Missional Theology

 

I was reading an article today entitled Missional Theology for a Missionary Church written by Darrell Guder. In the article Guder states that a paradigm shift has and is taking place within our missiology. This paradigm shift revolves around missional thinking. Here is one of the crucial elements to the missional renewal.

Crucial to the church’s missional renewal is the rediscovery of Biblical eschatology. Christendom reduced the future hope of the gospel to the question of one’s individual lot in eternity, that is, to the hope of heaven and the fear of hell. The good news of God’s inbreaking rule in Jesus Christ means, as we are now learning, that god intends that his creation should be healed and made whole, beginning now and completed as God consummates his rule. We are witnesses to a living hope, for which the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus are the guarantee and certainty. So we proclaim confidently that God, who has begun a good work in us, will bring it to complete by the day of Jesus Christ.

I agree with Guder regarding the rediscovery of Biblical eschatology. I find it so important especially within my Baptist circle. When much of the eschatology conversations revolves around “escapism” we miss the beauty of the Kingdom of God as an already reality. Dr. Russell Moore has a great article regarding this topic. Guder also states,

Long lost from our evangelistic proclamation is Jesus' own message of the inbreaking reign of God, which defines the fullness of God's saving purposes for all the world. If 'Christian society' equals the kingdom of God, which the western tradition has asserted until very recently (and some of the right wing still asserts), then that theme is irrelevant for the salvation of individual souls. Evangelism, in this form of reductionism, is the church's effort on behalf of unsaved persons, but it is not the church's own encounter with the gospel which calls it to continuing conversion so that it can be the sign, foretaste, and instrument of God's inbreaking rule.

Here are some thoughts:

•  We must not be afraid of eschatological conversations
•  We must adapt a theological understanding of soteriology that incorporates eschatology
•  We as a church need to discover the Biblical preaching of Jesus Christ
•  We must challenge our churches to pursue Kingdom of God ideas
•  We cannot be scared to talk about theology within our churches