Missional Church

Background

The missional church is a strand of ecclesiology (the field of theology concerned with the nature and mission of the church). It views the church not as an institution that carries out missionary activities but as a community whose very existence consists in being sent into the world. The idea is commonly traced to the concept of the "mission of God" (Latin missio Dei). This concept regards the Triune God, rather than the church, as the agent of mission, and sees the church as an instrument that participates in that mission. The German theologian Karl Hartenstein is credited with using the term in distinction from the "mission of the church" (missio ecclesiae). The concept took definite theological shape through the 1952 conference of the International Missionary Council held in Willingen, Germany. Some have pointed out, however, that the term was not actually used at the conference itself but rather in Hartenstein's written summary of it.

Another background factor is the secularization of Western society. The British missionary Lesslie Newbigin, who served for many years in India, concluded after returning home that the church in his own country was itself in need of mission. He identified Western society, secularized and pluralized by modernity, as a mission field in its own right and raised anew the question of the church's identity. His challenge is regarded as the starting point of the subsequent discussion of the missional church.

Development

• Late 1980s: Church leaders and theologians in North America formed the Gospel and Our Culture Network (GOCN). Its aim was to bring the three spheres of church, gospel, and culture into conversation with one another. In the early 1990s, under the leadership of George Hunsberger, the network began publishing a quarterly newsletter and holding annual consultations.
• 1996: The Church Between Gospel and Culture, edited by Hunsberger and Craig Van Gelder, was published.
• 1998: Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America, edited by Darrell Guder and written jointly by missiologists from several denominations, was published. The book summarized three years of GOCN research. It diagnosed North America as having become a mission field in its own right. It also argued that the answer to the church's crisis must be sought not at the level of methods or problem-solving but at the level of identity—who the church is and what it exists for. Through this book the term "missional church" became established in missiological circles worldwide.
• 2000s: The discussion broadened with subsequent works such as Guder's The Continuing Conversion of the Church (2000) and Van Gelder's study of denominations and the missional church (2008).

Outcomes and Influence

Missional ecclesiology holds that all church members are called in order to be sent into the world. It therefore emphasizes that each believer should regard his or her own place in life as a mission field and bear witness to the gospel in everyday life. Korean scholars regard the movement as grounded in Newbigin's missiology and in the understanding of the missio Dei. They also observe that it moves beyond a church-centered understanding of mission and pursues holistic mission (mission encompassing both evangelism and the whole of life) in partnership with local communities.

In Korea, too, the topic has been actively discussed in theological circles and in pastoral ministry since the 2000s. One study describes missional ecclesiology as having developed separately within the ecumenical movement and within evangelicalism. According to this study, the foundations of missional ecclesiology were laid in the mid-twentieth century as the movement for church unity converged with concern for world mission. The Lausanne Movement, by contrast, while affirming a balance between the gospel and social responsibility, tends to focus more on the centrality of the gospel and to emphasize nurture and training grounded in discipleship (living as a disciple of Christ).

Assessment

The movement has drawn attention for seeking the answer to the church's crisis in the church's essence and identity rather than in programs or methodologies. At the same time, some have criticized the way the concept has been misunderstood and misapplied in the Korean church. According to one critique, what Newbigin originally spoke of was a "missionary church," meaning that "the church itself is the missionary." When the expression crossed over to the United States, however, it was softened into the adjective "missional," and it was later transformed into a model of social activism or community-based churches. Others note that when the scope of mission is broadened too far, the meaning of cross-cultural mission becomes blurred. The underlying concept of the missio Dei is itself a subject of debate. Scholarly analyses suggest that the concept was not sufficiently rooted in the doctrine of the Trinity from the outset and that subsequent interpretations diverged as a result.