Missa Est! A Missional Liturgical Ecclesiology

International Review of Mission, 2010

This article on the mission theology of the church, a personal perspective by the vice-moderator of CWME, draws on documentation produced by the commission and also responds to the Faith and Order document, The Nature and Mission of the Church. It is based on the trinitarian paradigm of mission referred to as missio Dei, which emphasizes the priority of God's sending activity in the world, by the Son and the Spirit, and the contingency of the church and its mission activities upon that. Therefore, it is concerned with the participation of the church in God's mission to and in the world, and from this perspective, has a particular interest with the actual, empirical church rather than the ideal church, recognizing that the church exists in many different forms in particular social, cultural, economic and political contexts. The article argues that the church is “missionary by its very nature”. Both theologically and empirically, it is impossible to separate the church from mission. Indeed mission is the very life of the church and the church is missionary by its very nature the Spirit of Christ breathed into the disciples at the same time as he sent them into the world. The mission theology of the church as it has developed in ecumenical discussion over the 20th and early 21st centuries is discussed in terms of the relationship of the church to the three persons of the Trinity: as foretaste of the kingdom of God; as the body of Christ; and as a movement of the Spirit. The article shows that being in mission is to cross the usual boundaries and bring new perspectives from outside to bear, and this is a never-ending, enriching process.

In recent decades the relationship between mission (usually cast as evangelism) and worship has been the subject of much debate. The fair and appropriate critique of so-called "seeker-sensitive" worship has rightly taken the Church to task for its lack of missionality. Yet, the Church has taken the seeker movement to task for the limited scope of its liturgical theology. This paper attempts to begin to bridge the divide between the Church as a worshiping community and the Church as a missional community. It explores a theology of missional worship rooted in Israel's Sinai encounter with God in Exodus 19, which it then applies, generally, to the Church in describing the contours of a missional liturgy. Finally, the paper explores elements of the historical liturgy in an attempt to discern their role in a missional liturgy.

International Review of Mission, 2013

This article argues that an understanding of the development of a missional ecclesiology requires we recognize three closely connected and significant matters in 20th-century mission history: first, the increasing appreciation of the interconnection of church and mission evinced at major ecumenical conferences in the mid-20th century; second, the contributions of influential missiologist Lesslie Newbigin and his theological integration of mission and church; and third, the breakthrough of the phrase “missional church” with the 1998 publication of the book Missional Church. This article traces this three-part development through both historical and theological analyses.

Studies in missional ecclesiology emerged as one of the significant trends in mission studies in the last couple of years. What were these trends in missional ecclesiology? What kind of missional theology formed and fueled the renewed interest in missional ecclesiology? What impact flowed from the important ecumenical events in 2010 (Edinburgh 2010, World Community of Reformed Churches and Lausanne III)? This article explained the term ‘missional church’ and explored missional theology as participating in the life of the Trinity and thus mission as ‘joining in with the Spirit’. It explained the relationship between ecclesiology and missiology. The trends in missional ecclesiology were tracked by focusing on an incarnational approach to the church; relationality in the community of believers; the role of the kingdom of God; discernment as the first act in mission; imago Dei and creativity; the ecclesia and local community and finally mission and ethics.

The Asbury Journal, 2019

In the last 20 years, the Protestant Church has undergone a revolution in its self-understanding through the Missional Church movement. However, with its emphasis on changing forms of worship and on sending people out from the Church, the Missional Church discussion has been inaccessible (or even antithetical) to Eastern Orthodox Christians. This paper proposes a new way for Orthodox to enter the conversation, to contribute in a spirit of collaboration. With the goal of overcoming East/West theological differences by recognizing the inherent missionality of Orthodoxy's most central service, the Divine Liturgy, this paper will: explain the centrality of the Divine Liturgy to Orthodoxy, describe the general missional flow of the Divine Liturgy, and give specific examples of ways that various parts of the Divine Liturgy directly contribute to the Inward-Outward missional nature of the Divine Liturgy. Finally, some conclusions will be offered as to what the Divine Liturgy as a Missional Act might mean in the daily lives of the Faithful.

The following will review in brief missiological concepts which have been part of the ecumenical strive for unity in the time since the beginning of the modern ecumenical movement since 1848. Meant as introductory paper for a seminar on Mission.

In this article the central question being explored is 'what is a missional liturgy?' The exploration is conducted by making use of data and insights obtained from the Southern African Partnership for Missional Churches (SAPMC). After an introduction to the theme as well as the SAPMC-process, the analyzed data is presented. In conclusion some observations are made in an attempt to provide preliminary contours for attempts to answer the initial question.

[Abstract] The church is missionary by nature because it originates in the missio trinitatis Dei. This missionary nature (broadly understood) has two important theological and practical implications. First, the author clarifies the relation of the church's missionary nature to its various core functions so that the church is not reduced to its missionary function. Second, he examines the interrelation between missionary faithfulness and ecclesial Christian existence, drawing on the Johannine and Pauline corpora, explaining that the church (and the Christian) is vivified in missional obedience and, conversely, can lose its ecclesial identity by decisively abandoning its missionary vocation.

The article is an exposition and critique of Lesslie Newbigin's view of the church and its mission, according to which the church's mission is compared with and taken up into the sending of the Spirit and the Son by the Father. The conclusion is that Newbigin's ecclesiology has great merit in that it challenges the Christian community to realize that it is not even truly a church unless it is active in missions. But, at the same time, the essay argues that there are aspects of God's missional work that Newbigin's view does not fully integrate.

SC #10. 10 In developing this contemporary understanding, I want to quote Ad gentes #10, (The Decree on Missionary Activity in the Church-hereafter AG) which states: "The pilgrim Church is missionary by her very nature, since it is from the mission of the Son and the Holy Spirit that she draws her origin, in accordance with the decree of God the Father" It is, therefore, not one of a number of things that she does but is at the very heart of who she is and what she does as "the Church has been sent by Christ to reveal and communicate the love of God to all individuals and to all peoples". Ad gentes (The Decree on Missionary Activity in the Church) Ad gentes (vatican.va), accessed October/November 2021. #10.