REGENT COLLEGE

ASSIGNMENT #2: EDUCATIONAL COURSE KNOWING GOD AND HIS MISSION BEFORE WE CAN KNOW OURS

AN ESSAY IN

APPL 522 PREPARED

FOR DR. DARRELL JOHNSON

BY

ZAC HOOD

STUDENT ID: 0218813

SPRING TERM 2014

WORD COUNT: 11,726

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Knowing God and His Mission Before We Can Know Ours

a. An introduction to the course:

- Purpose of the course: The purpose of this course, entitled, "Knowing God and His Mission Before We Can Know Ours," is to chart out a curriculum that favors the Greatest Commission of John 20:21(missio dei) over the Great Commission of Matthew 28. My interest comes from my previous studies in missiology and World Christianity and the shift many 20th century missiologists (such as Lesslie Newbigin, David Bosch, and Samuel Escobar) have made to highlight John 20:19-23, the missio Dei, as a better passage for our understanding of mission because it is rooted in joining the Trinitarian God, whereas the Great Commission has been misread and misused as a charge for humans (mostly North Americans) to do things for God, with no need for an explicit theological foundation. I believe this could be a powerful paradigm shift for evangelical churches and believers who see the Great Commission as the purpose of being a Christian. In short, I believe the teaching is already there in the books of the aforementioned missiologists, but I do not see everyday Christians picking up their books or even knowing they exist. My hope is that this curriculum can serve as a bridge to their works. I want people to understand what it means when people say that we join God in His mission and do not do things for him. - Hope for outcomes:

- A better understanding of who the trinitarian God is, which will lead to a paradigm shift of life rooted in the missio Dei -An understanding of our purpose, in the following order: Cultural Mandate, Great Commandment, Great Commission - New or renewed symbols, traditions, praxis (prayer), and countercultural behavior based on their learning - More interculturation (see Bosch) and commitment to practice reconciliation and hospitality - Ongoing learning, seeing this curriculum as a entry point to more resources

- Course format and educational strategy - Work in triads - Six Sessions - each with heavy preparation - Extensive reading and discussion with a praxis focus: journaling, contemplation, walks, prayer, activities - N.B. This curriculum goes against some of the APPL 522 course reading that demands simplicity and concentration on only a few topics. However, this course is intended, in part, to overwhelm the learners. Once the learners begin discussing and processing, the weight should lighten, but there are resources to explore and find more clarity as time allows. I imagine that Jesus’ disciples were undoubtedly overwhelmed, especially theologically, much of the time with Jesus, but they stayed with Jesus. My hope is that this course will be rich and deep and inspire life-long learning in several subject areas. Therefore, I am erring on the side of too much information so that learners seek to educate themselves even further. However, this approach could be in danger of being

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discouraging to the perfectionist, as it is not meant to leave the learner with a sense of mastery. It is meant to push them further and yield to God’s trinitarian embrace of communion and mission. I anticipate that some vocabulary will be challenging. However, I believe that if learners can learn some of the vocabulary (i.e. incarnational, synergistic, missio dei, pneumatological), then they will have new words to categorize and contain their new learnings.

b. Lesson plans for each session

I. Session ONE – Metanarratives of humans A. Preparation for Gathering

1. Prayer 2. Journal Experiment about naming metanarratives 3. Drawing Activity - Mural or Map 4. Reading Assignment - Bosch and Newbigin

B. Gathering 1. Prayer 2. Time of Sharing and Review of Reading 3. Reading together 4. Discussion of Session 5. Prayer

II. Session TWO - A Paradigm Shift through the Missio Dei – Trinity

A. Preparation for Gathering

1. Prayer 2. Reading - Problems with Great Commission 3. Ignatian Spiritual Exercise with John 20:19-23 4. Reading Assignment - Newbigin (ch.4-6) and Hastings (p.80-117)

B. Gathering 1. Prayer 2. Reading together 3. Discussion: Great Commision vs. Missio Dei 4. Read together - review of Trinity and summary of missio Dei 5. Discuss paradigm shifts, possible implications 6. Prayer

III. Session THREE - New Humanity: Who are We? What is our Mission?

A. Preparation for Gathering 1. Reading Assignment - Hastings and Watts 2. Walking exercise - meditation and prayer

B. Gathering 1. Prayer 2. Exploring and Discussing the Great Commission, Great Commandment,

and Cultural Mandate

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3. Discussion 4. Prayer

IV. Session FOUR - Implications of Missio Dei

A. Preparation for Gathering 1. Reading Assignment - Newbgigin (Review Ch. 4, read 7) 2. Journal Prayer

B. Gathering 1. Prayer 2. Discuss reading on election 3. Read together on mission under the cross 4. Discussion on reading and repentance 5. Preview Reconciliation / Hospitality

V. Session FIVE - Practical Implications: Reconciliation and Hospitality

A. Preparation for Gathering 1. Read reflection on individualism 2. Journal experience of community and need for ecumenism 3. Exercise of listening and hearing…

B. Gathering 1. Prayer 2. Share thoughts on ecumenism, diversity, memories, etc. 3. Read reflection silently 4. Share moments of community, hospitality 5. Read Together 6. Spiritual exercise at foot of cross 7. Read Together on conditional hospitality of the Cross 8. Brainstorm and commit to an exercise of hospitality before next week 9. Prayer

VI. Session SIX - The Bidirectional God Who Invites Us to Communion and Mission

A. Preparation for Gathering 1. Reading - notes 2. Journalling - identifying growth, questions, prayers

B. Gathering 1. Prayer 2. Read together 3. Share journal thoughts - survey future plans 4. Conclusion and prayer

c. Outline of the material to be covered in each session Introduction: This course is an invitation to see the paradigm shift from doing things for God to participating with God in His mission. This shift is most obvious in the analysis of two passages, one commission that is famous and one that is becoming a more accurate depiction of how God sends us out. The Great Commission, Matthew 28:18-20, has been misused and proof-texted

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(lifted out of its context for the sake of the point that the author wants to make) away from its truer meaning in the last two centuries. An alternative, called the Greatest Commission, is found in John 20:19-23, where we realize that our call is to participation in both communion and mission with God. It never has been or never will be about our own individual capacity to save souls or do great works for God. We are not a cog in the American evangelical, enterprising machine of saving souls. We are a creation of the Creator meant to live fully with God, with others, and with creation. Are you ready to explore this new paradigm? I. SESSION 1 - Metanarratives of humans A. Preparing for Gathering

1. Prayer - Let us invite God to be with us. Ask the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to guide you in this time. Ask for clarity of mind and focus as we enter this task. It may be easiest to pray the Lord’s prayer as we enter into this time. Let us also take a moment to thank God. Remember some milestones in your life that have gotten you to this exact time and location in history. Is it all your own doing? I don’t think it takes too much exploring of our past to see how incredibly gracious and merciful God has been to us.

2. Journal Experiment: Knowing our story - Look up and find a good definition of metanarrative. Put simply, a metanarrative is a grand story that many people have in common. In an attempt to locate ourselves, please do the following.

In your journal, consider... What are some of the metanarratives of our times? Think in specific categories, such as history, culture, religion, Christianity, etc. What movements in the last 500 years of history have had the most impact today? What parts of the Bible have had the most impact on you and your fellow believers in this century? To help you gain perspective, imagine that (a) you are in a spaceship orbiting the earth, (b) you and your friends are in a “21st Century” section of a library in the year 2250AD, or (c) an curious 3,000 year-old alien who hasn’t been to earth in 500 years came to you and wondered why your life is the way it is. Use these creative entries to jot some notes about the above categories. Feel free to zoom in on one specific category.

3. Drawing Activity - Next, choose one of the following activities to bring to our first gathering: 1. On a piece of paper, sketch a mural that represents the metanarratives of our times or 2. On a piece of paper, draw a flag that incorporates your metanarratives by drawing symbols or words that are representative of your metanarratives

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4. Reading Assignment (to be done before your first group time) - Read the following excerpts from David Bosch and Lesslie Newbigin. Sources: ● Ch. 1-3 of David Bosch’s Believing in the Future: Toward a Missiology of

Western Culture - Chapter 1: “The ‘Postmodern World’”; Chapter 2: “The Legacy of the Enlightenment”; Chapter 3: “The Christian Faith in a Postmodern Age.”

● Chapter 1, “The Background of the Discussion” from The Open Secret by Lesslie Newbigin

B. Gathering

1. Pray together - Lord’s prayer followed by singing the Doxology

2. Share - Briefly share some major thoughts on the metanarrative exercise - share both the themes that emerged for you and any insight that you gained from the exercise of searching for those themes. Use your mural or flag to share your thoughts. Bosch’s themes of the Enlightenment are below:

Reviewing Bosch’s 7 “cardinal convictions” of the Enlightenment1

1. Reason - Human mind was viewed as the indubitable point of departure for all knowing 2. Subject-Object Scheme - separated humans from their environment and enabled them to examine the animal and mineral world from the vantage-point of scientific objectivity… ”nature ceased to be ‘creation’ and was no longer people’s teacher, but the object of their analysis” 3. Elimination of purpose 4. Belief in and premium placed on progress 5. Assumption of all true knowledge as factual, value-free, and neutral but values are based on opinion/belief...religion as a value that is not objectively true 6. All problems were in principle solvable 7. People as emancipated, autonomous individuals… individuals became important and interesting in and to themselves, whereas middle ages community took priority over the individual

3. Read together - A Rapid History of the Modern Missionary Movement - Note: Take turns reading each bullet point.

1 From Chapter 2, “The Legacy of the Enlightenment,” from David Bosch’s Believing in

the Future: Toward a Missiology of Western Culture.

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- Until the 16th century, the word mission was only used to describe the Trinity. But, with the onset of the Enlightenment and Western technological development, Bosch reveals the rise of material possessions, consumerism, and economic advance. The modern era is characterized as anthropocentric - man at the center. - From this point in history emerged the modern missionary movement. In 1792, William Carey of England wrote a landmark book called An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens, which used the Great Commission as a proof-text, whereby the West had the power and obligation to evangelize the world. This era promoted Western civilization and values on other cultures as much as it did the gospel. To generalize Western missionary efforts, to be Christian was to look and act like a Westerner. - As Bosch points out, “[The problem was] a total absence of an ability to be critical about their own culture or to appreciate foreign cultures...the problem was that the advocates of mission were blind to their own ethnocentrism. They confused their middle-class ideals and values with the tenets of Christianity…[this came from] a mentality shaped by the Enlightenment which tended to turn people into objects.”2 - Moving into the 20th century, a major theme was that early 20th century evangelicals and revivalists adopted premillennialism, which focused on the end times coming soon and a need to elevate verbal evangelism over and without social involvement. In short, people were trying to convert individuals, aka “save souls,” without caring about any other aspect of their life save a verbal commitment to Christ.3

2 David Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission (American Society of Missiology Series no. 16. Maryknoll, N.Y: Orbis Books, 1991), 301.

3 Continuing the Conversation... With the reality and devastation of two world wars and an end to failed experiments in Marxism, we find ourselves still holding on to modern ways, yet with a deep cynicism that anything can be true or bring true progress or success. A post-modern world has emerged where most people believe truth is relative and up to the individual. Stoicism and Epicureanism have returned in pop culture to rise above a meaningless existence to either “Keep Calm and Carry On” or “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” All one needs to do is search the iTunes top 20 pop songs and see how the majority of lyrics include uncertainty about the future, but hope for “tonight.” To me, this is an admittance by millennials that life with a purpose does not seem to exist. All that matters is one’s own seeking of personal glory and revelry. One major problem with this consumerist, self-seeking individualism is that each person becomes their own god. This issue has permeated Western Christianity by those who opt out of participation in church and seek to privatize their relationship with God by their own personal preferences, thus choosing to ignore biblical teaching, church tradition, and God’s communal and relational design for humanity. Lesslie Newbigin calls this monadism.

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Overall Point - From this background, one can see how the Great Commission exists today in its modern effort to convert individuals without sensitivity towards poverty, culture, church community, indigenous leadership, or personhood.

However, as you may be aware, the last half-century has been a push back to this paradigm. Evangelical Christianity has shifted towards a more holistic approach to evangelization (especially brought forth by the non-Western world) that reconnects evangelism and social activism.

4. Discussion: Let’s put on 5 different hats to end our time in discussion: White hat: What can we say is true from your reading and this session? Red hat: How do we feel about all of this? Yellow hat: What are the positives about the ideas presented? Black hat: What are the negatives? What could go wrong with these metanarratives? Green hat: What are other ideas or questions that come to mind?

5. Prayer - Finally, what does all of this make you want to pray? (This is a good practice for any individual or group. Instead of simply sharing ideas or ruminating on Christian thought, be moved to ask yourself what your thoughts and feelings make you want to pray.)

End in prayer, first individually, and then out loud together.

Note: There should be an unresolved tension, perhaps a sense of guilt or shame about the metanarratives described. Most of all, there may be a sense of confusion and/or deconstruction. No doubt more clarity is needed. Thankfully, there is much more to the story. My suggestion is to take it easy and relax. Do not try to think too much.

II. SESSION 2 - A Trinitarian Paradigm Shift through the Missio Dei A. Preparation for Gathering

1. Prayer

2. Reading

Last session focused on man’s place in the current streams and stories of our time. Naturally, one might think it is most relevant to go to the Scripture to describe where we are and how we are to live. These inquiries lead to core questions about who we are as humans and what our purpose is on earth. At this point, the majority of churches and

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modern missionary organizations would be quick to turn to Matthew 28 - the Great Commission. This is where Jesus tells the disciples to go and make disciples of all the nations. It seems like a clear command, and many have taken it analogously to a battle or war that we must fight for God.

However, this is like starting a movie halfway in and expecting to know everything going on in the story. This is what Christian leaders are doing when they flip right to the Great Commission and use it as their church’s mission statement. The proof-texting (lifting a verse out of context) of the Great Commission in order to satisfy Western ideas of world missions is proving to be increasingly criticized by non-Western Christians, and more recently, Western scholars too.

What if I told you that the Great Commission was not a verse that could stand-alone in Matthew’s Gospel, but it was actually a summary of the entire book? How would this change your view of Jesus’ words to the disciples? Wouldn’t it want to make you read the rest of Matthew, the Gospel most focused on discipleship, and see what we can learn from the entire book that may illuminate the newly relabeled final summary? Many modern scholars, such as David Bosch, hold the view that the Great Commission is not a stand-alone verse, but a summary of the entire book of Matthew.

The misuse and lack of contextual understanding for the Great Commission gives us the need for a better missional paradigm. This comes to us in what is called the missio dei, John 20:19-23. Many scholars call this passage the Greatest Commission because it is a more accurate description of how we are to view our mission and commission. It is a trinitarian approach that reveals God as the missionary!

3. Ignatian Spiritual Exercise with John 20:19-23

- Using an Ignatian exercise, we will use an audio recording of a leader exegeting and expositing the Scripture by way of walking the listener through the setting, context, and then the Scripture.

- Main points of the Exegesis: ● Highlighting the frightened disciples behind the locked door ● Disciples as gathered together, which Calvin depicts as a courageous act ● Jesus appears in his resurrection body, meaning He can move through

locked doors but also has scars ● Joy of seeing and being present with Jesus ● Reality of his resurrection being true - the understanding of what Jesus

had been teaching them all along ● Importance of Jesus pronouncing peace upon them, despite a dangerous

context

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● Breathing of Holy Spirit as proleptic to Pentecost, crucial to understanding the Spirit’s role in our participation in God’s mission

● Essence of becoming one with Jesus through the power of the Spirit ● The meaning of new humanity that Jesus, the perfect human, gives to

them

4. Reading Assignment - Ch. 4-6 of The Open Secret by Lesslie Newbigin; pp.80-117 of Missional God, Missional Church by Ross Hastings.

B. Gathering 1. Prayer 2. Read Together

What do we know about God? - In the Bible, God has revealed himself as Trinitarian - three persons in one God. There will be much more below on the Trinity as this is the foundation of our existence and purpose. - God is the creator and sustainer of all life. - In the Fall, when humans Adam and Eve decided to choose for themselves what is good and what is evil, the story of God as a faithful and loving redeemer spawned. - God revealed himself to us historically as YHWH in the Old Testament. He revealed himself as Jesus Christ in the New Testament, where His character, sacrifice, and commitment was flawless, most exemplified in His own historic, suffering sacrifice on the cross in order to offer a new life and new humanity to all.

Knowing God In Order to Know Us - First, it is said in Genesis that we are created in God’s image, and that one of our core callings in life is that we were created for communion with God—to be in His presence. This is the meaning of the Garden of Eden life. It was a place where God resided with His people. This theme continues in the Old Testament through God’s instructions to build the tabernacle and then the construction of the temple in Jerusalem, when in both instances God is present in the Holy of Holies. Many Bible scholars see the temple and the Holy of Holies as a place with characteristics of Eden. Then in the New Testament, the significance of the Holy Spirit in our bodies (which Paul calls a temple of the living - 1 Cor 6:19) makes it possible for God to reside in us. Therefore the story of our God is one in which He has always intended to live and commune with us. This is amazingly revealed

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in Revelation 21:1-4 where John sees a new city coming down out of heaven, where God's dwelling place will be with His people.

- With the Fall, God became a missional God, set on redeeming his creation. This idea was brought into Protestant theology by Karl Barth in 1931 as the missio Dei. Lois McKinney Douglass reveals that at Brandenburg Missionary Conference, “[Barth challenged] the Enlightenment-influenced mission thinking of the day, reminding the participants that mission is the activity of God himself.”4 From Barth’s influence came the following statement from the International Missionary Council in Willingen, Germany in 1952: “Mission is derived from the nature of God; God sends the Son; the Son sends the Spirit; the Father, Son, and Spirit send the church into the world, not triumphalistically but in solidarity with the incarnate, crucified Christ.”5

- Douglass points out the significance of this paradigm shift towards participation in God’s mission. She writes, “When [the] missio Dei becomes the organizing principle for our curriculum, worship and scholarly reflection will be brought together…[which] makes teaching, preaching, evangelism, etc. as penultimate activities through which we are participating in what God is doing in the world.”6 This is a major shift!

- This brings us back to the true essence of the Great Commission with a much larger perspective on how we join God instead of do things for Him. Douglass writes “His ultimate purpose through these missional efforts is to call out a people for himself so that someday voices from all nations will be joined in praise to him before the throne.”7 Summary - Our mission revolves around “God’s self revelation as the One who loves the world, God’s involvement in and with the world, the nature and activity of God, which embraces both the church and the world, and in which the church is privileged to participate. Missio Dei enunciates the good news that God is a God-for-people.”8

4 Lois McKinney Douglas, “Globalizing Theology and Theological Education,” in

Globalizing Theology: Belief and Practice in an Era of World Christianity, ed. Craig Ott and Harold A. Netland (Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Academic, 2006), 275.

5 Ibid. 6 Ibid. 7 Ibid. 8 Bosch, Transforming, 10.

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Main Point - By seeking to know more of God, we can know more about who we are and what our purpose is in light of God’s mission. We are to live under a paradigm that sees ourselves as joining God in His mission instead of incorrectly thinking that we are doing things for Him.

3. Discussion - Have you ever pictured God as missional? Or Jesus as the ultimate missionary, sent by God the Father, breaking in to God’s world to save humanity? Compare and contrast the Great Commission with the Greatest Commission (Missio Dei). Include thoughts and feelings about your experience with the Ignatian exercise.

4. Read Together - Review of Trinity

- In order to move any further into this idea of participation with God, or joining God in His mission, we must have a clear understanding of the Trinity. The importance of the Trinity to our lives is monumental. Again, if we are to break out of the current misunderstandings of God and our mission, we must come to a fuller understanding of the Trinity.

- In the assigned reading, we saw that God is inherently communal, and He has invited us into that communion, both individually and collectively. Once we begin to understand the Trinity and God’s spiritual and incarnational presence and call on our lives, multiple implications will rise up that will transform our understanding of God, ourselves, and His invitation to join Him in mission.

- There is probably some culture shock as we ask that our faith leads us beyond the boundaries of the Enlightenment mentality, which presupposes that we can only trust what we can see with our eyes and understand with our minds. The Trinity in itself is a great mystery. Paul’s teaching that God makes his home in our bodies is another profound mystery! This is the area of metaphysics.

- So let us pray for boldness, humility, faith, and beauty to see beyond what the world teaches us to believe and to dare to believe that God and God’s story for us is as wonderful as the Bible says. Let us also practice this reality that the Father speaks to us through Christ who is present in us by the power of the Holy Spirit. There is no “man upstairs” mentality for us. God is present in us and we are connected to all other believers as well. So as C.S. Lewis teaches, let us see a posture of prayer as a great yielding before and beneath and in God’s presence. For God is the author, the director, and producer of our lives.9

9 C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer: Reflections on the Intimate

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5. Discussion - Discuss the possible paradigm shift and implications of the missio dei. How does your view of your relationship with God change? How does your idea of your purpose and mission change? Do you see Jesus Christ as even more important after placing Him within the relationship of the Trinity? See below for notes as a review and discussion aid.

Newbigin Ch. 4 - “Proclaiming the Kingdom of the Father: Mission as Faith in Action”

- Biblical Insight: “the Kingdom of God is his reign over all things” - Babel as archetype of megalopolis, Ninevah, and Rome - Effort of the nations to create their own unity - Small portion of Israel (Isaac, not Ishmael → Jacob, not Esau → tribe of Judah) to be the bearers, but “not exclusive beneficiaries” - “[E]lection is for responsibility, not privilege” - God has chosen us for a purpose - Chosen, not for themselves, but the sake of all - Jonah becomes an important figure for us, as he has self-pity and God is pleading for the pagan world - Reign of God as a mysterious reality only announced in parables

Newbigin Ch. 5 - “Sharing the Life of the Son: Mission as Love in Action” - “[T]he supreme parable, the supreme deed by which the reign of God is both revealed and hidden, is the cross” - Resurrection as “a mystery entrusted to a few in order to be communicated to all” - The Cross as:

1. A happening - but a huge mystery 2. It is part of history

3. We are part of the history, especially by participating in the life of the church 4. Hidden and revealed (people didn’t get it)

- Eucharist at the heart of the life of the church - Again in the foundational text John 20:21 We see the disciples are hiding

behind locked doors, with fear of losing their lives and trying to make sense of everything that had just happened. Jesus comes to stand in their midst and everything changes. Fear is turned to joy and they are commissioned to be sent, to take on the role of Jesus, (sharing in the life of the Son) which is the fulfillment of

Dialogue Between Man and God (San Diego: Harcourt, Inc, 1992).

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what Israel could never do. They are able to do this because the receive the Holy Spirit which is really the presence of Jesus in them and with them. The Holy Spirit is the dynamic catalyst that helps us achieve the mission and make sense of the mission, by participating in the life of Christ.10 Newbigin Ch. 6 - “Bearing the Witness of the Spirit: Mission as Hope in Action”

- “God’s kingship...is not the property of the church” - “Mission is not something that the church does; it is something that is done by the Spirit” - Peter and Cornelius as demonstrating the sovereign work of the Spirit in mission; Spirit is the basis for the Jerusalem Council and overturning massively important rules of the law - “[T]he real triumphs of the gospel have not been won when the church is strong in a worldly sense; they have been won when the church is faithful in the midst of weakness, contempt, and rejection” - “By obediently following where the Spirit leads, often in ways neither planned, known, nor understood, the church acts out the hope that it is given by the presence of the Spirit who is the living foretaste of the kingdom”

Summarizing the Missio Dei - “[T]he missionary obligation of which we are a part has its source in the Triune God Himself.”11 - “There is no participation in Christ without participation in His mission to the world.”12 - “The mission is not only obedience to a word of the Lord, it is not only the commitment to the gathering of the congregation; it is participation in the sending of the Son, in the missio Dei, with the inclusive aim of establishing the lordship of Christ over the whole redeemed creation.”13 - “It is not the church that has a mission, it is God’s mission that has a church.”14 - In summary, the missio Dei related to the church is “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit sending the Church into the world”15

10 Ross Hastings, Missional God, Missional Church: Hope for Re-evangelizing the West

(Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2012), P. 28. 11 John Corrie, Samuel Escobar, and Wilbert R. Shenk, Dictionary of Mission Theology:

Evangelical Foundations (Nottingham, England Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity Press, 2007), 233.

12 Ibid. 13 Ibid. 14 Ibid., 234. 15 Bosch, Transforming, 390.

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- "mission is not primarily an activity of the church, but an attribute of God. God is a missionary God."16 - “Mission has its origin in the heart of God. God is a fountain of sending love. This is the deepest source of mission. It is impossible to penetrate deeper still; there is mission because God loves people.”17 - Darrell Guder writes, "We have come to see that mission is not merely an activity of the church. Rather, mission is the result of God’s initiative, rooted in God’s purposes to restore and heal creation. ‘Mission’ means ‘sending,’ and it is the central biblical theme describing the purpose of God’s action in human history.... We have begun to learn that the biblical message is more radical, more inclusive, more transforming than we have allowed it to be. In particular, we have begun to see that the church of Jesus Christ is not the purpose or goal of the gospel, but rather its instrument and witness...God’s mission is calling and sending us, the church of Jesus Christ, to be a missionary church in our own societies, in the cultures in which we find ourselves.”18

6. Prayer III. SESSION 3 - New Humanity: Who are We? What is our Mission? A. Preparation for Gathering 1. Reading Assignment

- pp. 15-42, “The New Exodus/New Creational Restoration of the Image of God: A Biblical-Theological Perspective on Salvation” by Rikk E. Watts in What Does It Mean to Be Saved?: Broadening Evangelical Horizons of Salvation Ed. by John G. Stackhouse Jr. - pp. 169-189, section entitled “The Incarnation-Resurrection Dynamic Affirms That Christian Mission Is a New Creational Mission” from Missional God, Missional Church by Ross Hastings

- Highlighting some text from the Hastings reading:

- p. 171 - “The Christian gospel of the mission of God is the story not only of the forgiveness of sins but of human persons becoming sons and daughters of God, and therefore of the redemption and recovery of the fullness of human life in union with the risen Christ and as modeled in the richness of his personhood.”

16 Ibid., 389-390. 17 Ibid., 392. 18 Darrell L. Guder and Lois Barrett, Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the

Church in North America (Grand Rapids, Mich: W.B. Eerdmans Pub, 1998), 4-5.

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- p. 174 - “The end of all human journeys is the discovery of our home in God as he has made his home in us, and identity in light of who he is, and who he is for us”...”This does not negate all aspects of earthy cultural identity, but these are best appropriated and relativized when the deep roots of our longings for home are found in the incarnate, risen Christ, in the triune God of love. The fundamental irony of a secure sense of identity as humans comes only as we know Christ, and the triune God, and are known by him. John Calvin commented on this principle of “double knowledge’ in the opening of his Institutes. We only know ourselves as we know God. Jesus in resurrection was vindicated and affirmed by the Father in his identity as Messiah -Son and Lord (Acts 2:36; Rom 1:4; Heb 1:5). In the risen Christ we discover a similar affirmation and security of identity, as the beloved of God (Eph 1:6).”

2. Walking Exercise

“The glory of God is to be a human fully alive”

- St. Irenaeus

Go on a 20-30 minute walk and meditate on St. Irenaeus’s words. Think about the reality that we are made in God’s image. We were meant to participate with God in being a relational people serving as stewards of God’s good world. This involved both communion (as persons-in-relation with God, each other and creation) and work. Allow your heart and mind to explore these massive ideas.

B. Gathering 1. Prayer

2. Read Together - Putting the Great Commission, Great Commandment, and Cultural Mandate in Perspective

Here is a figure (redrawn from Hastings 156) where Hasting expresses the goal of Christian mission as the Cultural Mandate (Gen 1:28) because this is the goal of the Great Commission and the Great Commandment (Matt 22:35-40). He suggests most people are brought to Christ by going from the outer to the inner circle. In contrast, contemporary evangelicals may only focus on the inward circle alone, disregarding the Great Commandment or the Cultural Mandate , which results in a reduced, unbiblical understanding of the Great Commission.

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Drawing on the Fall, much of Evangelicalism focuses solely on the work to be done in the simplified, misunderstood Great Commission. The verse reads as the only item on a “to do list” that Jesus leaves for us, with no understanding of God’s participation in this mission. This is neither the design of the work nor the entirety of our existence. Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 3 reveals a deep core calling for us to know the depth of God’s love for us:

A Prayer for the Ephesians (Eph 3:14-21)

14 For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. 20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

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Therefore, we are called to be in deep communion with God in order to spread wide into mission with Him for the restoring of His world. Put simply, we must be sure of our identity before being on mission.

Summary - “God draws his redeemed people into participation in his life and love to continue his mission on earth.”19

3. Discussion As you may be starting to see with the Greatest Commission and a renewed theological understanding of our personhood and mission as defined by God and God’s mission, it is actually hard if not impossible to do anything for God. The work we think we need to do to earn His favor is already done by Him in Jesus Christ. The mission we think we are meant to do is not really ours, but God’s. Therefore, to be fully human and fully on mission with God is to be embedded in Him. If we think we are doing things for God, then we are living out of an unbiblical paradigm. We must switch our understanding, which may be more of a letting go of our imagined power and authority, to see that it is not a matter of doing things for God, but the real Gospel life is about an entrance into an intoxicatingly good invitation to enjoy life, in communion and on mission, with Him. We can only do things with God, and all that we do God has created for us to do.

Discuss your time today or the reading you did in preparation.

4. Prayer - Finally, what does all of this make you want to pray?

IV. SESSION 4 - Implications of the Missio Dei: Focusing on Election and Mission Under the Cross A. Preparation for Gathering

By this point, the invitation to create a new paradigm is there. In many ways, your view of God, of God’s mission, and who we are in light of God and His mission is probably opening up your vision of the Gospel and our purpose on earth. For the second half of this course, I want to focus on the implications and consequences of being on mission with God as we learn to let go of the idea that we do things for God.

1. Reading Assignment - Review Ch.4 and Read Ch. 7: “The Gospel and World History” of The Open Secret by Lesslie Newbigin.

2. Journal - Instead of journalling thoughts to yourself, journal by way of prayer to God, both during and after your reading.

19 Hastings, Missional, 117.

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B. Gathering 1. Prayer 2. Discussion

Lesslie Newbigin has written on the utter importance of the doctrine of election. As opposed to the more extreme Reformed ideas of double predestination or the chosen of God as exclusive beneficiaries waiting for heaven, Newbigin reveals the respect, love, and hope that God has for humanity in the doctrine of election by choosing a few for the sake of all. Again, this story begins not with the New Testament, but with the Old Testament in the choosing of Abraham to bless the nations and continues with Israel as God’s chosen people to be a light to the nations. Jesus Christ fulfills this as the seed of Abraham and the new Israel who dies for all, connecting the Jewish and Gentile worlds.

Here are some notes from the reading: - “[E]lection is for responsibility, not privilege” - Chosen, not for themselves, but the sake of all - Jonah becomes an important figure for us, as he has self-pity and God is pleading for the pagan world - Election is God’s design to call people to be in relation with each other and bring salvation to one another in the process; part of our nature as relational, not monadic beings

Share your previous convictions regarding election. Where are you now? How does Newbigin’s line of thought reveal the importance of election, especially for our missio Dei paradigm? How does Newbigin’s understanding of election fall in line with your readings from Hastings and Watts and Session III on the new humanity?

3. Read Together Importance of the Cross - While processing the importance of the election, let us place an emphasis on the Cross in our Trinitarian understanding of God.

John 12:23-26

23 Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. 25 Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.

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- This is a core part of how Jesus was sent from the Father, to die and suffer so that abundant life could come. 20 - Preaching the cross is something that is less oppressive to postmodern unbelievers; it is an action of weakness and foolishness (1 Cor 1:23); this is different from many churches and mission movements preaching triumphalism; Hastings says, “let the cross be oppressive, but not us.”21 - Seeing justification as a history according to Barth, ”that of the man Jesus in whom God has justified his creation by putting it to death and raising it up in a new form.” - This historical reality can help us with something incredibly important in our individual and unified missional lives: assurance of salvation. - Perhaps it is good to consider theologian Karl Barth’s view of the implications of this historical reality. To him, more emphasis is placed on a justification “in Christ” than “by faith.”22 From this perspective, we can see “faith is acknowledgment of a reality transition” whereby Christ, through his death and resurrection, has made it possible for a new humanity. In contrast to the tradition of Jonathan Edwards, assurance of salvation is not gained by taking an inward journey to evaluate our religious affections, but in looking “away from ourselves to the Christ who is for us.”23 Why is this so important? Assurance is hugely important in order to know what Christ has accomplished, that the work is finished and that we are truly loved.24 Hastings says,

The truly good news, the euangelion, that God has justified all in Christ, is liberating to preach in that it moves away from the selection model of election and enables the proclaimer to proclaim the good news to every human being that God is for them and that he loves them. The primary point of considering the theology of justification as Barth developed it is the liberating power it brings to proclamation…[and] it must be as one beggar telling another where to find

20 Ibid,, 223. 21 Ibid., 239. 22 Ibid., 227. 23 Ibid., 228. 24 This also has implications for our current age of introspection, hyper-emotionalism,

and psychotherapy theories that discourage one to think of sin as an issue in one’s life. The answer one is seeking within oneself can only be found by seeking what lies beyond oneself, Christ, and what He has done for us. This kind of shift will bring liberation, renewed humanity, and abundant life in the Triune God that Jesus promised (John 10:10).

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bread.25

- Therefore, “mission under the cross” means a call to struggle. Alan Hirsch, in Communitas, writes:

the dynamics of the Christian community inspired to overcome their instincts to “huddle and cuddle” and to instead form themselves around a common mission that calls them onto a dangerous journey to unknown places...where its members will experience disorientation and marginalization but also where they encounter God and one another in a new way.26

- Hastings points out the importance of Jesus’ scarred hands and feet as “a reality check” in understanding how we go about our mission27

- There are so many implications that come as we understand the reality of the Greatest Commission, which is our invitation to participation in the life and mission of God. Perhaps the two largest categories that contain many of these themes are: Reconciliation and Hospitality. The next session will be spent on these categories.

4. Discussion

What does this new understanding of the Trinity, of Christ’s work, of the Cross, and of our freedom bring to you? How does this make you want to pray? For me, it is both a joyful and costly invitation. Because we are still in the “already but not yet” part of the Gospel story, we are obviously still susceptible to sin. We are, as Paul says, in a battle between our spirit that is drawn to God and our flesh which is drawn to lies and temptations of false kinds of joy. There may be specific idols, comforts, or senses of security that we have made more important to our life than God. This is not just an individual call to repentance, but a family, community, and church-wide activity. Some of these idols may be amazing gifts of God - sex, work, rest, health, finances - but they need to be penultimate and placed before God, the One who has created and given us all good things. We must fight the temptation of the modern world that says we must control our environment because we know what is best for us. Again, if God created us out of love and a desire to share His love with us, He must know what is best for us. This is an ongoing process in our lives. The initial shift of allegiances may be a very slow process over months, or even years.

5. Prayer

25 Hastings, Missional, 230. 26 Ibid. 27 Ibid., 233.

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VI. SESSION 5 - Practical Implications: Reconciliation and Hospitality

A. Preparation for Gathering

1. Read - Remember in John 20:19 where John describes the disciples as afraid and behind locked doors? Jesus’ presence and pronouncement of peace makes the disciples overjoyed. As a result of Jesus’ visit and the Holy Spirit which comes on Pentecost, the fear that the disciples had is given way to boldness, despite circumstances being as dangerous, if not more so, than they were when they were hiding on Easter Sunday. In fact, Luke explains in Acts that the speeches by Peter and Stephen in front of the Sanhedrin (in Acts 4 and Acts 6, respectively), Philip’s encounter with Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8) along with Peter and Cornelius’s speeches and actions (Acts 10) were a result of the Spirit at work in each person. In each case, the Spirit gave courage and confidence to be in situations where fear would have otherwise overwhelmed them.

- I believe one area in which the Spirit can grant us courage is our calling to be united as a body and to risk in loving others well. Unity calls for reconciliation. Loving others, Christians and non-Christians, calls for radical hospitality.

- The picture should be getting clearer that there is less for us to fear in accepting God’s invitation to join Him in His mission to redeem the world. We should feel a freedom to abandon idols and disordered loves in order to risk real relationship with God, with ourselves, with others, and with creation.

- I read an article in Sports Illustrated many years ago about a Atlanta-based soccer team that was comprised of all African immigrant children. On a road trip, the coach was checking on the kids in their hotel rooms when she was realized all the kids were missing from their rooms. She opened the door to the last room to find that all 16 kids were sleeping in the same room, with their bodies all touching each other on the floor. One of the kids responded, “we wanted to be together.” - This story articulates a difference between Western and non-Western cultures, another product of the Enlightenment enhanced by wealth and the attempt at making heaven come to earth through convenience and comforts. Diane Stinton, a World Christianity professor at Regent College, said that the equivalent to Descartes’ statement of “I think, therefore, I am,” in Africa would be “We are, therefore, I am.” - Historical background: The rise of 18th century German Pietism in the Protestant

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church brought with it an emphasis on the priesthood of all believers and a need for personal conversion and piety. This sounds great to the American Evangelical, but with this turn away from a communal study and worshipping of God, we lost a sense of unity and the importance of the church as the entire body of believers, visible and invisible, alive and dead. Paul explains that, together, we are the body of Christ. We need each other like the body needs and functions well in dependence on each member.28 If we could suspend our belief in the self, of American rugged individualism, and realize the healthy dependence we could have on each other, we could begin to recover more of how we were meant to live. After all, we are family. We are brothers and sisters because we are all sons and daughters of God the Father. We could delight in the talents, strengths, and richness of our diversity.

- From my time at Regent, I have heard over and over that one of the greatest challenges of our time is ecumenism. Put simply, ecumenism is the aim of promoting unity among the world’s Christian churches. It is true that the most segregated time of the week in America is Sunday morning. Whether it is by class, race, or ethnicity, churches are the most segregated places in American society. Not only do we struggle with community of people most similar to us, we are even worse at joining hands with those different from us.29

2. Journal exercise - Think about your congregation. How diverse is it? How would you describe the mix of races, ages, ethnicities, income levels, and education levels? What would be different with your church and your experience of being part of the church if there was more diversity? I may be assuming too much in thinking that your church is not diverse. If it is, reflect on the positives that have come from this. Then, reflect on what dangers there could be if the diversity went away.

3. Plan an activity- Consider those in your neighborhood who are different from you. What are ways you could form a friendship or get to know the stories of one of these people who is different from you? This could be seeking out a mentor, a complete stranger, or intentionally visiting with someone with whom you may not normally think to spend time. After you think about this, communicate (via email, phone, etc.) what your goal(s) is/are for this with your group members.

28 For example, how would the stomach be nourished without hands? How would the heart feel without ears or eyes? How would the brain de-stress without exercise?

29 See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPNj6WIze4E for a brief answer by Ross Hastings on the importance of understanding the essentials and non-essentials of faith.

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B. Gathering 1. Prayer

2. Discussion - Share your thoughts on your congregation’s diversity. What are the positives and negatives of this reality? Share other memories or ideas that have come as a result of this week’s reading and reflection.

3. Reading - Read Story silently

One morning I woke up tired, lonely, and resigned to the daily grind of work. God felt distant. My heart felt hardened to the thought of reading Scripture or praying. Looking back, there were unhealthy desires I was imposing on God in that season of my life. He was not giving them to me and I was degenerating into a depressive state. I entered the school campus where I worked with the hopes of slipping into my office undisturbed. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. As I walked from my car, I realized I hadn’t even eaten breakfast. I would be reduced to a processed cereal bar, which would not help my overall physical and spiritual state of malnourishment.

I opened the door and reached for the wooden railing that led up to the stairs. All in one moment, the smell of icing, pastries, eggs, coffee, and fruit rushed to my nose. I heard a louder than usual murmur in the faculty lounge. I let go of the railing and walked into the room. It was ablaze with color and even more smells. That morning happened to be the annual faculty appreciation breakfast, when mothers of students put together an amazing breakfast buffet. It was a feast. The mother of one of my favorite students greeted me with a glass of juice and asked me what I might like to eat for breakfast.

As I felt the warmth and gratitude of the feast before me and the kindness of the mothers who arrived early to prepare food and serve, I came undone emotionally. That morning I was hating myself. I was not wanting God’s help. In that moment, I realized how undeserving I was of such a blessing, especially so impeccably timed. For me in that moment, it was hospitality that broke through. I felt honored, appreciated, valued, and loved. Those needs were at the core of my grudges towards God. I was reminded that I was part of a family at the school. My heart softened and melted immediately in that setting. God began to whisper all of the ways that I mattered to the school.

I wonder if this kind of love is what we need to be offering to friends and strangers who feel as isolated, insecure, and anxious as I did that day.

4. Share - Share a story or a scene in which you felt great welcome or hospitality. How

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did it make you feel? What stands out to you the most?

5. Read Together - Hospitality - The practice of hospitality is a doorway into reconciliation. Puerto Rican theologian, pastor, and missionary to Latin America Orlando Costas, in his book Christ Outside the Gate: Mission Beyond Christendom, reminds us that the location of Christ’s death was outside the religious center. Jesus practiced and exemplified this missional living from the periphery in both his incarnation (Paul reveals to us that Christ gave up his place of privilege - Phil 2:1-18) and at the cross. No greater evidence of God’s hospitality for humanity could be found than in the Passion week, from the washing of the disciples feet at the Last Supper, to the acceptance of the cup to drink in the crucifixion, to his ascension and giving of the Holy Spirit. - Hans Boersma draws from the early church fathers who saw Jesus Christ’s stretched-out hands on the cross as a symbol of hospitality in the embracing of the ends of the world.30 Boersma writes, “it is at the foot of the cross that we learn from God how hospitality is to function.”31 Hastings references Boersma while recalling the scene of John 20. He says, “At the very center of this hospitality stands both a death and a resurrection, the most fundamental enactment of truth from God’s side and precisely therefore also the threshold of God’s abundant hospitality.”32 Hastings reminds us that Jesus stands “in the center of his community” with a body that can move through locked doors, yet also bears the marks of the crucifixion.33 It is in this manner that Jesus sends us, enjoined with Him through the Spirit to sacrifice ourselves in hospitable ways for others in order to reveal and invite others into God’s Kingdom. After all, as Christians we have received the “ultimate hospitality by perichoresis or coinherence.”34 That is, we have been included in the Trinitarian embrace. As Darrell Johnson explains, in his death, Jesus’ death creates a momentary break in the Trinity, whereby we are welcomed into and sealed in God’s own relational community.

6. Spiritual Exercise - Take a moment of silence with your group. Imagine you are kneeling at the foot of the cross. Jesus’ hands are nailed to the wooden beam, outstretched. This is God’s new world order. As you imagine this scene, what words come to mind? What thoughts and feelings do you have as you contemplate the deep hospitality offered by God? How does it move you to join Him in this? As words become

30 Cyril of Jerusalem 31 Hans Boersma, Violence, Hospitality, and the Cross: Reappropriating the Atonement

Tradition (Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Academic, 2006), 25. 32 Hastings, Missional, 236. 33 Ibid. 34 Ibid., 237.

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clear, feel free to say them out loud to the group as you remain in a posture of prayer.

7. Read Together - Hastings makes an important note that the welcome of Christ is not unconditional. He writes, “It is nail-scarred hands that he stretches out in welcome. This is an invitation to union with him in his death, which involves mortification of sin.”35 This welcome means that, at the appropriate time, as we are servants of humanity with God, we can present a gospel that is not oppressive to the postmodern world.36 Hastings concludes,

So, like Paul, we need to determine to preach and proclaim Christ and him crucified. And like Paul we will do so as those who have been crucified with Christ. Our lifestyles will be characterized by the putting to death of old sinful habits. Our demeanor will be as those under the cross. This will go some way to overcoming the postmodern fear of the oppressiveness of metanarratives.37 Not that we can remove the offense of the cross. And being willing to bear that is precisely what it means to be in union with the scarred Christ. But if we come under the cross at least the offense will be because of the cross itself, not our oppressiveness.

- Hospitality simply means a friendly welcoming. We are called to do this with friends and, as importantly, with strangers. This involves risk. This involves some countercultural movement away from the safety and security of isolated individualism. It could involve rejection and a need to enter into the story and ways of a stranger who may not think and act as we do. This can be done both individually and corporately.38

8. Brainstorming - Brainstorm ways that you, your family, or your church could practicing hospitality to both friends and strangers. Think of something you could do

35 Ibid., 239. 36 Ibid. 37 To clarify this statement, Hastings is revealing a theme of postmodernity, whereby any

demand on people that they believe in a larger story seems confining and restricting. The postmodern assumption is that there is no universal or absolute truth, so offering a world that is grounded in a larger narrative is both scary and counterintuitive to them. In this paragraph, Hastings is revealing how our lives and witness, under the cross, do not have to feel as oppressive as non-Christians often feel when confronted by the Gospel. It can be much more welcoming and inviting than they ever imagined.

38 For more on hospitality, including appropriate ways to have healthy boundaries, see Miroslav Volf’s Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness and Reconciliation and Caroline Westerhoff’s Good Fences: The Boundaries of Hospitality. These books help to outline ways of hospitality by invitation, those you know, and by visitation of strangers, where uncertainty and risk is required.

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before meeting for the next session. Then, commit to doing it.

9. Prayer VI. SESSION 6 - The Bidirectional God Who Invites us to Communion and Mission A. Preparation for Gathering 1. Read

- Hastings 258 - “The consequences of the missio Dei are profound in that we can understand mission first and foremost as God’s mission to the world, and, amazingly, that we as the church can participate in it as we live in communion with this missional God. Furthermore, the missio Dei grounded in the existence and relatedness of both God’s being and act will, by analogy, cause the church to have both an inner life that is conscious of its missional identity and an outer life that flows from a rich inner life and has an orientation toward gathering others into that inner life.”

- One of the great themes of this course is to clarify the biblical realities that we participate with God in communion and mission. We do not do things for God. A consequence of lifting the Great Commission out of context and etching it on buildings (I saw the verse on a wall at an evangelical seminary yesterday), is that it creates all kinds of ambiguities of who we are in relation to God and what our purpose really is. By putting the Great Commission on a refrigerator magnet, one could easily but mistakenly see, in this modern/postmodern world, that God means for us to accomplish this work for him. From our reading and meditating on John 20:19-23 (the missio Dei), we know this is not the case. God’s calling on our lives is not sending us out on our own to finish what He started. As Hastings says, we are not called to fill in the gaps left by God.39

- In contrast, in this new paradigm shift of joining God in His mission to the world, we need to see three main things:40

1. Our calling is bidirectional. This means we are with God in two directions, as we gather in communion and as we scatter in mission to a wide range of vocations. 2. Our spirituality needs to be both pneumatic41 and incarnational. First of

39 Hastings, Missional, 259. 40 These are drawn out of Hastings, Chapter 10: “Mission as Theosis.” 41 In order to clarify what it means to have a “pneumatic spirituality.” I have included

Hastings words here: “The Son entered into our humanity to become one with humanity. However, in conversion, the Spirit awakens and draws us into reality of that union with Christ by faith. By the Spirit’s presence in us, Christ is present in us by coinherence. The believing person is baptized by the Spirit into Christ to be in his church, his body. As church and as ecclesial persons we fulfill the ongoing mission of Jesus as those who are one with him. Strictly speaking

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all, t must be pneumatic in recognizing our connection to the Spirit. Pneuma (pronounced new-muh) is the Greek word for “Spirit.” Secondly, it must be incarnational as it is action in the world that participates as the body of Christ. 3. Our union with God is not synergistic. Our mission with Him is not a delegation of expectations and responsibilities like a business manager might do with his employees. The reality is that there is an interpenetration happening where we are in Christ and He is in us. We are distinctly human and God is distinctly God, but there is an “overlapping, vine-and-branches sort of thing” that is happening.42

- An important consequence of this missio Dei understanding is noted by Hastings,

This concept of participation has profound consequences for the spirituality of believers and the church. Participation in the mission of God depends on the practice of union with Christ by the Spirit...Intimacy with God is crucial to missional participation with God of the kind that enables the church to respond to what God is about in his mission.43

- This makes sense, doesn’t it? We cannot simply demand that God tell us what to do. Or, we cannot hold a meeting with him and other believers on our own terms, right? We must come into an understanding of who God is, what God’s mission is, and, as a result, let that illuminate what it means to be human and on mission with God, our creator. This approach assumes the responsibility of a renewed understanding and practice in spiritual disciplines, of which prayer and the studying of Scripture become of great importance. A person only develops a mature relationship with someone by learning more about them and spending time with them. It only makes sense for us to have this approach with God, especially since He designed it to be this way! Richard Foster’s book Celebration of Discipline, Dallas Willard’s Renovation of the Heart and Spirit of the Disciplines, and Hans Urs Von Balthasar’s Prayer are strongly recommended as ways we can form and practice spiritual disciplines, especially prayer.44

we do not do mission for him but with him. This will reveal to us the spirituality of the Christian mission (a pneumatic spirituality).”(Hastings, Missional, 270)

42 Hastings, Missional, 275. 43 Hastings Missional, 276. 44 I’d like to make one note on prayer here. Balthasar’s book reminds us that much of

prayer is contemplation. In addition, he highlights that prayer is the most natural thing we do. Why? Because, it is an act of going home as we are in the presence of our creator and renewing our identity and place in His family. Watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5NjgT4lMpw&list=UUH7L383tQPdVntLEdLidGZw for Bruce Hindmarsh’s quick introduction to his class on the practices of prayer.

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- By accepting God’s invitation to (a) deep communion with Him and (b) participation in mission with Him, we have set up our new missional paradigm, which is best summarized as “contemplative action.”45 Balthasar writes, “Contemplatives are like vast underground rivers, at times causing springs to gush forth where least expected, or revealing their presence simply by the vegetation which is secretly nourished by them.”46 In this way, being sent with God must coincide with a practice of communion with Him. As Hastings writes, “This is mission spirituality, depth giving rise to wide influence.”47

- Since we are coming to the end of our time, let me remind us and make a short list of a few main points that come out of our focus on the missio Dei, John 20:19-23, as the Greatest Commission:

● We are because God created us. ● Our mission is defined by God’s mission. ● Mission is our nature because it is God’s nature. ● Mission involves both communion and activity with God. ● We are much more connected to God than we could ever imagine! ● Our purpose is to participate in the dance of the Trinity.48 ● We do not need to travel to a foreign country to participate with God in mission.

Mission is truly everywhere—in your home, in your neighborhood, in and outside of church, at your workplace, etc.

● The core aim of God’s mission is to invite people to be humans fully alive as defined by God through our call to relationality and stewardship of God’s world. This places boundaries on what is appropriate in evangelism in order to respect the humanity and personhood of each human being. It also de-emphasizes a more judicial understanding of our salvation that is prevalent in a more intellectually-minded church (“I attend because there is good teaching”) where there may be a disconnection between our understanding of our standing with God and our call to active participation with Him in the world. The forgiveness of our sins is not an agenda item to check off so that we can get a key to heaven. Jesus came to restore our humanity and bring us into intimate relationship with Him. Forgiveness is so that we can become more fully human and enter into relationship with Him, others, and creation which takes happens as we live in communion with Him and seek to be good stewards of His world. (See the note below on monadism.49)

45 Hastings, Missional, 283. 46 Ibid. 47 Ibid. 48 This is why, in participation with God, the yoke and burden (Matthew 11) that Jesus

asks us to put on and carry are easy and light. 49 This kind of spirituality I am describing here is completely different from what

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2. Journal - Taking your reading and all of the sessions we have had into account, step back for a moment and reflect. Think about where you were, intellectually and spiritually, when you started this course. Are there any substantial areas of growth that you can identify? What questions have been answered? What has been clarified or reframed? What new questions do you have? What kind of prayers are coming to the surface for you? Focus on 2-3 main areas that come to mind.

B. Gathering 1. Prayer 2. Reading Together - Take time to review and re-read the preparation reading for this session. 3. Discussion

- Share thoughts from your journal exercise. Take time to share what each person sees in the other from this time of gathering.

4. Conclusion - This last session is designed to be intentionally void of a grand conclusion because the enormity of all that has been covered will take much time to process and live out.

generally prevails today. Lesslie Newbigin expresses his concern about what he calls monadism. This means that each individual is essentially their own deity, whereby they choose for themselves what they want their Christianity to look like. They see no issue with being out of relation with others or a church. The perception is that they are with God in the journey, but they are imposing their own spirituality on God, a spirituality that is rooted more in postmodernism (meaning, “I will decide what I need to know, how I want to grow, and if I want to attend church or not”). God’s design is not this. By participation with God, we are already outside of ourselves, seeking communion with Him and recognizing our identity as the church with others, therefore a need to worship and be on mission with others. Monadism can be a practice of intellectual ascent whereby people think they are doing “X” because they understand “X.” For example, just because they know all about prayer does not mean they are exercising a healthy practicing of it. This is a dilemma of the secular world too, which has its roots in Aristotelian method of observation as the means to knowing, with no need for real experience or practice. Hastings adds to this by revealing that our focus is on individual conversion. He writes that contemporary evangelicalism accentuates conversion of individuals but not baptism into coinherence and the family of God, which is the union with Christ by the Spirit and the ecclesial event that embraces the convert into the church. He goes on to express that Paul explained baptism every time in the language of union (theosis).

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Resources listed in this course are valuable tools to go deeper in many subjects. I encourage you to seek out pastors, mentors, and colleagues who may have studied these subjects at one time or another. In many ways, this ending is a new beginning. But in order to have some conclusion, I will give the final words to Ross Hastings, who has been one of our main guides in these sessions. In the final paragraph of his book, he writes,

In conclusion, just as Jesus came not only to proclaim the kingdom of God but to be the physical embodiment of God’s presence, so the church as the ongoing embodiment of Christ by the Spirit’s indwelling is given its mission directly from Christ in this the greatest of the commissions. As Newbigin says, “His mission is to be their mission. And so also his Spirit is to be theirs…[T]hey are entrusted with that authority which lies at the heart of Jesus’ mission—the authority to forgive sins.” This authority is given as a commission to the church to bring God’s forgiveness to people in every situation, through word and action, thereby enabling the shalom of God, his gift of peace. The church's ability to spread this shalom is contingent on its receptivity to that shalom as it practices the presence of the crucified and risen Christ, thereby living into and out of the triune missional God, as the deep and wide missional church.

5. Prayer - As you prayer together, take the time to hear what the God may be saying to you all as a group. What kind of commitments do you want to make moving forward? How can you both remember and continue to learn about what has been covered? Share thoughts and ideas. Pray for clarity of people, places, and events that may be helpful. Consider how you want your relationship with each other to continue as well. Also, consider how you may share this experience with others and invite them to form a group.

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d. Bibliography of both sources you will use and resources you will encourage participants to use Balthasar, Hans Urs Von. Prayer. Translated by A.V. Littledale. New York: Sheed & Ward,

1961. Boersma, Hans. Violence, Hospitality, and the Cross: Reappropriating the Atonement Tradition.

Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Academic, 2006. Bosch, David J. Believing in the Future: Toward a Missiology of Western Culture. Valley Forge,

Pa. Leominster Herefordshire, England: Trinity Press International Gracewing, 1995. Bosch, David. Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission. American

Society of Missiology Series no. 16. Maryknoll, N.Y: Orbis Books, 1991. Corrie, John, Samuel Escobar, and Wilbert R. Shenk. Dictionary of Mission Theology:

Evangelical Foundations. Nottingham, England Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity Press, 2007.

Costas, Orlando E. Christ Outside the Gate: Mission Beyond Christendom. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2005.

Foster, Richard J. Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988.

Guder, Darrell L, ed. Missional Church  : A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America. Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans Pub., 1998.

Hastings, Ross. Missional God, Missional Church: Hope for Re-evangelizing the West. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2012.

Lewis, C. S. Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer: Reflections on the Intimate Dialogue Between Man and God. San Diego: Harcourt, Inc, 1992.

Newbigin, Lesslie. The Open Secret: An Introduction to the Theology of Mission. Rev. ed. Grand Rapids, Mich: W.B. Eerdmans, 1995.

Ott, Craig, and Harold A. Netland. Globalizing Theology: Belief and Practice in an Era of World Christianity. Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Academic, 2006.

Stackhouse, John G. What Does It Mean To Be Saved?: Broadening Evangelical Horizons of Salvation. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2002.

Volf, Miroslav. Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996.

Westerhoff, Caroline A. Good fences : the boundaries of hospitality. Harrisburg, Pa: Morehouse Pub, 2004.

Willard, Dallas. Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ. Colorado Springs, Colo: NavPress, 2012.

Willard, Dallas. The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1990.

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e. Description of the people for whom the course is structured (youth, young adults, married with kids, etc) - This course is targeted towards middle to upper class, white, American, evangelical adults who are eager to learn beyond what a general surface-level evangelical church experience has given them. - These are people who are thirsty intellectually and spiritually, and therefore are more than willing to meet the demands of the course.