|
What follows was originally a paper completed as part of my studies through the Antioch School. The objective of this assignment was to demonstrate that I had "designed a model to use as a guide in planting and establishing churches today from the core elements of Paul's strategy used on his missionary journeys, including local churches and mission agencies/apostolic teams." Formatting Note: Due to headaches, I was not able to convert my thoughts into an article or paper format, and instead turned in a bullet list of major points I felt such a paper would need to cover. I have elected to leave it in this form when posting it here because I kind of like how it works. All scripture passages are NASB unless otherwise noted. 
1 Michael Griffiths, Who Really Sends The Missionary? Chicago, Ill.: Moody Press, 1974. 12.
2 Ibid., 13. 3 Missionary, 19-20. Griffiths is specifically justifying the responsibility of the local church in supporting missionaries through finances and prayer, but it is not a stretch from his point to include responsibility to prepare those same missionaries, especially if the missionary is viewed through the understanding here quoted. 4 Howard Snyder, “The Form of the Church” in The Community Of The King Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1977. 159. 5 Ibid., 167-168. 6 Peyton Jones and Ed Stetzer, Church Plantology: The Art And Science Of Planting Churches Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2021. 368. 7 Ibid., 369. 8 “Form,” 143. 9 This part almost sounds self-explanatory because you can’t make a church without gathering some disciples but then you run across a handful of church plants that recruit almost entirely from other churches and haven’t baptized anyone and you start to realize it really isn’t that clear to some people and you get so annoyed about it that years later you have to be reminded that this thought would be better served in the footnotes than the body of the paper.
0 Comments
What follows was originally a paper completed as part of my studies through the Antioch School. The objective of this assignment was to demonstrate that I had "developed a biblical definition for missionary and missionary work as taught in Acts." In defining the Great Commission as a church-based endeavor rather than an individual mandate, and further describing the church as the direct authority in the work of carrying the mission of the Great Commission, and clarifying that the nature of that work is to establish churches, the natural conclusion is that the work of a missionary is fundamentally to work under the authority of the local church in establishing a new local church in a new local setting. That this is the model we see of missionary work in Acts further cements this understanding. The book of Acts follows a select few missionaries; it largely focuses on the missionary team that included Paul, whether that was with Barnabas and Mark on the first missionary journey or Paul, Silas, Luke, and Timothy by the time the second missionary journey reached Europe. Beyond this, there is a brief aside about the work of Apollos in Acts 18:24-28, and little else. However, that aside does indicate that the means we see Paul utilizing were treated as normative during that period. Apollos arrives on the scene with skill at speaking, an understanding of scripture (v. 24), established instruction, and a partial grasp on the truth of Christ (v. 25). He is identified by leaders in the church as a potential leader, given further training (v. 26), then commissioned and sent out by a church body (v. 27). When he arrived, he was able to use his gifts and training to help the church that was already active in that area (v. 27-28). We later learn in 1 Corinthians that Apollos goes on to have a significant impact on the early church, to where some misguided believers were grouping themselves by whether they were reached by Paul, Peter, or Apollos (See 1 Corinthians 1:12, 3:4, and 3:22). It is helpful to consider this story, as it is the main example we have in Acts of what missionary preparation and sending looked like when it did not directly include Paul. It is easy enough, if all we talk about is Paul’s work, to put his work in one category and our own in another; the case of Apollos contradicts this tendency. That Apollos follows the same basic missionary path as Paul, despite neither meeting Paul nor being sent out by the same church that sent Paul, indicates that the model we see from Paul was expected to be the model used by others as well. It is, therefore, reasonable to conclude that it is the model we also are expected to use. Hesselgrave reaches this same conclusion, and defines the model, when he states that “there is explicit teaching in the Epistles which directs us to carry on the same activities in a similar way—namely, to go where people are, preach the gospel, gain converts, gather them into churches, instruct them in the faith, choose leaders, and commend believers to the grace of God.”1 Priscilla and Aquila are part of the church in Ephesus and have been identified elsewhere in scripture as leaders. These leaders find Apollos, instruct him in the faith, identify him as a leader, then send him where people are to preach the gospel, gain converts, and commend believers to the grace of God. Thus, as Paul is sent out by the church in Antioch, Apollos is sent out by the church in Ephesus. Given this relationship to the church in Ephesus and the description that “he greatly helped those who had believed through grace,” we can conclude that he operated under the authority of at least one established local church in his work (Acts 18:27, NASB). We get very little information in Acts on what Apollos actually did while he was in the field, aside from refuting arguments against Jesus as the Christ and helping the church in Achaia, but given Paul’s description that “I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth,” it appears Paul believed Apollos was participating in the same process of establishing churches that Paul himself was (1 Corinthians 3:6, NASB). Thus, we have Apollos either described as, or hinted at being, someone who was trained by the local church, identified as a leader, and sent out by the local church to establish local churches in a different setting, just as Paul does throughout the lengthy descriptions of his work. That which was displayed by Paul and was handed down to Apollos has also been handed to us. The modern missionary has the same job description and model to follow as Paul and Apollos had, as we serve the same God on the same mission using the same means—the church—as them. 1 David J Hesselgrave, “Church-Planting Strategy—The Pauline Cycle” in Planting Churches Cross-Culturally: North America and Beyond Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000. 46.
What follows is adapted from an assignment I completed as part of my study of Acts for the Antioch School. This assignment was to demonstrate that I had "developed convictions on the role of the local church in missions today." Churches have a number of functions, many of which are specifically local. It is within the local context that a church baptizes believers, interacts with its community, carries out discipleship, practices communion, participates in regular corporate worship, and invests in the lives of one another. If, however, we are to understand the church as being the vehicle for the Great Commission to carry the gospel of Christ to all the world, then there needs to be some means by which the local church functions on a global stage. Now, no local church body can carry out the fullness of its mission on a global scale—people from Malaysia simply will not attend a communion service in Iowa on a regular basis—so how is the global function of the local church related to the local function? Historically, the primary means by which the local church extends its mission to the global stage has been by sending out individuals who have a working partnership with the local church and operate in a different, frequently overseas, local context. A working partnership is more than simply sending money, however, and requires that the church actually participate in global work on a fairly regular basis. One way local churches have addressed this need in recent years has been short-term mission trips. Short term missions, however, are a fairly new phenomenon in American Christianity. Bob Garrett, then-professor of missions at Dallas Baptist University, wrote in 2008 that “in the 1960s and into the 1970s most denominational mission boards and missionary sending agencies were still sending out exclusively career personnel” and went on to explain that the rise of short term missions was not only unexpected, but actively opposed by some.1 That it is now one of the primary activities of many American churches is a significant shift; and not necessarily one that has been handled well. As Brian Howell noted in an interview, I am not for the narrative that has typically driven these trips: ‘We are going because there’s this tremendous need out there that we have to meet. And there’s this burden that we have as the wealthy country to go and do something in another place.’ I support transforming this narrative so that it becomes, ‘How can we connect with what God is doing in other parts of the world? How can we learn to be good partners with Christians already in these places? How can we participate in what the church is already doing in these countries in effective ways?2Short term trips are not inherently wrong, but they, and all aspects of church missions, must be determined in light of the local church’s role in missions. The above quote suggests that we have lost sight of that role, and in doing so, have lost sight of how we are to carry out that role. Or, as Hesselgrave put it, “to allow any understanding of mission to obscure the proclamatory, sacramental, and didactic responsibility of the church is to put the knife to the heart of the Christian mission.”3 If these are the responsibility of the local church, and the means by which the church is to engage in mission in other environments, then the means the local church must use center on the establishment of a local church within the new environment. The role of the church is, then, to reproduce churches and equip those churches to be missionally active. This is not to say that other work cannot be part of this model. Short-term mission trips, service ministries abroad, and long-distance tools such as radio ministries and websites can all serve the mission of the church if they are carried out with the mission always serving as the focus. Griffiths warns that other approaches and organizations, good as they may be at achieving good purposes, must never cause us to “lose sight of the fact that such organizations are only auxiliary, ancillary, secondary and supplementary to the chief task of missions, which is to plant new churches” (emphasis original).4 This is, after all, the example we see in Acts. The church in Antioch was established by faithful people who came from the church in Jerusalem, with the short-term assistance of leaders sent by Jerusalem and the long-term work of Barnabas. This church then sent Barnabas and Saul out into the field, where they established churches while remaining in contact with, and under the authority of, the church in Antioch. The role of the local church in missions, then, is to focus its energies and resources toward the establishment of a new local church, using whatever tools are suitable for the context and can be used faithfully, by making and gathering together disciples who will continue to engage in and pass along the church’s mission, under the authority of the local church, in accordance with the Great Commission. 1 Bob Garrett, “Towards Best Practice in Short Term Missions,” Journal for Baptist Theology & Ministry 5, no. 1 (Spring 2008): 103, Accessed January 24, 2019, http://www.galaxie.com/article/jbtm05-1-10.
2 Jeff Haanan and Brian M. Howell, “Better Partners: How Can Short-Term Mission Best Advance God's Mission?” Christianity Today, January-February 2013, 79. http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A315069366/ PPRP?u=vol_b43nbc&sid=PPRP&xid=b20c0ba8 (Accessed January 12, 2019). 3 David J Hesselgrave, “The Heart of Christian Mission” in Planting Churches Cross-Culturally: North America and Beyond Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000. 22. 4 Michael Griffiths, “What Do Missionaries Do?” in What On Earth Are You Doing?: Jesus' Call To World Mission InterVarsity Press, 1983. 39. |
Scripture quotations taken from the NASB. Copyright by The Lockman Foundation
Archives
January 2023
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed
