Lausanne Global Analysis 6, 6 (November 2017)

The latest issue of Lausanne Global Analysis, from The Lausanne Movement, is available online from here, including pdf downloads.

In the issue overview, editor David Taylor writes:

‘In this issue we mark the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation with a call to Christian unity for the sake of the Great Commission; we consider how to stimulate theological resource-sharing between North and South; we address the issue of connecting across generations for global mission, drawing on lessons from the Lausanne Younger Leader initiatives; we suggest five simple truths for contemporary church planters; and we briefly review the new Operation World app which helps us to pray purposefully together for the world.’

Theos Report on English Ecumenism

The latest report from Theos was recently published:

Natan Mladin, Rachel Fidler, and Ben Ryan, That They All May Be One: Insights into Churches Together in England and Contemporary Ecumenism (London: Theos, 2017).

Here is the summary blurb:

‘The ecumenical movement in England has been on a significant journey over the past few decades. The number of Churches and denominations engaged in the area has grown remarkably, reflecting shifting trends in English Christianity. That, combined with major changes in the ecumenical bodies, and changing perceptions of ecumenism among Churches, has given rise to a complex and vibrant ecumenical scene.

‘This report provides a snapshot of contemporary ecumenism in England. It tells the story of how ecumenism has changed and describes a movement that is now sitting at a critical juncture as it looks to the future. The report focuses primarily on Churches Together in England, the main ecumenical body operating in England. It identifies the strengths of the organisation and discusses the challenges it now faces.

‘The report concludes with some suggested possibilities for the future, making some tentative recommendations for Churches Together in England as an organisation. It is our hope that this report will serve to provoke fresh debate about the purpose, focus, and direction of ecumenism as it develops over the coming years.’

A pdf of the full report is available here.

Mission Frontiers 39, 2 (March-April 2017)

The March-April 2017 issue of Mission Frontiers, published by the U.S. Center for World Mission, contains a number of articles on ‘Networks’.

Editor Rick Wood writes:

‘Is it really possible for God’s people to work together in unity for the sake of God’s glory in all the earth and the spread of His kingdom to all peoples? If you look at Christian history over the last 2,000 years, you would fairly conclude that it is not. But things are changing in our day and the unity that we need that seems so impossible to achieve is more and more becoming the reality on the mission field...

‘Over the last 27 years, I have experienced first hand the kind of unity Jesus prayed for as I have lived on mission with God. I have worked with Jesus followers from many different backgrounds. I did not have complete unity with these fine servants of God on every aspect of doctrine, mission strategy, politics and a host of other topics but there were always certain things that we were unified around. We loved Jesus and we wanted everyone else within all peoples to love him too, and we were willing to give our lives to help make that a reality.’

As to the biblical vision that unites us, Wood offers four suggestions:

1. We must provide access to the gospel and the knowledge of Christ to every person on earth.

2. Every willing follower of Jesus must be equipped (discipled) to live on mission with God to make more disciples who likewise equip and make more disciples.

3. The “Great Commission,” Matt. 28:18-20 must become our identity as followers of Jesus.

4. We must love God and love our neighbor 

Individual articles can be accessed from here, and the whole issue (4.2 MB) can be downloaded as a pdf here.

Love at Ephesus (2): Truth in Love

I contributed this week’s ‘Word for the Week’, a weekly email service provided by the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity.

Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love... Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

Ephesians 4:2, 15-16

What are you going to be when you grow up? For many of us, it was a dreaded adult question; for some of us, perhaps, it still is! At heart, though, it presupposes the significance of ongoing development, maturity, direction, intention, purpose. As such, it’s a good question for Christian communities to ask of themselves. Paul provides an answer in Ephesians, which is that when the church reaches maturity, it will attain to ‘the whole measure of the fulness of Christ’ (4:13). It assumes we still have growing to do.

By this point, Paul has outlined the great plan of God to bring all things together in Christ, a scheme which has already had its beginning in the church, the creation of a new humanity in Christ, in whom God dwells by the Spirit. It’s on the basis of this new identity that Paul brings a series of exhortations to the church, the first of which is to guard the unity entrusted to them.

Those who have been ‘rooted and established in love’ (3:17) are now asked to live accordingly, ‘bearing with one another in love’ (4:2), being willing to endure discomfort for the sake of others rather than asserting their own rights.

And we need love, Paul says, in order to become mature. We grow out of infancy into adulthood by ‘speaking the truth in love’ (4:15). Crucially, this is not in the first place about speaking honestly to one another; it’s better understood as confessing the truth to one another. Where the church is at risk of falsehood being spread in a deceptive manner (4:14), truth needs to be confessed in a loving manner. I am less likely to be unstable and immature if my fellow believers are constantly reminding me of the message of truth, particularly if they are doing so from a loving heart, concerned about the growth of the body. Truth embodied in love.

Here, then, is a vision of a church where each member lives for the wellbeing of the whole body as we grow and build one another up in love. So it is that the ‘in love’ of 4:2 is repeated in 4:15 and then again in 4:16, describing the sphere in which Christian living takes place, the atmosphere in which all-member ministry happens, the most conducive climate in which church growth occurs – and the direction in every case is towards Christ.

International Bulletin of Missionary Research 38:2 (April 2014)

The latest issue of International Bulletin of Missionary Research carries the feature articles noted below addressing the question, ‘How Important is Christian Unity?’

J. Nelson Jennings

How Important Is Christian Unity?

S. Wesley Ariarajah

Mission and Ecumenism Today: Reflections on the Tenth Assembly of the World Council of Churches, Busan, Republic of Korea

Jooseop Keum

Shift of the Center of Gravity for the Ecumenical Movement? WCC Busan Assembly and the Korean Churches

World Council of Churches

Together towards Life: Mission and Evangelism in Changing Landscapes

James J. Stamoolis and Bradley Nassif

Historic Meeting in Albania between Orthodox and Evangelicals to Discuss Mission

J. Nelson Jennings

OMSC Encounters Orthodoxy

Sherron George

Report on Pope Francis and the 2013 World Youth Day

Steve Cochrane

East Syrian Monasteries in the Ninth Century in Asia: A Force for Mission and Renewal

Steve Sang-Cheol Moon

Missions from Korea 2014: Missionary Children

Thomas A. Oduro

“Arise, Walk through the Length and Breadth of the Land”: Missionary Concepts and Strategies of African Independent Churches

Jonathan J. Bonk

Myanmar Baptist Convention Celebrates Its 200th Anniversary

Jangkholam Haokip

Implications of Having an Independent Missionary: A Review of the 1910 Kuki Mission

Elmer Lavastida Alfonso

The Legacy of Bartolomé G. Lavastida-Díaz

Missional Journal 4, 4 (May 2010)

There seems to be quite a bit of talk at the moment about unity and ecumenism in the ongoing missional task of churches. David Dunbar’s latest Missional Journal suggests four pointers to what we might actually do.

1. Lower the walls – nurturing a theological hospitality between churches and Christian institutions, referring to the difference between a fortress and a home.

2. Cultivate a gracious spirit – extending to others the welcome we have received from God, giving others the benefit of the doubt, and not being too quick to judge others’ motives.

3. Look for partnerships – among individuals, organisations, and churches which ‘encourage God’s people to work together in a spirit of trust and love across traditional, theological, cultural, or denominational barriers’.

4. Pray for the mission – with churches and Christian organisations together seeking the blessing of God on a particular community, people group, nation, or the world.

Word for the Week: Whole Life, Whole Bible (48/50) – The Reunification of All Things: United We Stand, United We End

‘Word for the Week: Whole Life, Whole Bible’, from London Institute for Contemporary Christianity, is a series of fifty emails designed to look at the main milestones of the biblical story, seeking to show how whole-life discipleship is woven through Scripture as a whole, from beginning to end. Here is the forty-eighth of the fifty emails.

With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment – to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ… His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross… Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace… until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
Ephesians 1:8-10; 2:15-16; 4:3, 13

In the breathtaking opening of his letter to the Ephesians, Paul outlines the broad sweep of God’s plan of salvation set in place before the foundation of the world. Even as he catalogues the amazing blessings we enjoy in the here and now, he still looks forward to the moment when ‘the times reach their fulfillment’, when all things will be summed up – gathered together under one head – Christ, the one in whom God will restore harmony to the cosmos.

And as the letter goes on, it becomes clear that the ultimate unity of all things – to be fully displayed in Christ – has already had its beginning in the church.

Though dead in sin, enslaved by forces of evil, and deserving of wrath, we have been made alive with Christ – only because of God’s love and only through faith (2:1-10). But the death which brings together God and humanity also unites formerly alienated people, as Jews and Gentiles are made into ‘one new humanity’, reconciled through the cross – both given access to the Father, both citizens of the heavenly temple indwelt by the Spirit, both declaring that defeat of the ‘powers’ is now certain, both called on to display the wisdom of God (2:11-3:13).

So, far from being a passive spectator in this cosmic drama, the church is to live a life worthy of her calling, to display the unity of the Spirit, to grow together in Christ as a unified body, to reflect to the world God’s ultimate plan for the universe, testifying to a comprehensive, all-embracing salvation in lives turned around.

While the vision is cosmic and grand, the outworking is local and specific as we witness to the reconciliation of all things in our everyday existence in particular locations, from Basildon to Bangalore. In doing so, we demonstrate a whole new way of living – before God and with others, consistent with our new humanity – starting with where we find ourselves everyday, with the choices we make everyday, with the people we live with everyday, with our families and in our jobs – as very ‘ordinary’ people through whom God is present to the world.

For further reflection and action:

1. Paul makes it clear in Ephesians that the church has been included from the outset not as a ‘supplement’ to God’s plan but as an essential ingredient in his scheme for the universe. How often do we think of the church this way, and what difference might it make to our thinking and practice if we did so?

2. How do we become ‘ministers of reconciliation’, demonstrating the restoration the gospel brings to every area of life? Read Ephesians 4-6, and reflect on how God’s design for reconciled lives works out on the ground and in relationship with others.

3. Buy or borrow – and read – a copy of Eugene Peterson, Practise Resurrection: A Conversation on Growing Up in Christ (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2010), which looks at the theme of ‘growing up in Christ’ in Ephesians.

Missional Journal 4, 1 (2010) on Theological Hospitality

The latest issue – 4, 1 (January 2010) – of Missional Journal, written by David G. Dunbar of Biblical Seminary looks at ‘Theological Hospitality’.

Dunbar writes of his conviction that the ‘missional church’ movement ‘gives fresh impetus for a renewed search for evangelical unity centered in a robust, historic, Trinitarian orthodoxy’, where ‘the unity of the church is not for our benefit (primarily) but for the good of the world and the furtherance of God’s reconciling purposes’.

He refers to a forthcoming book by John H. Armstrong, Your Church Is Too Small: Why Unity in Christ’s Mission is Vital to the Future of the Church (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, forthcoming 2010), and notes his dependence on David Buschart, Exploring Protestant Traditions: An Invitation to Theological Hospitality (Downers Grove: IVP, 2006) for the notion of ‘theological hospitality’.

Citing Buschart, he writes:

‘We should understand… that commitment to a particular theological position or tradition is not in itself a hindrance to the faithful practice of hospitality. A crucial determinant is attitude. Do we see our tradition as a fortress (to be defended against the enemy!) or as a home (in which to welcome friends)? The latter requires us to practice humility, and this “entails admitting that one’s theology is neither complete nor free of errors… Such fallibility is often acknowledged, at least in principle, but theological hospitality requires acting upon this humility”’ (7).