The Church as the Missionary

David Wesley recently wrote an article titled “ The Church as The Missionary.” In this article, he recognizes that few words have changed meaning in recent history more than the term ‘missionary.’ Wesley seeks to offer a solution to competing definitions and interpretations of ‘missionary’ that is both true to our perspective of scripture as well as true to our theological identity within the larger Christian body.

Here are a few of the points from the article:

• Mission is the very nature of the church. It flows directly from God and has always had is source in God.
• In every part of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, it is clear that God is a missionary God. God’s love for “the nations” and the desire that his people share in His passion is not a secondary issue, but is at the very center of who God is and who God expects the Church to be.
• In the New Testament, the Church didn’t just have missionaries; the Church itself was the missionary. Another way to put this is to say that the church is not just a sending church, but it is rather a sent church.
• Mission is not something that is done just by churches from one part of the globe, or when a church is large enough, wealthy enough or even after a church has built their own building, but as something that is a part of the life of the church from the very beginning.
• Missionaries are not missionaries because they have a salary or a contract any more than a church is missional just because it has an NMI program. We all are missional as we embrace our true vocation to be Christian.
• As Christians, we are called to draw into God’s Holy presence. If God’s nature is mission, those of us who partake in His nature will share that same nature of mission.
• The whole church sends missionaries. A missional church is actively involved in prayer, giving and learning as members from the church (or other churches) are sent to be specialized missionaries to people of distinct ethnic groups around the world.
• Mission does not flow from just the West. Any community of believers, in any part of the globe, whose lives have been transformed by the Gospel are to engage in God’s mission.
• Our greatest enemy is that we draw into ourselves and become a sectarian group with an inward focus on ourselves instead of outward to God and His mission.
  

Read the whole article at The Wesley Blog.