Church and Mission: How are they Related?

At the meeting of Diocesan Synod this year, the central topic of discussion was the Christian mission in a post-Christian world. There can be no doubt that mission today is quite different from the first Christian mission, to the Roman world. The extraordinary rapidity with which Christianity grew within the Roman Empire suggests that people were secretly yearning for the Christian gospel. Mission today is also quite different from mission during the colonial period, when Christian nations poured vast resources into converting the peoples in the lands under their control.

Today we must search for new innovative strategies appropriate to our age and place. But even as we seek the seekers, we must not neglect those who have already found the pearl of great price, and who look to the church for support in nurturing the gift they have already received.

In the New Testament there is a clear distinction between the Christian mission and the inner life of the church. Paul, the great missionary apostle, left the churches which he had founded in the charge of local leaders, as he sought further fields for evangelization. So insistent was he in maintaining a distinction between church and mission that he was reluctant even to baptize, since his calling was to preach the gospel (1 Cor 1:17).

In the Acts of the Apostles, there is a clear distinction between the great missionary sermons, placed on the lips of Peter and Paul, and the meetings of the Christian community, at which the faithful "continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers" (Acts 2:42).

The liturgy of the church was never intended to be an instrument of missionary outreach, and we should not attempt to convert it to this purpose. It is quite natural that with shrinking church membership we should be concerned about church growth. But this should not make us neglect the needs of Anglicans, who are seeking to grow in the faith which they have already received. We should not be so taken up with seeking the seekers that our own members are made to feel demoralized or neglected.

In stressing the distinction between church and mission, I do not wish to suggest that there is no connection between the two. At the beginning of our era, the worship of the Greek-speaking synagogue exercised an unintended but powerful influence on the seekers of that day, and many Gentile "God-fearers," who had affiliated themselves with the synagogue, subsequently joined the Christian church.

So too, the apostle Paul, in describing the worship of the Corinthian community, refers to the presence there of unbelievers or outsiders, and he expresses concern for the impression that such people will carry away from their encounter (1 Cor 14:23).

Today’s seekers, I believe, are more likely to be touched by our traditional worship, where the emphasis is on "the beauty of holiness" (Psalm 29:2), than they would be by services dominated by ceaseless change and experimentation.

I think these considerations are appropriate as we begin the season of Advent. For this is one of those times in the church year when we are particularly invited to turn inward, as we prepare to receive yet again the gift which we have already received, Jesus Christ, the Lord.