Over recent weeks we have been looking at the interconnection of worship and mission through-out the Bible. Behind this series is an article that Bob Hall and I wrote for an Australian Journal on this theme. The article which is below is a mix of Biblical understanding and the information gained from conversations with a dozen people at Spreydon who have been very involved in global mission about their experience of worship and mission on the mission field.
The Interplay of Mission and Worship:
A Doxological View
Bob Hall and Alan Jamieson
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Bob Hall has a doctorate in Sociology. Now retired, he was formerly an academic and university administrator at Canterbury University in Christchurch as well as director of the Centre for Mission Direction. He is an adjunct fellow of Laidlaw College, Christchurch. Alan Jamieson is senior pastor of Spreydon Baptist Church in Christchurch and has a doctorate in Sociology from Canterbury University. He has previously held pastoral responsibilities at Ilam Baptist and Wellington Central Baptist. His most recent books are ‘Church Leavers: Faith Journeys Five years on’ (SPCK - 2006) and ‘Chrysalis: The Hidden Transformation in the Journey of Faith’ (Paternoster - 2008).
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Despite common practice in most churches, mission and worship should not be treated as separate and discrete activities. Rather, they should be seen as interlinked and integral elements of God’s ultimate purpose, his glorification. We were created for that purpose (creation agenda), we have been redeemed for that purpose (redemptive agenda), the church was brought into being for that purpose (ecclessiological agenda) and exists for that purpose (missiological agenda) all of which are linked as part of God’s mission, Missio Dei, and will come to fruition in the Gloria Dei of the eschaton when creation will be renewed and the redeemed from every nation, tribe, people and language will gather before the throne and worship God for ever (Rev 7:9). In this paper we outline a doxological view of missions that seeks to explore these ideas, supplemented by comments from interviews with senior staff and returned missionaries drawn from a prominent New Zealand church.
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In the life of most churches mission and worship are treated as separate and discrete activities. The mission committee oversees the former while the worship team takes care of the latter. The possibility that mission and worship might, or indeed should, be connected in significant ways is seldom if ever given serious thought. That was our mindset too when we embarked on this project but as we read, reflected and talked together as well as interviewed others we came to realise not only that mission and worship are interlinked but that the way they connect is of fundamental importance to the church. The more we read and developed our thinking the more convinced of this we became.
In this article we want to outline a framework that will confirm mission and worship to be integral elements of God’s unified agenda (creative, redemptive, ecclesiological, missiological and eschatological). We were created for a purpose, we have been redeemed for a purpose, the church was brought into being and exists for a purpose all of which is linked in with God’s mission (Missio Dei) and will come to fruition in the eschaton when creation will be renewed and, as described in Revelation 7:9, the redeemed from every nation, tribe, people and language will gather before the throne and join in worshiping and glorifying God for ever (Gloria Dei). Worship is the fuel of mission, but it is also its ultimate goal.
Clarifying the Terminology
The beginning point for any such project must be to clarify the terminology. While at first this would seem to be a relatively simple task since mission and worship are such central and enduring elements of church life, we were soon to discover otherwise. Nevertheless it was in the process of grappling with these definitional issues that our thinking on the significance of the topic came into sharper focus.
Mission and Missions
Following Christopher Wright and Michael Goheen[i] we distinguish between mission (singular) and missions (plural) and, reflecting the missional motif of the Abrahamic Covenant (Genesis 12:1-3), we trace the mission mandate of the church not simply from the Great Commission (Matt 28:16-20) and other verses in the New Testament (e.g., Mark 16:14-18; John 20:19-23; Acts 1:8) but from a reading of the whole Bible, the Old as well as the New Testament. To quote Wright, “mission is… a major key that unlocks the whole grand narrative of the canon of Scripture.”[ii] This is an assertion with which we heartily concur and which we strongly commend for serious consideration by church leaders and laity alike.
According to Christopher Wright, mission (singular) is the overarching concept that encompasses “all that God is doing in his great purpose for the whole of creation and all that he calls us to do in cooperation with that purpose.”[iii] In contrast to this, missions (plural) relates to “the multitude of activities that God’s people can engage in, by means of which they participate in God’s mission.”[iv]
The plural term is therefore reserved for “specific tasks assigned to a person or group that are to be accomplished as steps toward the wider mission.”[v] This includes but is not exclusively limited to cross-cultural missions. As Wright emphasises, however, it is not so much the case that God has a mission for the church as that God has a church for his mission. The church was brought into being to participate in God’s mission (Missio Dei), and as such the church acts in continuation of the covenantal commitment of Israel to share God’s blessings with the nations (Genesis 12:1-3) and thus bring them into a vital worshipping relationship with the one true living God. To this extent everything that consists of “conscious participation” in the mission of God is considered to be missional.[vi]
Worship
Our understanding of worship derives from Hawthorne, Arzola, Grenz, Grudem, Goheen and Piper.[vii] Hawthorne describes worship as “the way that people glorify God” and in this sense he says true worship reflects “genuine relational interaction with God” that takes place “when people recognise who God is” and respond accordingly by “offering face-to-face gratitude and day-to-day allegiance.”[viii] Central to this is Hawthorne’s assertion that God’s glory is a key focus of the biblical story. Amplifying on this, he claims that the story of the Bible is the story of God revealing himself in order to draw to himself obedient worship, or glory, from the nations. In this sense, says Hawthorne, “the Bible is truly The Story of His Glory.”[ix]
Arzola defines worship as “the act of glorifying God” and sees this as the ultimate purpose of the church.[x] Likewise Grenz asserts that the church in all its expressions “exists ultimately for the sake of the glory of the triune God.”[xi] Echoing the sentiments of the first paragraph of the Shorter Westminster Catechism, Grudem maintains that worship is “a direct expression of the ultimate purpose for living – to glorify God and fully enjoy him forever.”[xii]
For his part, Piper describes worship as right affection toward God in the heart (Matt 15:8-9) that is rooted in right thoughts about God in the mind (John 4:23) and that results in right actions that glorify God (Matt 5:16).[xiii] Significantly, Piper insists that worship is not essentially a song service, sitting under preaching or any form of outward act. Rather, he says, “worship is essentially an inner stirring of the heart to treasure God above all the treasures of the world.”[xiv] Instead of being restricted to particular times or places as in the Old Testament, Piper insists that worship has now been significantly de-institutionalised, de-localised and de-externalised, reflecting the emphasis in New Testament teaching which shifts the focus from seasons, places and forms to what is taking place in the heart.
In these terms, true worship represents an inner spiritual treasuring of the character and the ways of God in Christ and thus fundamentally becomes and is intended to be an all-of-life phenomenon. When this emphasis is missing, says Piper, there is no “worship” as such, irrespective of whatever forms or expressions are present.[xv] Piper thus concludes, “the essential, vital, indispensable, defining heart of worship is the experience of being satisfied with God in Christ.”[xvi]
Piper highlights four consequences of this: firstly, the pursuit of joy in God as expressed in the Shorter Westminster Catechism (viz, our chief end being to glorify God and worship him forever) is not optional, it is our highest duty and chief calling; secondly, when the essence of worship is rightly defined in terms of glorifying God, worship inevitably becomes God-centred; thirdly, such an emphasis ensures the primacy of worship in the collective life of the church and the individual life of the believer; and fourthly, such an approach to worship is consistent with Paul’s insistence in Romans 12:1 on seeing worship as an all-of-life phenomenon.[xvii]
As with the earlier discussion of mission, this approach to worship is a position with which we heartily concur and which we strongly commend for serious consideration by church leaders and laity alike.
According to Goheen, worship represents the central calling of the church and as such it should give focus and direction to the whole of life.[xviii] It therefore follows that achieving a true understanding of worship must be given top priority in the life of the church. Piper agrees with this when he says, “The zeal of the church for the glory of her King will not rise until pastors and mission leaders and seminary teachers make much more of the King. When the glory of God himself saturates our preaching and teaching and conversation and writings, and when he predominates above our talk of methods and strategies and psychological buzzwords and cultural trends, then the people might begin to feel that he is the central reality of their lives and that the spread of his glory is more important than all their possessions and all their plans.”[xix]
Reflecting a similar sentiment, Arzola offers a critique of contemporary expressions of worship when he says, “Contemporary Christian worship and preaching strives to be upbeat and relevant… Yet one wonders if this practice has led to a generation of Christians who have lost all sense of the mysterium tremendum of worship, the overwhelming and awesome sense of the mystery of being in God’s presence.”[xx] One senses that in many contemporary instances of worship a radical shift in emphasis is needed away from an individualistic salvific focus to a more theologically informed theocentric emphasis on God and his glory.
Our reflection on these definitional issues, taking place as it did alongside the interviews that we conducted, led us to formulate a framework that we are referring to as a doxological view of missions.[xxi]
A Doxological View of Mission
The basic premises of a doxological view of mission derive from what Jonathan Edwards, the 18th century pastor and theologian, referred to as “the radical God-centredness of God.” God wants to be glorified and worshipped - not because he has deficiencies in self-image he is trying to remedy, but rather because he has perfections of character and nature that he wants to display and have acknowledged.
In The End for Which God Created the World,[xxii] Edwards asserted that throughout scripture the ultimate purpose to which all of God’s actions were directed was his glory. God created us for his glory (Isa 43:6-7); God chose Israel for his glory (Isa 49:3; Jer 13:11); God rescued Israel from Egypt for his glory (Psalm 106:7-8); God raised Pharaoh up to show his power and to glorify his name (Rom 9:17); God defeated Pharaoh at the Red Sea to show his glory (Ex 14:4, 18); God spared Israel in the wilderness for the glory of his name (Ezek 20:14); God gave Israel victory in Canaan for the glory of his name (2 Sam 7:23); God did not cast away his people for the glory of his name (1 Sam 12:20, 22); God saved Jerusalem from attack for the glory of his name (2 Kings 19:34); God restored Israel from exile for the glory of his name (Ezek 36:22-23); God gave his son to vindicate the glory of his righteousness (Rom 3:25-26); all are under judgement for dishonouring God’s glory (Rom 1:22-23); God forgives our sins for his own sake (Isa 43:25; Ps 25:11); God instructs us to do everything for his glory (1 Cor 10:31); God tells us to serve in a way that will glorify him (1 Peter 4:11); even in wrath God’s aim is to make known the wealth of his glory (Rom 9:22-23); God’s ultimate plan is to fill the earth with the knowledge of his glory (Hab 2:14).
Not surprisingly, we see the same emphasis in the ministry of Jesus. Jesus sought the glory of his Father in all he did (John 7:18); Jesus told us to do good works so that God will receive glory (Matt 5:16); Jesus warned that not seeking God’s glory makes faith impossible (Jn 5:44); Jesus said that he answers prayer so that God will be glorified (Jn 14:13); Jesus endured his final hours of suffering for God’s glory (Jn 12:27-28); Jesus receives us into fellowship for the glory of God (Rom 15:7); Jesus fills us with the fruits of righteousness for God’s glory (Phil 1:9, 13); Jesus is coming again for the glory of God (2 Thes 1:9-10); Jesus’ ultimate aim for us is that we see and enjoy his glory (Jn 17:24). Of equal significance is the fact that the ministry of the Holy Spirit is directed towards glorifying the Son (Jn 16:14).[xxiii]
God’s primary goal then is to be worshipped and glorified. Reflecting the relationship of mutual worship that existed within the Godhead prior to the creation, this was intended to be the focus of God’s relationship with humans and the rest of his creation (God’s creation agenda) but because of the incursion of sin in Genesis 3 and its amplification leading up to the scattering of the nations at the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11), a strategy was needed to bring humans back into the relationship that God intended for them (God’s redemptive agenda).
As a first step in implementing this strategy God selected out one man, Abram soon to become Abraham, and entered into a covenantal relationship with him. In return for receiving God's blessings, Abraham and his descendants (physical and then spiritual by faith) were to become a blessing to all the families or nations of the earth (God’s missiological agenda). In these terms, to use Christopher Wright’s phrasing, mission meant “inviting all the peoples of the earth to hear the music of God’s future and dance to it today.”[xxiv]
In compliance with this calling Israel was to be a living witness to God's name among the nations as a contrast people and thus act as a centripetal force that would attract them into a redemptive relationship with God. At times, however, Israel failed to live up to the responsibilities of this calling and as a result they were dispersed into the nations to bear witness to God’s name in exile, reflecting a centrifugal missional force.
By the end of the events of the Old Testament record, however, Israel had fallen short of this calling on both counts and so Jesus was sent to establish a church that would pick up and continue Israel's mission mandate of being a blessing to the nations and bringing them into a vital relationship with God (God’s ecclesiological agenda). In similar terms, Paul described his own ministry as bringing about “the obedience of faith among all the nations for his name’s sake” (Rom 1:5). This is what Paul had in mind when he talked of “priesting the gospel” in order that his offering of the nations might be pleasing to God (Rom 15:15-17).
Following Jesus' death, resurrection and ascension, the Holy Spirit was sent to aid the church in this missiological task. The culmination of the Missio Dei, of course, will take place in the eschaton as described in Revelation 7:9 when representatives from every nation, tribe, people and language will worship the Lamb in the ultimate fulfillment of this goal (God’s eschatological agenda).
Such worship will in fact represent the end point of the people of God being invited to join in the mutuality of worship and glorification that has been taking place within the Godhead since before creation. To this extent the Missio Dei (the mission of God) can be seen as being directed towards drawing the nations into relationship with God and preparing them for involvement in the Gloria Dei (the glorification of God) (see the diagram below).
A contemporary proponent of this viewpoint is John Piper but similar echoes can be found in the work of Carl Bratten, Steven Hawthorne, Christopher Wright, Michael Goheen and others.[xxv] Without going into this in any detail, we simply follow the example of others in quoting Piper:
“Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Mission exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever. So worship is the fuel and goal of missions… Worship has always been and will always be the ultimate purpose of God in the universe.”[xxvi]
According to Hawthorne such a doxologically-informed view of mission will have three practical implications: firstly, it will highlight the church’s task of increasing God’s glory; secondly, it will deepen and extend our motive base to include a passion for God’s glory; and thirdly, it will help integrate effort and activity around God’s glory.[xxvii] As a result, mission and worship will no longer be seen as separate and discrete activities but will come to be seen as interlinked and integral elements of God’s ultimate purpose, his glorification.
Empirical Context
While developing this framework, we were exploring these ideas in interviews with some of the senior staff and returned missionaries from a prominent New Zealand church.[xxviii] Spreydon Baptist is a large, multi-ethnic, multi-service suburban church in Christchurch, New Zealand.[xxix] It is highly regarded nationally as well as internationally for its teaching, worship, overseas mission and community-based ministries. Over a number of years missionaries from Spreydon Baptist have served on all the major continents and geographic regions, working alongside as well in conjunction with most Western major mission agencies. Of particular note, people from Spreydon Baptist have been involved in establishing, leading and serving with Servants to Asia’s Urban Poor.[xxx] Against this background, it is not surprising to find that missions has been given significant profile both in the ongoing life of the church and in the teaching of its senior staff.
Interview Themes
Despite initial misgivings on the part of some of the respondents as to how short the interviews might prove to be,[xxxi] themes that emerged from the interviews covered definitions of worship, perceived benefits of corporate worship, critiques of contemporary forms of worship and also experiences on the mission field that helped shape understandings of how mission and worship interlinked.
1. To me worship is…
All of the respondents had a reasonably clear understanding of what worship is and for all of them there was an insistence that worship was more that just singing in church. A “working definition” offered by one respondent saw worship as “ascribing honour and enjoying God” in such a way that a space was created for God “to come afresh and renew us.” He went on, “We are transformed in worship. When we come to worship we are not just remembering what God has done. In worship, God is doing something in us.” Other respondents saw worship as: “truly acknowledging God as who he is;” “giving thanks to him and glorifying him;” “an ongoing journey with God where the objective is to know him more.” “Worship,” said another, “brings you closer to God and makes it easier to hear what he is saying.”
2. The value of corporate worship
While worship was seen as being more than simply singing in church, the value of corporate worship was endorsed by all. One said, “There is something about the family of God coming together and worshipping. You can worship on your own, you can confess and give thanks on your own but there is something about corporate worship that is special.” Another appreciated the mutual encouragement that can come from corporate worship, “In worship you build on each other. You hear someone else worship and that stimulates your worship. One can put a thousand to flight and two, ten thousand. That’s why it is important to come together.” The obvious benefits that can come from a display of unity in corporate worship were also emphasised, “The last thing that Jesus prayed was that the disciples would be one and if the church is one then the people outside will know that Jesus was sent by the Father. Worshipping corporately is showing that unity.”
3. Mission field experiences of worship
Experiences on the field did much to shape respondents’ perceptions of and appreciation for worship. “Over there” was frequently used as a point of reference for comparative comments: “Over there you needed God to survive whereas over here it is an extra;” “Over there I just felt I couldn’t survive by myself. I needed other Christians and not necessarily people that I knew very well or met very often;” “Over there you can worship corporately with fewer people because you are on the same page, you are struggling with the same things whereas here in a big corporate setting it’s a bit of a struggle.” One respondent was remarkably honest in her comments. She said, “I wouldn’t say that the worship aspect of my life particularly sustained me [on the field]. It would have been my love for God and Jesus and my commitment to him and my joy in knowing him.”
For many of these returned missionaries, worship on the field wasn’t always seen as being anything special because of the formality of the church situations they often found themselves in and because of language barriers, in the initial stages of service anyway. In such situations, personal devotions and the support of others were more important as sustainers of faith: “[On the field] I had private practices that sustained my relationship with God but if we hadn’t had the collective focus I don’t think many of us would have survived. It was our coming together, singing, weeping and laughing together that got us through.” Another said, “The worship times with [others] were very special, and deep bonds occurred at that time. We encouraged each other by looking towards God together.”
Aside from this, the need for personal devotions was emphasised. One respondent commented, “Many pioneer mission workers need to learn the inner disciplines of daily bible reading, meditation and prayer. Without that and without corporate worship they burn out.” For one respondent, though, personal devotion was a matter of personal preference as much as it was a matter of ensuring survival, “To me the full expression of worship is better to take place in private because you are one-to-one and you can express your devotion. Your words might be all mixed up but your heart is there. And so it was our private devotions that kept us alive.”
4. Critiques of contemporary expressions of worship
In comparison with the average churchgoer, returning missionaries are well placed to critically evaluate worship in the home church. One respondent commented, “One of the things I found with missionaries when they come home is that in some there is almost an abhorrence of the superficiality in worship back here. They come back from the Third World where they’ve seen pain and suffering for anything up to three years at a stretch and come into a church where everyone is standing with their hands in the air. For some missionaries it is not helpful and they have expressed that. But of course there are others who look forward to that very thing.” Another said, “An awful lot of missionaries are strung out and exhausted and longing for corporate worship but when they come back here, a lot of them are appalled by what they see.”
In the light of this, it is not surprising to hear returned missionaries criticise aspects of the worship they find in the home church, “At the moment I feel frustrated with worship because for me it is so much wider. I’m tired of singing.” Another said, “I always struggle with corporate worship. I’m not knocking it, I want to be part of it, but more often than not I feel guilty when I am in corporate worship because I’m not entering in.” Yet another said, “I try not to criticise worship because I know you can’t please everyone but for me [contemporary worship] is all about being entertained.” Another said, “The tragedy of a lot of corporate worship [in the home church] is that it is entertainment-based, it’s feeling-based and it’s performance-based.” As an antidote to this one respondent suggested that a course in theology ought to be obligatory for Christian songwriters. For another, the answer was to be found in the past, “If you look at the old hymns they didn’t often really put me first. They were more focused on God, who he is and his glory.”
5. The relationship between worship and mission
Worship was clearly seen as an energiser for mission. One respondent commented, “If we are called to mission, worship is vital to sustain us for the journey. In 1985 I felt God gave me a vision for mission during a worship service. He held me in his hand, then turned it around and said ‘go.’ ” Another respondent commented, “It is as individuals are energised [through worship] that service takes place. It is only as you know the Lord that you can serve Him - come and see, go and tell.” Another drew significance from the fact that Isaiah’s call to service arose out of a worship event, “There was worship among the heavenly hosts before Isaiah worshipped. And so Isaiah joined what already was happening and as a result of this he ends up saying, ‘What can I do?’” This led the respondent to conclude that the connection between worship and mission is that “in the practice of worship something happens in our hearts. Our hearts are moved and as a result we have new yearnings for the other.”[xxxii] For another, this reinforced the fact that “In service, global, local or whatever, the bottom line is one’s relationship with God that is not just maintained but is in a continual state of growth.” “The very act of mission itself is part of worshiping God,” asserted another and to that extent, “The ultimate goal of mission is the glory of God, such that people come to faith and become part of the worshipping community that is living for the honour and glory of God.”
6. The tension between being and doing
The actuality, of course, is that tensions inevitably emerge between worship and mission. Some respondents expressed this as the tension between “being” and “doing.” One said, “There is a balance between doing and being and the being has to come before the doing because the doing takes up your time, particularly on the mission field. Someone is always coming and saying we need this, we need that and you can’t say, well I’ll get to it after my prayer time. You just have to do it.” This respondent continued, “In any kind of Christian work, but especially in mission work, it is very easy to substitute asking for worship because the things are in front of you.”
Another respondent concurred, “Devotional prayer becomes intercession on behalf of people and projects rather than focusing on God and the relationship with him.” While having a certain face validity insofar as it mirrors the contrasting responses of Mary and Martha to having Jesus in their home (Luke 10), the “being” and “doing” terms need to be qualified. One respondent commented, “These terms [being and doing] are old terms. The distinction was being debated in missiological circles in the late ‘70s, early 80’s. The tragedy is that people have pulled these two words apart. Worship is as much about doing as it is about being and mission is as much about being as it is about doing.” Privileging “doing” over “being” can lead to burn out and attrition.
7. Mission, worship and the eschaton
The response to John Piper’s assertion that worship was “ultimate and eternal” whereas mission was “temporary” and a means to the end of glorifying God[xxxiii] was interesting. To some it was a surprising revelation to which they nonetheless responded with enthusiasm, “The [Piper quote] is a very interesting view of missions. I agree with it one hundred percent but I certainly haven’t approached it like that despite having studied missiology.” Others understood the practicalities of what Piper was suggesting, “I have often thought that if you haven’t learned to worship here, heaven is going to be a bit of a miserable place. If that’s what we are going to do there then we’d better get some practice in here.”
One respondent was more critical, “Piper has a reductionistic view of mission. He is thinking of mission as “proclamation and rescue,” hence he concludes that mission is temporary. In a new heaven and a new earth there will be no more need for proclamation and rescue, but mission is also sitting with people, it is preferring the other irrespective of outcome.” This respondent continued, “In the trinity I see aspects of both worship and mission existing prior to the created order. So, come the end of time, there will be both worship and mission. There will be worship in the sense of ascribing greatness, and Piper agrees with this. But there will also be mission at the end of time in that we will still be about the work of [God]. So insofar as I see aspects of worship and mission prior to the created order and also in the eschaton, I can’t go along with what Piper is saying.” The matter is clearly open for further discussion and debate.
Conclusion
Mission and worship are not separate and discrete activities. Rather they are interlinked and integrated elements of God’s ultimate purpose for his church. A doxological view of missions serves to highlight this. Echoes of this framework, albeit critical in some instances, can be found in the comments of respondents who were interviewed as part of this project. For ideas such as this to become more firmly established in the life of a local church, however, theological-cum-conceptual ideas need to be made practical. To this end a five-week preaching series on Worship and Mission was initiated at Spreydon Baptist in the early part of 2012 and a leadership study group set up, focusing on Christopher Wright’s book The Mission of God’s People.[xxxiv] It is hoped that these and other initiatives will lay a foundation for the ideas presented in this article to take hold in the life of this local church, and spread in time to other churches. Our hope is for the earth to be filled with knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea (Hab, 2:14).
END NOTES
[i] WRIGHT, Christopher, The Mission of God, (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006); WRIGHT, Christopher, The Mission of God’s People, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2010); GOHEEN, Michael, A Light To The Nations, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2011). Michael Goheen draws his inspiration from the work of Lesslie Newbigin, so Newbiggin’s work too featured in our thinking. See Goheen, Michael, As The Father Has Sent Me – JE Lesslie Newbiggin’s Missionary Ecclesiology, (Zoetermeer, Netherlands: Boekencentrum, 2000).
[ii] WRIGHT, 2006, op cit, p17.
[iii] WRIGHT, 2010, op cit, p25.
[iv] WRIGHT, 2010, ibid, p25.
[v] WRIGHT, 2010, ibid, p23.
[vi] WRIGHT, 2010, ibid, p26. Missional is an adjective denoting “something that is related to or characterised by mission, or has the qualities, attributes or dynamics of mission” (WRIGHT, 2006, op cit, p24). Michael Goheen asserts that to describe the church as missional means that it participates in God’s mission; that it continues the mission of Old Testament Israel; that it continues the kingdom mission of Jesus; and that it continues the witness of the early church (GOHEEN, 2011, op cit, p191).
[vii] HAWTHORNE, Steven C, The Story of His Glory, in Winter, Ralph D and HAWTHORNE, Steven C [eds], Perspectives On The World Christian Movement: A Reader, Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library, 1999; ARZOLA, Fernando Jr, Exploring Worship: Catholic, Evangelical and Orthodox Perspectives, (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock, 2011); GRENZ, Stanley J, Theology for the Community of God. Grand Rapids, MI, Eerdmans, 2000, pp487-488); GRUDEM, Wayne, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Theology, (Grand Rapids, MI, Eerdmans, 1994); GOHEEN, 2011 op cit; and PIPER, John, Let The Nations Be Glad, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2010 3rd edition).
[viii] HAWTHORNE, 1999, op cit, p36.
[ix] HAWTHORNE, 1999, ibid, p34. According to Hawthorne, God desires worship for two main reasons: firstly, he is delighted by the sincere love that comes to him in true worship; and secondly, by drawing people into true worship, God in turn is able to fully bestow his love upon them (HAWTHORNE,1999, ibid, p36).
[x] ARZOLA, 2011, op cit, p1.
[xi] GRENZ, 2000, op cit, pp487-488.
[xii] GRUDEM, 1994, op cit, pp1003-1004.
[xiii] PIPER, 2010, p231.
[xiv] PIPER, 2010, ibid, p231.
[xv] PIPER, 2010, ibid, p251.
[xvi] PIPER, 2010, ibid, p250.
[xvii] PIPER, 2010, ibid, pp251-253).
[xviii] GOHEEN, 2011, op cit, p202),
[xix] PIPER, 2010, op cit, pp60-61).
[xx] ARZOLA, 2011, op cit, p:82.
[xxi] While the components parts of a doxological view of missions can be found in the writings of a number of writers (see following), this is the first time to our knowledge that the term per se has been explicitly used in a published context. See PIPER, John, God’s Passion For His Glory: Living The Vision of Jonathan Edwards, (Wheaton: Crossways, 1998); WRIGHT, Christopher, 2006 op cit; WRIGHT, Christopher, 2010, op cit; HAWTHORNE, Steven C, 1999, op cit; PIPER, John, 2010, op cit; GOHEEN, Michael, 2011 op cit; and BRATTEN, Carl, The Mission of the Gospel to the Nations, Dialog, 30, 1991, p127, among others.
[xxii] Published in its entirety in PIPER, 1998, op cit.
[xxiii] This listing of scriptures is extracted from PIPER, 2010, op cit, pp41-46.
[xxiv] WRIGHT, 2006, op cit, p234.
[xxv] PIPER, 2010, op cit; BRATTEN, 1991, op cit; HAWTHORNE, 1999, op cit; WRIGHT, 2006, op cit; WRIGHT, 2010, op cit; GOHEEN, 2011, op cit.
[xxvi] PIPER, 2010, op cit, p15.
[xxvii] HAWTHORNE, 1999, op cit, pp46-47)
[xxviii] Interviews were carried out in September 2011 with a former senior pastor of the church, with a staff member who had been chair of the church’s missions committee for a number of years and with ten of Spreydon Baptist’s returned missionaries, all of whom had served overseas for a decade or more. All interviews lasted approximately one hour, although some were longer. Both authors participated in all interview sessions.
[xxix] Spreydon Baptist has a current membership of around 1,200 people with up to 1,600 people attending six weekly services. See http://www.spreydon.org.nz/
[xxx] See http://www.servantsasia.org/
[xxxi] One respondent commented, “When you mentioned that you were coming I thought, this will only take five minutes.” Another said, “I figured the conversation would be over in ten minutes.”
[xxxii] Although definitions of “mission” weren’t overtly explored in these interviews, this particular respondent offered a working definition of mission as “being there for the other.” This is a bit more general than the “cross cultural” emphasis which pervaded most of our other discussions.
[xxxiii] PIPER, 2010, op cit, p15.
[xxxiv] WRIGHT, 2010, op cit.
