Discovering Missiology: God’s Mission Has A Church

In a previous post I provide a birds-eye view of the emergence of the Protestant Modern Missionary Movement and the development of missiology as a subset of ecclesiology. This perspective, “The Mission Has a Church,” created a dichotomy between church and mission that, in some places, still exists today.

Looking back to the early-to-mid-twentieth century, missiology continued to to function as the so-called Department of Foreign Affairs. However, in the wake of the 1910 World Missionary Conference (WMC) held in Edinburgh, Scotland, the International Missionary Council (IMC) was formed to continue the focus on mission work spurred by the growth of the church around the world.

The International Missionary Council

In 1921, the IMC, the first worldwide council formed by Protestants, initiated a strong global network of churches and mission organizations. The IMC, collectively and foundationally, wrestled with the challenge of different ministry contexts in various nations in the world, formulated policies for worldwide mission engagement, and actively worked together during catastrophic events like WWI (1914–1918) and eventually WWII (1939–1945).

The Missio Dei: From a Church-Centered Mission to A Mission-Centered Church

Rich theological reflections emerged from the expanding global church in real-time, and by the mid-twentieth century, the IMC began to recognize church and mission as two sides of the same coin. Their gathering in Willingen, Germany in 1952, signaled a pivotal change from a church-centered mission to a mission-centered church.

Here, the theological fusion of church and mission, considered in light of the mission of God (the missio Dei), revealed that the church, by nature and by design, is missionary. In other words, God’s salvific work is not determined by the combined effort of the church working alongside missions. Rather, both church and mission combine under the mission of God—the missio Dei.[1] Missionary statesman, Lesslie Newbigin’s phrase reflects this fusion. “The home base is everywhere, wherever the Church is.”[2]

Reading Scripture through the lens of the missio Dei reveals a deeply theological and trinitarian understanding of the True Story from Genesis to Revelation. God the Father, the primary agent of mission, sends God the Son, the plumb line of the True Story, and God the Father and God the Son send God the Spirit who empowers the church and invites every member to participate in the missio Dei.

The Headwaters of the WMC

Notably, the WMC provides a distinct marker in the world missionary movement despite the catastrophic disruption of WWI. Nevertheless, the streams that flowed from the headwaters of the WMC included the emergence of the ecumenical, evangelical, and Roman Catholic mission movements. You can find a more detailed look at these developments in my dissertation.

Next time:

Fissures and Divides…

Footnotes

[1] Georg F. Vicedom is credited with introducing the term missio Dei at Willingen in 1952. The term represented the shift from viewing missions as an activity of the church to God being the primary agent of mission. This also led to an increasing understanding of the triune God who is involved in mission in the world; the church participates in that mission. This concept of missio Dei is often described as a Copernican revolution. Tennent, in Invitation, 8, notes that at the time the concept of missio Dei “did seem to effectively sideline the church,” but Tennent suggests that “Vicedom also seems to envision the church being ‘sent out’ as a reflection of Christ being ‘sent’ into the world by the Father,” (p. 56).

[2] Lesslie Newbigin, One Body, One Gospel, One World (London: International Missionary Council, 1958), 28.