Missional: the beginning
Missions did not begin in the minds of theologians or in denominational boardmeetings. Neither was it first an original, inspired activity of the early church. Missions began within the divine Community of Three.
Before there was anything, there was the Community of Three. And there was love.
For God so loved the world that He..
“created it..”
The way I like to think about Missio Dei, the ‘Mission of God’, is in the context of God’s Love. When I think of missions I think of the beginning…
Within the community of the Trinity there has always been perfect fellowship and complete love.
I often wondered about the ‘need‘ for God to create. If He has always been in perfect fellowship within the Trinity, perfectly happy ‘in Himself’, then why create people? Was God bored?
God, the Source of Love
Maybe it is a childish thought, but I think God’s love is too often seen as being ’static’: God is Love, God’s Love is perfect and it is complete. While that’s true, God’s Love is also dynamic, organic as a flowing river. God is the source of love and His love is flowing continually.
The former view of God portrays God as a ‘closed source’, not very personal. The latter portrays God as an ‘open source’, emotionally attached to creation, involved with creation.
This means that God’s Love and His Fellowship of Three cannot remain static. God’s love is always flowing, extending the Divine Community. Because of this nature of God’s Love, God shares His love, and so this is where we come in…
Of course I am not suggesting that we are God’s equals or merely passive recipients of His love. one-way love is an oxymoron. This is why God cannot be anything but plural. Anyway, this is where both the biblical story and the human story begin: with God creating a world out of His love.
Then we read about God telling our parents to enjoy life, enjoy a relationship with each other, with creation, and with God Himself.
But next thing we know, there’s a talking serpent, a tree of knowledge, good and evil and broken relationships with life, creation, each other and God Himself.
Problems
As good Christians, we know this. We know about the Fall and God’s response. We know about Noah, Abraham, David and Jesus. This is exactly where we often begin our thoughts on missions: with the problem…
People are ‘lost’ and need to be found by God, oh, and He needs our help…
This is often (quite black-and-white) what the basis of Missions means to many of us. So we start thinking about strategies for reaching people, methods to fix the problem.
But the fact that God sought out a covenant-people and started His whole ‘plan to save the world’ is not just because we stuffed up and He needed to fix that. God’s Mission is more than ‘fixing‘ the world. At least, I believe it is!
Goals
We often think so narrowly about Missions, as we do about things like the Kingdom of God, Salvation and ‘being church’. In the West we often think so ‘functional’, dare I say ‘purpose driven’, about God’s involvement in our lives. Did God really take all that trouble, over thousands of years, just to get our ’souls saved’, just to ‘fix the problems’?
I don’t think so. I think it is more of a Love thing.
When we think about ‘living missionally‘ why not try and go back a little further. Why not go beyond ‘the Fall’ and go back to the beginnings? Why not try and move away from thinking about missions as problem-fixing to thinking about missions as a ‘Love thing’? It sure makes relating to people a lot easier…
Intentions
So, I think, living missional is a love thing. It’s not about methods and strategies and problem-fixing but more about love, authentic relationships and true community. What that means in my daily life is my question, my quest. Any ideas?
To be continued…
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Hopefully this is an interesting read.
November 2nd, 06 at 11:56 pm
Hey David & Eveline,
I was surfing through some CSS gallery websites and found your site.
Good to run into some more missional Jesus followers who know the value of web standards, CSS-based design!
Blessings on you both!
November 3rd, 06 at 8:07 am
:-)
Hi Will, thanks for your kind words.
Yup: ‘Missional-i-ty’, Web Standards and CSS, just some of my passions. (Check out my webdesign joint.)