Written by Dr. Michael Krause, this short essay is a response to a conference presentation by professor and author Michael Goheen about the need for the church to initiate a more missional way of addressing cultural change. He asked the questions: whose mission is it and which frontier are we facing?

 

Moving Beyond Individual Salvation

The new frontier of mission is more about a different way of being as opposed to a new mission field. If what Leslie Newbigin says is true, that the Western church is the most syncretistic church in history, then the new frontier of mission is the church itself. If the church is the new frontier of mission, then the church itself needs to be converted, transformed, and changed into something that it is not now. Therefore, missionaries need to be sent to the church, so that it can be saved. And the focus of their missionary activity needs to be to bring transformation to the institutions, systems, programs, and the very identity of the church itself. We need to move beyond individual salvation to institutional salvation.

Richard Bauckham stated “What is needed is for the Christian community to develop as a counter-cultural alternative to the dominant culture, in its own life together both distinctive and outgoing, shaping its members’ lives, both within and without the community’s own life, in ways that witness to Jesus Christ, in critical solidarity with all that is good in dominant society and in prophetic critique of all that is corrupting and destructive.”

If that’s what is needed, (a vibrant, healthy community of people committed to living life together in such a way that honours Jesus Christ, brings hope and healing to those gathered, is a testimony to the world around it of how to live the good life, and which provides a prophetic critique to the toxic, corrupting and destructive attitudes of the cultural context in which it is found), then I don’t see a way forward to achieve that lofty goal without the wholesale demolition (dare we say deconstruction) and then reconstruction of what the church currently is.

Now, I wholeheartedly agree with Richard Baukham’s description of this reconstructed church, and there may be some church communities that might be achieving some of those outcomes, but for the most part, I don’t think it is achievable with our current mindsets, structures, institutions, and value systems. Hence my call for the next mission frontier to be the church itself.

The Church Needs Transformation

Just to clarify, I am not questioning the salvation of individual Christians, or pastors, nor am I saying that churches are somehow insincere in their desire to follow Jesus, or that they have wrong motives. I am saying that the institution that we call church (its' systems, operating procedures, value systems) needs transformation.

What I mean when I say “church” is what I hear most seminary students, pastors, and church members talk about when they use the word church. It is the partial sum of the local congregations and denominations found in a particular context (the church in Toronto, or in Canada). I say partial because this sum is larger or smaller depending on your ecumenical viewpoint (would you include mainline, Catholic or Orthodox churches [or not]) and your ecclesiology (would you include those who believe but don’t attend church or who are participating in unstructured Christian activities like unaffiliated neighbourhood groups, house churches, parachurch organizations, campus ministries, or personally customized Christian religious practices, like being spiritual but not religious, theological dinner parties, or what my friends like to call, “the church of the hot tub”).

When I listen to the people included in this definition of church talk about their experience of church, there is a sense that the church is a good thing, and a God thing, but there is usually an underlying disappointment, cynicism, mistrust, hurt, or anger at work. They might believe that the Church (centred around Jesus) is the hope of the world, but they are not always sure that their own church (or their own Christian practice) is contributing much to that hope. 

Our fastest growing programs at the seminary are counselling, thanatology and our Bachelor of Education degree. When I ask students why they came to seminary for one of these programs they tell me: I want to help people, care for the hurting, help people experience fullness in Christ, and find biblical answers for life’s questions. These are pastoral answers. Twenty-five years ago, these students would have gone into pastoral ministry of some kind.

When I ask these students “Why aren’t you going into a pastoral major”, they say “I can’t possibly imagine pastoring a church.” Too much politics. Too much busyness. Too many conflicts. Too much dysfunction. Too much administration. Too many headaches. Not enough pastoral care. Not enough love. Not enough Jesus.

My other main source of information about the church is from the students in my classes. I read 50 to 100 case studies per year from students where I ask them to tell me about a recent challenge they have experienced and to imagine a change or intervention that would have produced a better outcome. Some of those case studies describe relational misunderstandings, poor communication, or toxic behaviours. But more than you would imagine are about incompetent or micro-managing leaders, dishonesty, overwork, burnout, lack of support and training, broken systems, lack of accountability, and sometimes even corrupt, immoral, or illegal behaviour (yes, in churches and among pastors).

At first, I thought these examples of dysfunction were the exception rather than the rule. But time has proved otherwise. The stories of dysfunction have only increased. Capable, called, and gifted students, students I would love to have as a minister at my church, tell stories of burnout and betrayal during their attempts to provide pastoral leadership.

These are the students I would have recommended to denominations and churches seeking pastors for their churches. But these gifted, capable, and called leaders don’t want to pastor a church. Some of them have a hard time even finding a church that doesn’t trigger bad memories. And I don’t have time to list the stories that have been made public about an increasing number of once-respected leaders who have failed publicly, and who have denied wrongdoing or have covered it up. They have betrayed the trust of their congregations, discouraged those sensing a call to ministry, and discredited the church as a whole.

God Is Calling the Church, and Theological Education, to a New Frontier

This trend is discouraging and may even lead us to despair. However, we need to look despair in the face and move through it to the fact that God may be calling us to this new frontier of mission: to reimagine how the body of Christ will manifest itself to the world. The task of bringing change to a system that has produced and protected corrupt (or dysfunctional) leaders is daunting. The church in its current manifestation is for the most part ineffective at producing disciples who go into all the world to make disciples. It has had difficulty producing communities of faith that are an attractive or effective counter-cultural alternative to the dominant culture. Hence my call: the church needs salvation. It needs to be converted and transformed. It is the new frontier of mission. 

If I am saying that the new frontier of mission is the church, I must also concede that the other new frontier of mission is theological education. Is the seminary a reflection of a dysfunctional church or is the church the reflection of an inadequate process of ministry preparation and theological education? Seminary offerings haven’t changed much since the Eighties (except for the para-pastoral programs like counselling, chaplaincy, and thanatology). Because of that, we are providing an increasingly irrelevant service that was geared to ministry preparation for life in the 1980’s but that is still demanded by a constituency of churches and denominations that are stuck in the last century.

Even as we’ve tried change, good pedagogy (incorporating in-ministry education, cohort-based learning, ministry mentoring, and competency-based experiential training) doesn't usually produce good subscription rates (students) so it doesn't pay the Academy’s bills. In a similar way, good ecclesiology (incorporating effective discipleship, community-informed programs, shared leadership models, spiritual disciplines, and sacrificial living) doesn't attract the crowds and has difficulty sustaining a building and a pastoral staff.

If I can say it bluntly, a dysfunctional church system still requires an ineffective form of theological education to sustain an outdated institution. Again, I am not questioning the sincerity or hard work of those involved in leading churches. Faithful pastors are the saints of the 21st century. But we still need a transformation. Let me provide an analogy. If our goal is to travel to the moon, we can’t get there in a twin-engine Cessna plane. We need to build a rocket ship and train people to fly it.

The new frontiers of mission are the church and the seminary. Both need salvation. Both need to be converted. Both need transformation where we can say the old has gone and the new has come. But who will go? Whom shall I send?

What Kind of Missionaries Do We Need to ProducE?

 This is an attempt to try and describe what they look like. This is what we need:

• People who have experienced their own transformation in Christ.
• People who acknowledge their own brokenness, anxiety, and dysfunction and yet have found ways of living out their ongoing recovery, healing, and restoration in Christ.
• People who are authentic, know who they are, and are comfortable in their own skin.
• People who know how to ask questions and who know how to listen.
• People who embrace a collaborative and communal leadership style able to incorporate diverse gifts and abilities of others.
• People who know how to nurture spiritual formation among a diverse group of people.
• People who are able to identify and develop the gifts and talents of the people around them and release those people into places where they can use their strengths and gifts, without being intimidated by the giftedness of others.
• People who are not afraid of conflict but know how to navigate divergent viewpoints and bring people through conflict to resolution and mutual trust.
• People who understand both systems and people and who have the courage to challenge both.
• People who understand their cultural context and have the skills for cultural analysis so they can identify all that is good in dominant society and prophetically critique all that is corrupting and destructive, without judgmentalism (you are sinful and wrong) and triumphalism (we’re right and have all the answers).
• People who have intercultural competence to understand, appreciate and critique the value systems of other cultures without neglecting to appreciate and critique their own.
• Poets and artists who can craft stories and images that help communicate the good news in creative ways.
• Apostles who can challenge cultural idolatry and transform systems and structures, or who can overcome the negative inertia required to blaze the trail to build new structures.
• Prophets who affirm the good and confront the evil in society and in the church.
• Evangelists who can discern, and communicate, what is good news to the people they encounter in contrast to the prevailing idolatrous cultural credos. 
• Pastors who know how to care for souls.
• Teachers who understand that the goal of instruction is a hunger for more learning.

We need people who can equip the saints for the work of this ministry to replace themselves (work themselves out of a job) so that the body of Christ may be built up to grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ … joined and held together by every supporting ligament, growing and building itself up in love, as each part does its work. 

What kind of missionaries do we need to be producing and how do we produce them? I’m not sure I fully know. Maybe not knowing is the right place to start.

This essay was a response by Michael Krause to a presentation by Michael Goheen entitled “New Frontiers of Mission Today: Whose Mission? Which Frontiers?” This presentation was given at the EMS Canada conference on April 5th, 2024.