mission. At the same time, we must take differences seriously, be mindful of them, and reflect on how they shape the nature of our relationships and each partner’s perception of God’s good news.
Here, I am not saying that we should stereotype people based on the differences we first perceive between them and us. The goal of relationship is to move beyond stereotyped and overly simplified understandings of other people. Such understandings are not helpful to true relationship and are instead harmful.
I am, however, saying that we shouldn’t just dismiss the ways in which people are different from us with an attitude of “everyone is the same deep down, so differences don’t really matter.” This approach downplays the significance of real differences in favor of emphasizing projected similarities.
Such an attitude may at times be well-intentioned, but it can prevent us from really understanding others. We impose on them our way of seeing the world instead of trying to understand them on their own terms. Moreover, such an attitude can be perceived as quite offensive by others when we tell them that core parts of their identity “don’t really matter.”
Part of being human is being different from others. These differences come in many forms. Whatever their nature, our differences from other people are part of what makes us who we are. We cannot understand other people without understanding their unique backgrounds, experiences, and situations in life that help make them who they are.
There is a word that describes the setting in life from which people come: context. Context can be defined as the world people inhabit. There are many elements to context: social context, including gender, age, race, ethnicity, and class; cultural context, including language, worldview, and shared references; economic context, including income level, line of work, and economic system; political context, including political affiliations and form of government; family context; and historical context. Additional elements of context could probably be added to this list. My point here is not to be comprehensive but to suggest the complexity of context.
It is important to understand what a context is because contexts matter to mission in at least two ways. First, contexts impact how we develop missional relationships with others. It is impossible to really know and understand someone unless we can understand them as part of their contexts. It is furthermore impossible to have a good relationship with someone whom we do not really know or understand. Therefore, if we want to develop good missional relationships with others, we must understand their contexts.
In Crossing Boundaries: Sharing God's Good News Through Mission, Chapter 5, I describe steps that individuals and congregations can take to better understand their own contexts, the contexts of others, and how those contexts shape our understandings of God’s good news. This chapter aims to help individuals and congregations cross boundaries of difference with greater comfort and confidence, setting them up for successful conversations, the subject of next week’s post.
In Crossing Boundaries, I lay out a new definition of mission: Mission is cultivating relationships across boundaries for the sake of fostering conversations in word and deed about the nature of God’s good news.
While a full understanding of that definition and its practical implications for mission work in congregations is best grasped by reading the book, this series of blog posts briefly examines the four components of this definition – good news, relationships, crossing boundaries, and conversation. This post will examine the component of crossing boundaries.
Last week’s post in this series described the importance of relationship for mission. Yet mission involves something more than just relating to those we already know who are like us in almost every way. It involves being sent across human boundaries to form relationships with those who are different from us.
To the extent that we have relationships, they are probably with people who are similar to us: people of our same race, same social class, same religious beliefs, same political views, etc. Research has shown that people even tend to form friendships with people who have a similar level of attractiveness!
For Americans, the trend to surrounding ourselves with people who are predominantly like us has increased in recent decades, driven by increased mobility, among other factors. New technologies have reinforced our tendencies toward self-selection and self-segmentation. We now use social media to surround ourselves with only the voices and views of those who are like us.
Yet Jesus makes it clear that we must love more than just the members of our own in-group. In the Sermon on the Mount, he says, “If you love only those who love you, what reward do you have? Don’t even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing? Don’t even the Gentiles do the same? Therefore, just as your heavenly Father is complete in showing love to everyone, so also you must be complete” (Matthew 5:46-48). Those who are like us, those who already love us, certainly deserve our love, but our love must not stop there.
The last verse, rendered in the King James Version as “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect,” was foundational for Wesley’s theology of sanctification. For Wesley, developing spiritually meant not only growing in love for others, but growing in love for others who are different from you.
There are many types of boundaries that Christians can cross in mission nowadays. Those boundaries include cultural, economic, racial, gender, ethnic, political, linguistic, religious, and more types. These boundaries operate on a variety of geographic scales. We can cross these boundaries locally, within our home countries, or internationally. Although the set of boundaries might be different in each setting, boundaries exist in every setting. Whether we are engaged in local, domestic, or international mission, it is clear we must be crossing boundaries for the sake of mission.
When we cross boundaries in mission, we must be prepared to take both similarities and differences seriously. We must always affirm the core similarity of our common humanity with those among whom we are in mission. At the same time, we must take differences seriously, be mindful of them, and reflect on how they shape the nature of our relationships and each partner’s perception of God’s good news.
Here, I am not saying that we should stereotype people based on the differences we first perceive between them and us. The goal of relationship is to move beyond stereotyped and overly simplified understandings of other people. Such understandings are not helpful to true relationship and are instead harmful.
I am, however, saying that we shouldn’t just dismiss the ways in which people are different from us with an attitude of “everyone is the same deep down, so differences don’t really matter.” This approach downplays the significance of real differences in favor of emphasizing projected similarities.
Such an attitude may at times be well-intentioned, but it can prevent us from really understanding others. We impose on them our way of seeing the world instead of trying to understand them on their own terms. Moreover, such an attitude can be perceived as quite offensive by others when we tell them that core parts of their identity “don’t really matter.”
Part of being human is being different from others. These differences come in many forms. Whatever their nature, our differences from other people are part of what makes us who we are. We cannot understand other people without understanding their unique backgrounds, experiences, and situations in life that help make them who they are.
There is a word that describes the setting in life from which people come: context. Context can be defined as the world people inhabit. There are many elements to context: social context, including gender, age, race, ethnicity, and class; cultural context, including language, worldview, and shared references; economic context, including income level, line of work, and economic system; political context, including political affiliations and form of government; family context; and historical context. Additional elements of context could probably be added to this list. My point here is not to be comprehensive but to suggest the complexity of context.
It is important to understand what a context is because contexts matter to mission in at least two ways. First, contexts impact how we develop missional relationships with others. It is impossible to really know and understand someone unless we can understand them as part of their contexts. It is furthermore impossible to have a good relationship with someone whom we do not really know or understand. Therefore, if we want to develop good missional relationships with others, we must understand their contexts.
In Crossing Boundaries: Sharing God's Good News Through Mission, Chapter 5, I describe steps that individuals and congregations can take to better understand their own contexts, the contexts of others, and how those contexts shape our understandings of God’s good news. This chapter aims to help individuals and congregations cross boundaries of difference with greater comfort and confidence, setting them up for successful conversations, the subject of next week’s post.
Monday, September 23, 2019
Defining Mission: Relationship
The following post is based on excerpts from UM & Global blogmaster David W. Scott's book, Crossing Boundaries: Sharing God's Good News Through Mission.
In Crossing Boundaries, I lay out a new definition of mission: Mission is cultivating relationships across boundaries for the sake of fostering conversations in word and deed about the nature of God’s good news.
While a full understanding of that definition and its practical implications for mission work in congregations is best grasped by reading the book, this series of blog posts briefly examines the four components of this definition – good news, relationships, crossing boundaries, and conversation. This post will examine the component of relationship.
As the previous post in this series explained, mission is about good news. Restored relationships is one form of good news discussed extensively in the New Testament. If our mission is to be about good news, then it cannot avoid being about relationship as an end of mission and not merely a means.
If we attempt to practice mission without valuing relationship, we have already cut ourselves off from the fullness of God’s good news. As those sent by God in mission, we must cultivate the restored relationships that God desires with humanity and that God desires humans to have with each other.
Moreover, attention to the connection between mission and love helps us further see the relational nature of mission. Mission is an expression of love, both God’s love for us and our love for God and for others. Love certainly involves actions — love that is not expressed is not love—but it is primarily about a relationship, not a task list.
We love our family not just because they’re people for whom we did something nice once, but because we have an ongoing pattern of interactions, emotional attachments, and reciprocal care. In other words, we love our families as part of ongoing relationships, not as a series of separate actions. Moreover, while there is room for intentionality and regularity in our relationships with our family, it would feel unnatural to confine our love for our family to a particular program of actions, say, perhaps serving them dinner (but not eating with them) every other Tuesday evening.
Another Wesleyan theological insight here tempers Wesley’s emphasis on our active response to God’s love. For Wesley, one of the primary ways in which his followers lived out their responsive love and grew in love for God and others was through their relationships with others. Wesley famously wrote, “The gospel of Christ knows of no religion, but social; no holiness but social holiness. Faith working by love, is the length and breadth and depth and height of Christian perfection.”[1]
When Wesley wrote about “social holiness,” he wasn’t referring primarily to social justice or to small-group devotional practices, important as those may be. He was referring to the importance of practicing love in relationships with real, concrete people.[2] It is impossible to love people in the abstract. One can only truly love specific people with whom one interacts.
Thus, when we think about our church’s mission efforts, the first question we ask ourselves should not be “What should we do for mission in our church?” It should be “Whom should we relate to in mission at our church?” This shift from program-based mission thinking to relationship-based mission thinking is one of the most fundamentally important changes a congregation can make in its approach to mission.
It is even better if your church can ask not merely, “What individuals should the individuals in our church related to?” but “What other communities should the community of our church relate to?” Missional relationships are most transformative (for us and others) when they occur not just with individuals but with entire networks.
This notion that mission is first and foremost about relationships may be challenging, especially to Americans. While individuals may differ, American culture often does not value relationships as much as it does other things. It values money; it values material possessions; it values independence; it values achievement. Yet each of these stands in tension with and can undercut relationships. Relationships take time and attention, and often, we find ourselves short of both. This relational understanding of mission highlights just how countercultural God’s mission can be.
Americans’ lack of relationships also points to another truth about mission— our participation in mission is not just how we share God’s good news; it is how we receive God’s good news, too. Thinking about the story of the good Samaritan, often we are the traveler, and allowing ourselves to be befriended by others is how we receive healing and life.
Chapter 4 of Crossing Boundaries: Sharing God's Good News Through Mission includes practical steps that congregations can take as they seek to build mission relationships with others. It also outlines relational pitfalls to avoid in the process, especially pitfalls that arise in building relationships that cross boundaries, the subject of next week’s post.
In Crossing Boundaries, I lay out a new definition of mission: Mission is cultivating relationships across boundaries for the sake of fostering conversations in word and deed about the nature of God’s good news.
While a full understanding of that definition and its practical implications for mission work in congregations is best grasped by reading the book, this series of blog posts briefly examines the four components of this definition – good news, relationships, crossing boundaries, and conversation. This post will examine the component of relationship.
As the previous post in this series explained, mission is about good news. Restored relationships is one form of good news discussed extensively in the New Testament. If our mission is to be about good news, then it cannot avoid being about relationship as an end of mission and not merely a means.
If we attempt to practice mission without valuing relationship, we have already cut ourselves off from the fullness of God’s good news. As those sent by God in mission, we must cultivate the restored relationships that God desires with humanity and that God desires humans to have with each other.
Moreover, attention to the connection between mission and love helps us further see the relational nature of mission. Mission is an expression of love, both God’s love for us and our love for God and for others. Love certainly involves actions — love that is not expressed is not love—but it is primarily about a relationship, not a task list.
We love our family not just because they’re people for whom we did something nice once, but because we have an ongoing pattern of interactions, emotional attachments, and reciprocal care. In other words, we love our families as part of ongoing relationships, not as a series of separate actions. Moreover, while there is room for intentionality and regularity in our relationships with our family, it would feel unnatural to confine our love for our family to a particular program of actions, say, perhaps serving them dinner (but not eating with them) every other Tuesday evening.
Another Wesleyan theological insight here tempers Wesley’s emphasis on our active response to God’s love. For Wesley, one of the primary ways in which his followers lived out their responsive love and grew in love for God and others was through their relationships with others. Wesley famously wrote, “The gospel of Christ knows of no religion, but social; no holiness but social holiness. Faith working by love, is the length and breadth and depth and height of Christian perfection.”[1]
When Wesley wrote about “social holiness,” he wasn’t referring primarily to social justice or to small-group devotional practices, important as those may be. He was referring to the importance of practicing love in relationships with real, concrete people.[2] It is impossible to love people in the abstract. One can only truly love specific people with whom one interacts.
Thus, when we think about our church’s mission efforts, the first question we ask ourselves should not be “What should we do for mission in our church?” It should be “Whom should we relate to in mission at our church?” This shift from program-based mission thinking to relationship-based mission thinking is one of the most fundamentally important changes a congregation can make in its approach to mission.
It is even better if your church can ask not merely, “What individuals should the individuals in our church related to?” but “What other communities should the community of our church relate to?” Missional relationships are most transformative (for us and others) when they occur not just with individuals but with entire networks.
This notion that mission is first and foremost about relationships may be challenging, especially to Americans. While individuals may differ, American culture often does not value relationships as much as it does other things. It values money; it values material possessions; it values independence; it values achievement. Yet each of these stands in tension with and can undercut relationships. Relationships take time and attention, and often, we find ourselves short of both. This relational understanding of mission highlights just how countercultural God’s mission can be.
Americans’ lack of relationships also points to another truth about mission— our participation in mission is not just how we share God’s good news; it is how we receive God’s good news, too. Thinking about the story of the good Samaritan, often we are the traveler, and allowing ourselves to be befriended by others is how we receive healing and life.
Chapter 4 of Crossing Boundaries: Sharing God's Good News Through Mission includes practical steps that congregations can take as they seek to build mission relationships with others. It also outlines relational pitfalls to avoid in the process, especially pitfalls that arise in building relationships that cross boundaries, the subject of next week’s post.
[1] John Wesley, Hymns and Sacred Poems (1739), Preface, page viii, quoted in Steve Manskar, “No Holiness but Social Holiness,” Equipping Disciples, https://blog.umcdiscipleship.org/no-holiness-but-social-holiness/#_ftn2, accessed July 24, 2018.
[2] See chapter 2 of David Field, Bid Our Jarring Conflicts Cease: A Wesleyan Theology and Praxis of Church Unity (Nashville, TN: Wesley’s Foundery Books, 2017), for a good argument about the essentially relational nature of Wesley’s concept of social holiness/social religion.
Monday, September 16, 2019
Defining Mission: Good News
The following post is based on excerpts from UM & Global blogmaster David W. Scott's book, Crossing Boundaries: Sharing God's Good News Through Mission.
In Crossing Boundaries, I lay out a new definition of mission: Mission is cultivating relationships across boundaries for the sake of fostering conversations in word and deed about the nature of God’s good news.
While a full understanding of that definition and its practical implications for mission work in congregations is best grasped by reading the book, this series of blog posts briefly examines the four components of this definition – good news, relationships, crossing boundaries, and conversation. This post will examine the component of good news.
Good news is at the heart of Christianity and at the heart of Christian mission. Mark identifies his account of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus as “the good news about Jesus Christ, God’s Son.” Indeed, the term “gospel,” the name usually given to the biblical books written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, literally means “good news.” Christians believe that the story of Jesus is good news!
For early Christians, this concept was central to how they understood what it meant to be a Christian. Throughout the Acts of the Apostles, there are numerous references to Christians preaching “the good news,” and the apostle Paul refers to himself as one who has been “set apart for God’s good news” (Romans 1:1).
Mission is about God sending good news to the world. Mission begins with God (what missiologists refer to as the missio Dei, the mission of God) and God’s love for the world. The message of God’s love for the world is conveyed by God sending Jesus, God and Jesus sending the Holy Spirit, Jesus sending his disciples, and the triune God sending the church in mission.
Those who are sent by God in mission are sent with a message. Mission is grounded in this message of love that God sends to the world. And this message is not bad news to the world; God is sending good news! We should treat it as such and present it with joy.
Note that it’s not just evangelism that involves good news. All forms of mission should have a component of good news to them. They should be both good and involve something new or not present in that situation before. Thus, good news is not just a narrow formulation of theology but includes the full breadth of God’s loving actions in the world.
Mission thus is centrally about the good news, which is basic to Christianity. Without it, not only would there be no mission; there would be no Christianity. Being a Christian is about claiming the story of God’s good news as the story of our lives as well. It’s about finding our place in the conversation of the saints of all times and places. And it’s about the God who loves us and who, because of that love, came down to earth in the person of Jesus to set us free, heal our wounds, forgive our sins, renew the world in which we live, and restore our relationships.
Methodism has always been clear that while being a Christian involves finding our place in the story of God’s good news, that place is never a solitary one. When we become Christians, when we recognize and respond to God’s gracious love, we are connected to other Christians. We become part of the ongoing conversation of the Christian faith, a conversation in which Christians throughout the world and throughout the ages share their understanding of God’s good news.
Furthermore, when we experience the good news of God’s love, we are compelled to share God’s love with everyone, Christian or not. When we truly experience the good news of God’s love, we want to talk with others about it! We want to know if they, too, have experienced this love, to learn from them if they have, and to encourage them to look for it if they haven’t. Moreover, we want to demonstrate God’s love for others in our actions as well as our conversations. In short, when we truly experience God’s love, we want to engage in mission. Good news is thus both the message of, and the motivation for, mission.
In Crossing Boundaries: Sharing God's Good News Through Mission, Chapter 3 explores the nature of this good news in greater detail. As Christians, we may think we know the good news about which God wants us to engage the world in mission, but the gospel writers don’t precisely clarify what they mean by “good news.”
This chapter looks at four different senses in which the terms “good news” and “gospel” are used in the New Testament: as the Kingdom of God, as freedom from sin, as resurrection, and as restoration of relationship. The chapter then lays out how these different dimensions of good news connect to different dimensions of mission work and why thinking of the breadth of good news requires us to engage in relationships with others as part of our mission work, the topic of next week’s post.
In Crossing Boundaries, I lay out a new definition of mission: Mission is cultivating relationships across boundaries for the sake of fostering conversations in word and deed about the nature of God’s good news.
While a full understanding of that definition and its practical implications for mission work in congregations is best grasped by reading the book, this series of blog posts briefly examines the four components of this definition – good news, relationships, crossing boundaries, and conversation. This post will examine the component of good news.
Good news is at the heart of Christianity and at the heart of Christian mission. Mark identifies his account of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus as “the good news about Jesus Christ, God’s Son.” Indeed, the term “gospel,” the name usually given to the biblical books written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, literally means “good news.” Christians believe that the story of Jesus is good news!
For early Christians, this concept was central to how they understood what it meant to be a Christian. Throughout the Acts of the Apostles, there are numerous references to Christians preaching “the good news,” and the apostle Paul refers to himself as one who has been “set apart for God’s good news” (Romans 1:1).
Mission is about God sending good news to the world. Mission begins with God (what missiologists refer to as the missio Dei, the mission of God) and God’s love for the world. The message of God’s love for the world is conveyed by God sending Jesus, God and Jesus sending the Holy Spirit, Jesus sending his disciples, and the triune God sending the church in mission.
Those who are sent by God in mission are sent with a message. Mission is grounded in this message of love that God sends to the world. And this message is not bad news to the world; God is sending good news! We should treat it as such and present it with joy.
Note that it’s not just evangelism that involves good news. All forms of mission should have a component of good news to them. They should be both good and involve something new or not present in that situation before. Thus, good news is not just a narrow formulation of theology but includes the full breadth of God’s loving actions in the world.
Mission thus is centrally about the good news, which is basic to Christianity. Without it, not only would there be no mission; there would be no Christianity. Being a Christian is about claiming the story of God’s good news as the story of our lives as well. It’s about finding our place in the conversation of the saints of all times and places. And it’s about the God who loves us and who, because of that love, came down to earth in the person of Jesus to set us free, heal our wounds, forgive our sins, renew the world in which we live, and restore our relationships.
Methodism has always been clear that while being a Christian involves finding our place in the story of God’s good news, that place is never a solitary one. When we become Christians, when we recognize and respond to God’s gracious love, we are connected to other Christians. We become part of the ongoing conversation of the Christian faith, a conversation in which Christians throughout the world and throughout the ages share their understanding of God’s good news.
Furthermore, when we experience the good news of God’s love, we are compelled to share God’s love with everyone, Christian or not. When we truly experience the good news of God’s love, we want to talk with others about it! We want to know if they, too, have experienced this love, to learn from them if they have, and to encourage them to look for it if they haven’t. Moreover, we want to demonstrate God’s love for others in our actions as well as our conversations. In short, when we truly experience God’s love, we want to engage in mission. Good news is thus both the message of, and the motivation for, mission.
In Crossing Boundaries: Sharing God's Good News Through Mission, Chapter 3 explores the nature of this good news in greater detail. As Christians, we may think we know the good news about which God wants us to engage the world in mission, but the gospel writers don’t precisely clarify what they mean by “good news.”
This chapter looks at four different senses in which the terms “good news” and “gospel” are used in the New Testament: as the Kingdom of God, as freedom from sin, as resurrection, and as restoration of relationship. The chapter then lays out how these different dimensions of good news connect to different dimensions of mission work and why thinking of the breadth of good news requires us to engage in relationships with others as part of our mission work, the topic of next week’s post.
Monday, September 9, 2019
Defining Mission: Not Just Helping Programs
The following post is based on an excerpt from UM & Global blogmaster David W. Scott's book, Crossing Boundaries: Sharing God's Good News Through Mission.
Christians often interpret mission as helping in programmatic ways. While helping and formal programs are necessarily and always bad, this understanding of mission is limited and potentially problematic.
Thinking of mission as helping programs is limited, because it makes us miss the breadth of God’s mission in the world and the full spiritual significance of joining in that mission. Many Christians would say that we should help others because God calls us to love others. That is true: God does call us to love others. Yet to equate helping and love is to dramatically misunderstand love, both God’s and ours. Helping may be part of love, but it cannot be the entirety of love.
Take as an illustration love as expressed in a marriage. One of my “love languages” in my marriage is doing things for my wife—in other words, helping. Sometimes she really appreciates my help. When she comes home from a work trip and the house is picked up, the laundry put away, the kids have both been bathed, and the lawn is mowed, that can be a big relief for her.
Other times, I think I get more out of doing the helping than she does being helped. That experience also has mission parallels—oftentimes our mission is more about how we feel than the impact on our mission partners.
Yet even when my wife appreciates my help, if helping was the only way I ever showed my love to her, if I never said I loved her, never spent time with her, never gave her gifts, never touched her, I would be more like a handyman and maid than a husband to her. I know that she would not find that a satisfying expression of love and, ultimately, I know I would not either. While I enjoy doing acts of service for her, I know there’s more to the relationship than that, and I want there to be more to the relationship than that.
While marriage is a special relationship, I think this insight applies to other forms of love as well. Others know that we love them not only because we serve them but because we spend time with them, share our treasures with them, and tell them how much they mean to us. Indeed, the ways we can show love to others go well beyond this list of “love languages” for romantic relationships.
Love expressed through service is good, but it is not a complete love. To confine love to helping is a limited understanding of love. In the same way, seeing mission as helping gives a limited understanding of the love God has for us and the love God calls us to share with the world.
Our understanding of mission is especially limited if we think of helping only in programmatic terms. When we see mission as a program, then we limit it to only those times and those places where such programs occur. If mission is a program, then it cannot be a way of life. A way of life happens at all times and in any place.
When we limit mission to specific programs, then it becomes easier to see mission as a small or optional component of the Christian faith and not a central aspect of how we live out our Christian calling. Yet, mission properly understood should be central to how we understand and practice our faith.
An understanding of mission as helping programs is not only limited but actually harmful at times. Such an understanding is especially problematic when we see helping as always flowing from the “haves” (the Christians in our congregation or group) to the “have-nots” (everybody else).
As books such as When Helping Hurts by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert and Toxic Charity by Robert Lupton show, it is quite possible to set out to help others but to actually have the opposite effect, if we do so with improper understandings and attitudes. As Corbett and Fikkert explain, when we combine a material definition of poverty with a sense of the superiority of the materially nonpoor and a sense of the inferiority of the materially poor, then we end up doing harm—spiritually, emotionally, economically, and/or socially—to both the materially poor and the materially nonpoor.
Because this definition of mission as helping programs is limited and potentially harmful, it is important to develop a fuller and more robust understanding of mission. That is what I do in Crossing Boundaries: Sharing God's Good News Through Mission.
By exploring the biblical basis of mission (in Chapters 1 and 2), I lay out a new definition of mission: Mission is cultivating relationships across boundaries for the sake of fostering conversations in word and deed about the nature of God’s good news. The book uses this definition to help churches rethink their own mission work, employing clear language, engaging writing, practical strategies, discussion questions, and additional resources.
While a full understanding of that definition of mission and how it can shape local churches’ engagement in mission is best grasped by reading the book, I will examine the four components of this definition – good news, relationships, crossing boundaries, and conversation – in an upcoming series of blog posts.
Christians often interpret mission as helping in programmatic ways. While helping and formal programs are necessarily and always bad, this understanding of mission is limited and potentially problematic.
Thinking of mission as helping programs is limited, because it makes us miss the breadth of God’s mission in the world and the full spiritual significance of joining in that mission. Many Christians would say that we should help others because God calls us to love others. That is true: God does call us to love others. Yet to equate helping and love is to dramatically misunderstand love, both God’s and ours. Helping may be part of love, but it cannot be the entirety of love.
Take as an illustration love as expressed in a marriage. One of my “love languages” in my marriage is doing things for my wife—in other words, helping. Sometimes she really appreciates my help. When she comes home from a work trip and the house is picked up, the laundry put away, the kids have both been bathed, and the lawn is mowed, that can be a big relief for her.
Other times, I think I get more out of doing the helping than she does being helped. That experience also has mission parallels—oftentimes our mission is more about how we feel than the impact on our mission partners.
Yet even when my wife appreciates my help, if helping was the only way I ever showed my love to her, if I never said I loved her, never spent time with her, never gave her gifts, never touched her, I would be more like a handyman and maid than a husband to her. I know that she would not find that a satisfying expression of love and, ultimately, I know I would not either. While I enjoy doing acts of service for her, I know there’s more to the relationship than that, and I want there to be more to the relationship than that.
While marriage is a special relationship, I think this insight applies to other forms of love as well. Others know that we love them not only because we serve them but because we spend time with them, share our treasures with them, and tell them how much they mean to us. Indeed, the ways we can show love to others go well beyond this list of “love languages” for romantic relationships.
Love expressed through service is good, but it is not a complete love. To confine love to helping is a limited understanding of love. In the same way, seeing mission as helping gives a limited understanding of the love God has for us and the love God calls us to share with the world.
Our understanding of mission is especially limited if we think of helping only in programmatic terms. When we see mission as a program, then we limit it to only those times and those places where such programs occur. If mission is a program, then it cannot be a way of life. A way of life happens at all times and in any place.
When we limit mission to specific programs, then it becomes easier to see mission as a small or optional component of the Christian faith and not a central aspect of how we live out our Christian calling. Yet, mission properly understood should be central to how we understand and practice our faith.
An understanding of mission as helping programs is not only limited but actually harmful at times. Such an understanding is especially problematic when we see helping as always flowing from the “haves” (the Christians in our congregation or group) to the “have-nots” (everybody else).
As books such as When Helping Hurts by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert and Toxic Charity by Robert Lupton show, it is quite possible to set out to help others but to actually have the opposite effect, if we do so with improper understandings and attitudes. As Corbett and Fikkert explain, when we combine a material definition of poverty with a sense of the superiority of the materially nonpoor and a sense of the inferiority of the materially poor, then we end up doing harm—spiritually, emotionally, economically, and/or socially—to both the materially poor and the materially nonpoor.
Because this definition of mission as helping programs is limited and potentially harmful, it is important to develop a fuller and more robust understanding of mission. That is what I do in Crossing Boundaries: Sharing God's Good News Through Mission.
By exploring the biblical basis of mission (in Chapters 1 and 2), I lay out a new definition of mission: Mission is cultivating relationships across boundaries for the sake of fostering conversations in word and deed about the nature of God’s good news. The book uses this definition to help churches rethink their own mission work, employing clear language, engaging writing, practical strategies, discussion questions, and additional resources.
While a full understanding of that definition of mission and how it can shape local churches’ engagement in mission is best grasped by reading the book, I will examine the four components of this definition – good news, relationships, crossing boundaries, and conversation – in an upcoming series of blog posts.
Friday, March 22, 2019
A New Definition of Mission
The following is an excerpt from UM & Global blogmaster David W. Scott's new book, Crossing Boundaries: Sharing God's Good News Through Mission.
My guess is that if you asked the average person in a pew on Sunday morning, they would not have a definition of mission that they could rattle off to you. While some Christians are deeply committed to mission and have thought extensively about it, many Christians have not thought about mission enough to have a pat definition ready-to-hand. But I would further guess that if you pushed that hypothetical average parishioner to come up with a definition of mission, it would be something along the lines of “helping others.”
To say that mission is primarily about helping others indicates that mission involves Christians providing some sort of assistance or something of value to other people, who are in need of that assistance or item of value. Thus, it presumes that we, the Christians in mission, are the “haves,” and others are the “have-nots.” Not all forms of helping, then, are recognized as mission. If we give a homeless person a blanket, that is seen as mission; if a homeless person helps us change a flat tire, that is not usually seen as mission, even if the homeless person does it as an expression of his/her Christian faith. If we share a spiritual insight with someone else, that is mission in the form of evangelism, but if we get a spiritual insight from someone else, that is a “God moment.” If we define mission as helping, it usually involves an unspoken sense of who is doing the helping—us!
Christians also often interpret mission as helping in programmatic ways. If you asked your average worshipper what they meant by “mission is helping others,” they would probably give you examples of programs that their church carries out to help others—a soup kitchen, a toy distribution drive, trips to other countries to paint schools, etc. Perhaps this definition would also include evangelism, in which we help others come to the Christian faith, often by following a particular script or program for presenting the faith.
To say that mission is a program indicates that it is something that happens at specified times and places in an organized fashion. Whether that takes the form of a mission trip, a service project, or a financial transaction, there is an identifiable and planned action or set of actions, often with formal responsibilities, budgets, a sponsoring organization, etc., that can be termed “mission.” Thinking of mission as a program also involves making distinctions between what types of helping count as mission and what do not. If we move furniture because a friend is changing apartments, that is not seen as mission; if we move furniture because our church is holding a rummage sale where the proceeds go to the food pantry, that is seen as mission.
I do not want to suggest that helping or formal programs are necessarily and always bad, but I would like to point out that this understanding of mission is limited and potentially problematic as well. Thinking of mission as helping programs is limited, because it makes us miss the breadth of God’s mission in the world and the full spiritual significance of joining in that mission. Many Christians would say that we should help others because God calls us to love others. That is true: God does call us to love others. Yet to equate helping and love is to dramatically misunderstand love, both God’s and ours. Helping may be part of love, but it cannot be the entirety of love.
An understanding of mission as helping programs, though, is not only limited but actually harmful at times. Such an understanding is especially problematic when we see helping as always flowing from the “haves” (the Christians in our congregation or group) to the “have-nots” (everybody else). As books such as When Helping Hurts by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert and Toxic Charity by Robert Lupton show, it is quite possible to set out to help others but to actually have the opposite effect, if we do so with improper understandings and attitudes.
Therefore, I would like to offer a definition of mission that goes beyond “helping programs.” Mission can instead be defined as cultivating relationships across boundaries for the sake of fostering conversations in word and deed about the nature of God’s good news. This is a long definition, so I’ll unpack it by looking at the four main parts of this definition.
First, mission involves good news. In mission, God sends messengers with a message. That message is good news. This is what makes Christian mission distinctively Christian as opposed to other forms of boundary crossing collaboration, such as international nongovernmental work, political diplomacy, transnational business, or global cultural phenomena. Note that it’s not just evangelism that involves good news. All forms of mission should have a component of good news to them. They should be both good and involve something new or not present in that situation before. Thus, good news is not just a narrow formulation of theology but includes the full breadth of God’s good actions in the world.
Second, mission involves relationship. Messengers are most credible when they act and live in ways that are consistent with their message, and it is relationship that best allows others to judge our consistency, authenticity, and, therefore, credibility. Moreover, relationship is a primary form of good news tied to other forms of good news. Mission is less about doing and more about being in relationship with others.
Third, mission involves crossing boundaries. As the biblical discussion of mission above showed, mission involves being sent across human boundaries. Mission involves something more than just relating to those we already know who are like us in almost every way. It involves encountering the Other.
Fourth and finally, mission involves conversations in word and deed. Mission involves cultivating relationships across boundaries not just for their own sakes, but for the sake of understanding the good news. Yet understanding that good news is a mutual process. It involves conversations between all mission partners, and between humans, the Bible, and human contexts. It is a process of mutual learning, not a monologue in which we seek to unload our information on others. While words are a central medium by which we have conversations, actions also have their place in mission as a way of demonstrating our understandings of good news and observing others’ understandings as well.
My guess is that if you asked the average person in a pew on Sunday morning, they would not have a definition of mission that they could rattle off to you. While some Christians are deeply committed to mission and have thought extensively about it, many Christians have not thought about mission enough to have a pat definition ready-to-hand. But I would further guess that if you pushed that hypothetical average parishioner to come up with a definition of mission, it would be something along the lines of “helping others.”
To say that mission is primarily about helping others indicates that mission involves Christians providing some sort of assistance or something of value to other people, who are in need of that assistance or item of value. Thus, it presumes that we, the Christians in mission, are the “haves,” and others are the “have-nots.” Not all forms of helping, then, are recognized as mission. If we give a homeless person a blanket, that is seen as mission; if a homeless person helps us change a flat tire, that is not usually seen as mission, even if the homeless person does it as an expression of his/her Christian faith. If we share a spiritual insight with someone else, that is mission in the form of evangelism, but if we get a spiritual insight from someone else, that is a “God moment.” If we define mission as helping, it usually involves an unspoken sense of who is doing the helping—us!
Christians also often interpret mission as helping in programmatic ways. If you asked your average worshipper what they meant by “mission is helping others,” they would probably give you examples of programs that their church carries out to help others—a soup kitchen, a toy distribution drive, trips to other countries to paint schools, etc. Perhaps this definition would also include evangelism, in which we help others come to the Christian faith, often by following a particular script or program for presenting the faith.
To say that mission is a program indicates that it is something that happens at specified times and places in an organized fashion. Whether that takes the form of a mission trip, a service project, or a financial transaction, there is an identifiable and planned action or set of actions, often with formal responsibilities, budgets, a sponsoring organization, etc., that can be termed “mission.” Thinking of mission as a program also involves making distinctions between what types of helping count as mission and what do not. If we move furniture because a friend is changing apartments, that is not seen as mission; if we move furniture because our church is holding a rummage sale where the proceeds go to the food pantry, that is seen as mission.
I do not want to suggest that helping or formal programs are necessarily and always bad, but I would like to point out that this understanding of mission is limited and potentially problematic as well. Thinking of mission as helping programs is limited, because it makes us miss the breadth of God’s mission in the world and the full spiritual significance of joining in that mission. Many Christians would say that we should help others because God calls us to love others. That is true: God does call us to love others. Yet to equate helping and love is to dramatically misunderstand love, both God’s and ours. Helping may be part of love, but it cannot be the entirety of love.
An understanding of mission as helping programs, though, is not only limited but actually harmful at times. Such an understanding is especially problematic when we see helping as always flowing from the “haves” (the Christians in our congregation or group) to the “have-nots” (everybody else). As books such as When Helping Hurts by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert and Toxic Charity by Robert Lupton show, it is quite possible to set out to help others but to actually have the opposite effect, if we do so with improper understandings and attitudes.
Therefore, I would like to offer a definition of mission that goes beyond “helping programs.” Mission can instead be defined as cultivating relationships across boundaries for the sake of fostering conversations in word and deed about the nature of God’s good news. This is a long definition, so I’ll unpack it by looking at the four main parts of this definition.
First, mission involves good news. In mission, God sends messengers with a message. That message is good news. This is what makes Christian mission distinctively Christian as opposed to other forms of boundary crossing collaboration, such as international nongovernmental work, political diplomacy, transnational business, or global cultural phenomena. Note that it’s not just evangelism that involves good news. All forms of mission should have a component of good news to them. They should be both good and involve something new or not present in that situation before. Thus, good news is not just a narrow formulation of theology but includes the full breadth of God’s good actions in the world.
Second, mission involves relationship. Messengers are most credible when they act and live in ways that are consistent with their message, and it is relationship that best allows others to judge our consistency, authenticity, and, therefore, credibility. Moreover, relationship is a primary form of good news tied to other forms of good news. Mission is less about doing and more about being in relationship with others.
Third, mission involves crossing boundaries. As the biblical discussion of mission above showed, mission involves being sent across human boundaries. Mission involves something more than just relating to those we already know who are like us in almost every way. It involves encountering the Other.
Fourth and finally, mission involves conversations in word and deed. Mission involves cultivating relationships across boundaries not just for their own sakes, but for the sake of understanding the good news. Yet understanding that good news is a mutual process. It involves conversations between all mission partners, and between humans, the Bible, and human contexts. It is a process of mutual learning, not a monologue in which we seek to unload our information on others. While words are a central medium by which we have conversations, actions also have their place in mission as a way of demonstrating our understandings of good news and observing others’ understandings as well.
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