Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Discipleship: Bridge or Dead-end

"Discipleship must always be discipleship-in-movement-to-the-world. The disciple who will not lay down life for the world and for the Gospel of reconciliation is not worthy of being a follower of Jesus Christ."
"Far too often mission is relegated to one of those 'wishful thinking' categories that we hope to get to some day in our ministry. The newer third-world churches are supposedly not ready to engage in mission on their own until they reach a certain level of maturity...Meanwhile the North American and European congregations often relegate 'mission' to the leftover category, with the internal necessities of congregation and membership receiving higher priority. Mission calls us to radical reexamination. If mission is part of the essence of the Church's nature as the body of Christ and the people of God, then it ought to be at the top of the list."
And I love this quote of Johannes Blauw's in The Missionary Nature of the Church...
"There is no other Church than the Church sent into the world, and there is no other mission than that of the Church of Christ."
And again,
"If one wants to maintain a specific theological meaning of the term mission as 'foreign mission,' its significance is, in my opinion, that it keeps calling the Church to think over its essential nature as a community sent forth into the world. Seen in that light missionary work is not just one of its activities, but the criterion for all its activities.... It is exactly by going outside itself that the Church is itself and comes to itself."

No comments: