“The church must be like those around it but different. If your church community is nothing like the culture around it, it has lost its ability to speak. If it looks just like the culture, it has lost its reason to speak.” - from Dr. Scott Kisker's Missional Evangelism in this month's issue of eCalling for Graduates.
Table of Contents
- Missional Evangelism
- Upcoming Events
- Grad News and Notes
- About eCalling for Graduates
- About Wesley
Missional Evangelism
By Dr. Scott Kisker, Wesley's professor of evangelism
Foundation of Evangelism
Finding our identity in the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, fully revealed in the person of Jesus Christ, immediately changes the context within which we think about what we mean by “evangelism.” Evangelism ceases to be primarily about what we do - a duty to perform, or a tool to grow the institution, or even make disciples.
It instead it becomes part of what God is doing, part of God's plan to bring about God's purpose for God's creation. It is part of God's mission -- a mission that then defines God's people.
Now, this word “mission” can also be tricky, carrying its own share of western elitism.
In our churches, “mission” has a kind of top down connotation. Mission is what people from Christian countries do in other non-Christian countries. Or mission is what the fortunate do for the unfortunate domestically or internationally.
Before the 1600s the term “mission” was used exclusively with reference to the Trinity. The “mission” was the mission of God sending Jesus, and God and Jesus sending the Holy Spirit. This is what was meant by the missio Dei. Missio, in Latin, means “a sending off.” The verb form “to send” is mittere.
This notion of “sending” is key for understanding the idea of mission. Mission presupposes a sender, someone sent, those to whom they are sent, and an assignment.
In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word for sending is selah. It is most often translated in the Septuagint by some form of apostello, which corresponds to the Latin word mittere. “Sent,” “Apostolic,” “missional,” all mean the same thing. Thus mission is at the core of what it means to be the “one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.”
One of the most powerful images in the Hebrew scriptures is of God sending forth God's word. Perhaps no passage illustrates this as well as Isaiah 55:11. “So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”
The Lord says concerning God's word [dabar] that it will accomplish that for which it is sent. God's divine word almost takes on a force of its own, working God's will. Psalm 107:19-20 says, “Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress; he sent out his word and healed them, and delivered them from destruction.”
Thus, there is the obvious connection between the theology of the Old Testament and John's theology of Christ as the divine Word in John 1:1 sent by God - the first part of the missio dei. God sends God's word into creation to work recreation, reconciliation, healing and redemption.
And the sending continues. Jesus says to the disciples in John 20:21, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”
So what is God's mission? Why is God sending forth Jesus. Why do God and Jesus send forth the Spirit? And why are God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit sending forth us? The Church will never have a fruitful outreach until we know the answer to that question. It is not simply to do what Jesus did, though that is part of it. It is to be bearers of God's Word.
What is the message?
God has sent forth God's Word. We have been sent forth as ambassadors for that Word, with a testimony about that Word made flesh, who is Lord of Heaven and Earth. We believe this is “Good News,” but it is not news about us or our institutions.
If I walk into a room and yell, “Dollar margaritas at the Cactus Cantina!” am I doing evangelism? That would certainly be good news for some people, at least on some level.
Our consumer capitalist society is dedicated to communicating some sort of “good news” about this or that product, or at least about making some news about this or that product seem “good.”
And yet much of the Western church does things very similar to this and calls it evangelism. So often what passes for evangelism is focused on the church community itself, its programs, its political leanings, its friendliness, its openness. This kind of evangelism is little more than narcissism cloaked in piety. It is self-love sent forth for the benefit of self.
Like my advertisement for the Cactus Cantina, sharing a particular message can be intended to bring in more customers – to grow the church. In the history of the Western church the motivation for sharing the message has been to bring civilization, save souls, and, in some of our struggling congregations, to bring in more money. That kind of “outreach” has little to do with God's purpose or the Word we have received working out that purpose in history.
As Christians, we reach out with news we have received about the Word of God. This is news we believe uniquely deserves the adjective “good.”
Answering the question “what is the news?” means defining what we mean when we talk about the Gospel.
The earliest proclamation of the Church, is “Jesus is Lord!” This is not a claim about us. This is a claim about who God is. It is a focusing of the Old Testament claim, “Our God reigns!” And it is an assertion of Jesus' announcement that with his presence “The Kingdom of God is at hand.” None of these is an obvious claim.
A motley collection of freed slaves, living on a land bridge between world powers who worship other Gods, a group who cannot securely occupy their own land, who are infinitely inferior in economic and military might to those around them, has a hard case to make that their God is the greatest. Just so, claiming an itinerant carpenter/preacher from nowhere who was killed at 33, is lord and judge of the universe is not an obvious claim.
It is a claim about God's will being done on earth as in heaven and what that looks like. It is a claim on our identities and our loyalties above all others.
What is Evangelism?
Missiologist Andrew Walls reminds us no culture exists which can absorb Christ painlessly, not Semitic, Greek, Roman, Persian, Barbarian, Celtic, Ibo, American. On the one hand, Christians have all the relationships they had before and have them sanctified by Christ who is living in them (1 Cor 12-14). But we also have an entirely new set of relationships with other members of the family of faith, with Israel, and with the Word (Jesus).
Christians are given an adoptive past. According to Walls in The Missionary Movement in Christian History, "All Christians of whatever nationality are landed by adoption with several millennia of someone else's history, and with a whole set of ideas, concepts and assumptions that do not necessarily square with the rest of their cultural inheritance."
Coming to Christ will cause us both to love our neighbor and will divide us from our neighbor. Our tribal and family loyalties are relativized. “I have not come to bring peace, but the sword,” says Jesus. (Mt 10:34-35)
This is why in our evangelism, the church must communicate in the language of the culture, what is foreign to the culture. God's reign is not an obvious reality. The church must be like those around it, but different. If your church community is nothing like the culture around it, it has lost its ability to speak. If it looks just like the culture, it has lost its reason to speak.
There are some who argue that the problem with the church is not that it is culturally irrelevant, but that it is so relevant that it has ceased to be the church. The church has become so at home in the culture, that it has ceased to be a saving alternative to the destructive forces of the culture.
In the third century, the Church was expanding dramatically throughout the Roman Empire. But it was not through clever programs or marketing surveys. Rather, the experience of Christ in their midst meant there was something was visibly different about this faithful company. This difference was described in a letter to a Roman official around AD 200:“Christians are not distinguished from the rest of humankind either in locality or in speech or in customs. For they dwell not somewhere in cities of their won, neither do they use some different language, nor practice an extraordinary kind of life. . .While they dwell in cities of Greeks and barbarians. . .and follow the native custom in dress and food and the other arrangements of life, yet the constitution of their own citizenship, which they set forth is marvelous, and confessedly contradicts expectation. They dwell in their own countries, but only as sojourners. . .Every foreign country is a fatherland to them, and every fatherland is foreign. . . They find themselves in the flesh and yet they live not after the flesh. Their existence is on earth, but their citizenship is in heaven. They obey the established laws and they surpass the laws in their own lives. . .War is waged against them as aliens by the Jews and persecution is carried on against them by the Greeks, and yet those who hate them cannot tell the reason for their hostility. In a word, what the soul is in the body, this the Christian are in the world . . .(they) are kept in the world as in a prison house and yet they themselves hold the world together. (Letter to Diogenes, Bosch p. 211)
The faith and actions of thousands of ordinary people, their lives of simplicity and Charity, was the greatest witness to the Christian religion in Roman Empire.As theology Professor William Abraham has written, the Gospel did not spread "because of a carefully designed program of evangelism; nor did it start because the early disciples meditated on the Great Commission...The church did not begin its evangelistic activity because it was terrified about the prospects faced by those who died without hearing about Christ." It was not begun by "a band of professional evangelists eager to sign up a public relations firm and get the show on the road."
Rather, the Holy Spirit was present and they knew they were a part of something much bigger than themselves. The gospel spread and the church grew because "the hand of God was in the midst of the community. And those around that little community" were "puzzled and intrigued" by what they saw happening there. (Abraham, Logic of Evangelism, 37-38)
Upcoming Events
Wesley Days - November 14
Do you know someone exploring a call to ministry? On November 14, from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., individuals interested in the seminary can tour our campus and learn more about our degree programs. For more information or to RSVP, contact the Office of Admissions at (202) 885-8659.
Community Builder Breakfast Presentation - November 15
Join us on Wednesday, November 15, 7:30 to 9 a.m., for the Community Builder presentation “For Love and Money” featuring Dr. Sondra Wheeler, professor of Christian Ethics. Take an enlightening look at the history of thought that proclaims prosperity as related to the gospel and untangles the thoughts and feelings we should have about our possessions, wealth and charity. To RSVP, call (202) 885-8636 or email jrutledge@wesleyseminary.edu.
Seeing God, A Juried Art Exhibition - Now through December 15
The Dadian Gallery will host Seeing God, a nationally juried exhibition of fine prints. The Dadian Gallery, along with the Washington Printmakers Gallery, has invited printmakers to consider what it means to see God. The results of this invitation are an exhibition of the ways contemporary artists of varying religious backgrounds envision the sacred in their work. For more information, call (202) 885-8630.
Weekly Worship Services - Tuesdays and Wednesdays
If you are in Washington, D.C. on Tuesdays or Wednesdays, we warmly invite you to worship with us at Wesley. During the academic year, we hold a weekly worship services on campus in Oxnam Memorial Chapel on Tuesdays at 11 a.m. and Wednesdays at 6:15 p.m. Upcoming services include:
· Wednesday, October 25 at 6:15 p.m., Wesley's artist-in-residence David Jellema will lead a Vesper Service of sacred jazz. Jellema, a Washington-area native, has performed in numerous ensembles that preserve and perpetuate early, traditional forms of American jazz. As a member of the Washington D.C. Christian Reformed Church, he occasionally performs spirituals and gospel standards there. His residency at the Luce Center aims to increase awareness and appreciation for jazz as a dynamic element to worship. The characteristics required of a jazz musician and inherent in jazz music (such as sensitivity, discipline, creativity, cooperation and freedom) have direct parallels to personal spirituality and community living.
· Tuesday, October 31 at 11 a.m. a vigil of All Hallows Eve: “Hallowmas” or Mass of the Holy Ones, was the archaic name for the liturgical Feast of All Saints. In early Celtic Christian history, Christians participated in playing out the drama of the horror of evil and then laid aside their masks at the door of the church to become one of the “saints of God.” Please join us for this service of storytelling, liturgical movement, preaching, prayers and music with Dr. Diedra Kriewald serving as preacher and Mitchell Bond as storyteller.
· Wednesday, November 1 at 12:05 p.m. Dr. Bill Faupel will lead an All Saints Day Eucharist
· Wednesday, November 1 at 6:15 p.m. Wesley's student social justice organization, Plumbline, will hold a vigil for peace by the bell tower. The students will cover the hill facing Massachusetts Avenue with luminaries honoring those who have died in Iraq.
· Thursday, November 2 at 12 p.m. Dr. Diedra Kriewald will lead an All Souls Day Service, a prayer service to remember the departed. All Soul's Day became a separate feast in 1048 and was inaugurated as the commemoration of all the faithful departed. We will remember those in the Wesley community who have died the past year through the reading of names, bell ringing and lighting candles of remembrance.
· Tuesday, November 7 at 11 a.m. Dr. Louis-Charles Harvey, presiding Elder of the Potomac District of the AME Church, will preach at this worship service.
Grad News and Notes
For and About Wesley Alums
Please send information you'd like to share with other Wesley alumni to Ann Keeler, director of alumni relations, at Graduates@wesleyseminary.edu.
The Rev. Alice J. Burnette Davis, M.Div. '97, and the Rev. William Edward Greene, M.Div. '97, were married on October 7 at Irving Park Baptist Church in Chicago. Fellow Wesley alumni, the Rev. Dr. Reginald Lee, M.Div. '97 and D.Min. '00, and the Rev. Dr. Cynthia Belt, M.Div. '97, served as best man and officiant respectively. Mary Bates-Washington, executive assistant to the president at Wesley, served as the matron of honor.The Rev. Dr. Blaine L. Miller, Jr., M.Div. '69, passed away on July 31 at the age of 78. The Rev. Dr. Miller was ordained in the Methodist Church in June 1969, but was granted ministerial standing in the United Church of Christ. He served the Susquehanna Charge of the Penn Central Conference until 1993 upon his retirement. After retirement, he remained active in ministry through his service as interim pastorate throughout the Penn Central Conference. He is survived by his wife, Barbara.
The Rev. Christopher F. Miller, M.Div. '45, passed away on June 22 at the age of 91. He was an ordained United Methodist minister who served pastorates in Pennsylvania, Florida and North Dakota. During his affiliation with the North Dakota conference, he served as a district superintendent. He felt a special calling to rural ministry and was deeply involved in promoting the viability of sustainable agriculture, affordable housing for the elderly and mentoring students in preparation for ministry. The Rev. Miller was an active resident of the Lexington at the Lafayette at Country Place retirement home. He coordinated and evening worship service and co-led the Living Faith Sunday School for the community. He is survived by his three children, two siblings, eight grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren.
Benjamin Pratt, D.Min. '83, will present a lecture on the moral and theological content of Ian Fleming's James Bond tales at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., November 5 from 1 to 4 p.m. For more information, visit www.smithsonianassociates.org.
The Rev. Leta Kopp, M.Div. and M.A. '94, attended the Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation's Eighth International Conference, Opening Doors of Hope in Faith, held at National Presbyterian Church in Washington D.C., October 20-21. This conference offered the opportunity to hear from church and community leaders about the present conditions and future hopes of Holy Land Christians. For more information, visit www.hcef.org.
