Skip to main content

Where are we heading ... ?

What future for mission - Wes White

As I listened to this and thought through the implications there was one over-riding factor that come to my mind ... do we genuinely have confidence in the gospel? Is it indeed the power of God unto salvation for them that believe ... or is it a life-style choice for some which is of equal value as the choices others may make to believe in something else or nothing at all!

How much more of a struggle is it for those brought up in a post-modern context, where truth is reckoned as relative not absolute, to move forward to a place of conviction? Of course it is a work of the Word and the Spirit, so we can trust in the One who is able to do all things to bring this conviction ... But this conviction is vital if we are to take the gospel to the communities locally, nationally and internationally.

The gospel is for all regardless of age, culture, gender - it is the unique revelation of a holy, gracious and loving God who has made the way to have communion with Him ... Through faith in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Wes asks "What is the difference between a theology of mission or of missional theology... one is a justification the other shapes our thinking and actions!" There is a world of difference between the two - a Church that has stopped demonstrating and proclaiming the gospel is a Church that is stagnating or in decline, regardless of how much knowledge it possesses. When I was at Bible College my theology lecturer was always at pains to point out that "the best theology is worked out on the anvil of experience" - missional theology is no different. Does it shape our thinking? Our decision making with relation to finances and direction? Team building? Discipling methods? ...

In Patrick Johnstone's latest book The Future of the Global Church he makes some staggering predictions based on Trends as to what the world will look like in the future if we carry on as we are. Though he is also at pains to point out that he wants to be proved wrong! Why? Because he wants to see God surprise us by moving in us and through out the world to build His kingdom.

That is God's work, it is what He does and is doing with passionate, yielded people who do His works, confident in His ability to bring His revealed will into being!

Comments

Post a Comment

Feel free to add comments or ask questions:

Popular posts from this blog

Does God really lead us?

  Often as evangelical believers we talk about the concept of ‘calling’ explaining it along the lines of God speaking to his people, sometimes this is narrowed even to the experience of a special, select ‘few’ and limited in scope to those who are engaging in full-time Christian ministry. The following are some notes I prepared for a talk: Firstly, I would like to say that most Christians would believe that God communicates with his people, and that this may happen in many different ways. What is of utmost importance is that it does happen. We are in relationship with a Living God, who we call Father, and who communicates with us His creation and covenant people.   God communicates in a number of ways and one special way in which He leads and guides his people might be termed a vocation or calling and it’s this particular aspect of His communication I want to focus on.   So what is the calling? Who is called? And what are we called to? The whole i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Thoughts from a previous incumbent ...

In reference to 2 Tim 1:7 "For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of p o wer, of love a nd of sel f-discipli ne."   Norman Grubb decl are d that; "We are set in our day and generation to be overcomers, not to sail through calm seas but to walk on storms, to replace need with supply, to transform aspiration into realization. The language of defeatism, fear, lack and weakness is not to be in our vocabulary. "Let us go up at once and possess it, for we are well able to overcome it. As for these giants, they are bread for us," we say with sturdy Caleb.  We are to act as the men of faith of old; we are to visualize our goal in clear outline; we are to take it for granted that we shall reach it, for we have both the commission and anointing of God?   We lay our plans ,build our organisations, produce our written and verbal pronouncements,  prayer our prayers, do our work, not as those who will fail and fall by the way, but...
2 comments
Read more

Homes I have lived in #3

This year I am celebrating my silver wedding anniversary ... Just for something to do I have begun to sketch all the houses we have lived in during that time. So here is house number #3 On our return to the UK we were faced with the question that faces all people in transition, what next? For us, we were encouraged by our friends to investigate further training and opted to spend a year with Kerygma ministries. We joined with a group of some 20 other people from various different cultures and backgrounds to join the ministry led by Dr Bob Gordon, based at Drayton Hall near Norwich. We spent one year here, between September 1993 and July 1994.   Significant events that took place here included: Suffered reverse culture shock, as I grappled with the transition from life in a mudhut in Africa to life in the UK in a Manor House! (Struggled with the amount of money being spent on a sign that was being placed outside ...
Post a Comment
Read more