Back at Relay 1 - 22 years later...

This summer we had the privilege of being invited to speak at the World Mission Night of UCCF's Relay 1 conference.

In September 1996, Jonathan and I went to Relay 1, the orientation training conference for Relay Workers on UCCF's graduate training programme. We had both been involved in our university Christian Unions our whole student lives and had been significantly blessed and developed as we'd served on the Executive Committees of our CUs; attending UCCF's regional and national training conferences and beginning to grasp what gospel ministry involved. We both applied to Relay and were accepted onto the programme to continue to live and work in our university cities (Birmingham and York). We'd never met. We happened to sit by each other in the first morning session on the first full day of the conference. Little did we know what a massive impact Relay would have on our lives. 

Relay is how we met, but it's so much more than that. Relay has shaped so much of our life and ministry together: the agenda, the principles and our outlook. The focus of much of the teaching of Relay, as it equips young gospel workers starting out in ministry, is grace and the call, in a 2 Timothy 2:2-style, to pass on what we are learning. With the gospel of grace as our foundation and motivation, we were encouraged to LEARN and to find those "faithful others" to pass that on to. It continues to encourage us to see how Relay has impacted not just UCCF, but IFES worldwide and the church in the UK and abroad.

And so, 22 years on, we found ourselves back in the Severn Lodge Meeting Room speaking to this years' Relay Workers, with our four children listening. Jonathan spoke from the "classic text for world mission" (his words), Ezra 1, and a bit from Ephesians 3.

Severn Lodge Meeting Room

The Ezra passage points to God's priority (which has always been his priority, from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22) to establish his dwelling with people, and to have a people who are his own, and who enjoy his presence forever. The mission that God has left in the stewardship of his people is to be part of the building of his temple - which Ezra 1 points to, which Jesus fulfils in his own body, and which Ephesians 3 shows is the task to be continued until the end. We had an opportunity to encourage the 75 staff and Relay workers to consider how they might contribute to this in whatever small way, and to remind them that though the needs are great and unending in the UK, they are perhaps greater and less begun in many other parts of the world, and certainly in almost all of continental Europe.

I gave my testimony really on the impact that Relay had on my worldview and my attitude to world mission. It went something like this:

I don't come from a mish-kid background and I grew up thinking missionaries were sad, losers who didn't like British culture and that's why they went somewhere else. I'd see them in their ill-fitting Laura Ashley or home-made dresses and think, "No, that is not for me. I love England. Why would I live somewhere else?" And, even here, at Relay 1's World Mission Night, I remember praying for two ex-Relay Workers who were working with IFES in Siberia and thinking, "They're CRAZY! Who would go to SIBERIA?! I'll pray for them, but I'm not impressed. Rather them than me."

Relay 1996-97 at Relay 1 on the lawn at Quinta, September 1996

So, it all came as a bit of a shock when, at Relay 2, the January conference, in a church hall in Edinburgh, God challenged me to sort out my priorities. Rose Dowsett was speaking on World Mission and she made a couple irrefutable statements about God:

1. God is your loving Heavenly Father and he knows what's best for you
2. God is the God of the WHOLE WORLD

Then she made one annoyingly logical argument:

• If that's true, who are you to say, "I will serve you, God, this far and no further"?

That was annoying, because I couldn't argue with that. Then she gave one challenge:

• If you can't argue with that, can I challenge you to pray that you'll be willing to go wherever God wants to send you.

Well, I love a challenge. But not one like that! So, despite my best efforts, I found myself in a position where, against my will, I prayed something like this, "Lord, you know I'm not happy about this, but you are God and I am not, and you do know what's best for me. So, if you really want to, I'm up for going wherever and doing whatever you think is best." I felt like Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing when she says, "Against my will. I am send to bid you to come in for dinner." (Act 2 Scene 3!)

When Jonathan and I first talked about dating, he was clear that he didn't want to go out with someone who wouldn't consider going overseas. God, in his grace, had prepared me for this. I had already, independently and months before, prayed that prayer. I could tell Jonathan, with impunity, that I was willing to go wherever. And I'm so glad God had done that. I'm sure that, if I hadn't prayed that prayer in January, in late March I would have been so eager to go out with Jonathan, I'd have agreed to anything. Then, in all the hardships and struggles of the past 12 years in Greece, I might have blamed Jonathan for bringing us here, or myself for agreeing to be with him. Instead I have been able to see it as part of God's will and for my sanctification.

At Relay 3, the June conference, *spoiler alert* there will probably be a talk (or at least there was in my day...) that will challenge to think about where they might be in 10 years' time. A challenge to set a straight path in discipleship and faith with gospel priorities whatever the circumstances. Exactly 10 years after I prayed that prayer, we had been living in Athens for just over a week.  

It hasn't been easy. There have been many tears and frustrations and disappointments along the way. But, 12 years' into living in Greece, I know it's worth it, even if I don't always feel that way. God has not used me according to my strengths and gifts a lot of the time and he has wrecked my pride in terrible, wonderful and ongoing ways. Language learning is hideous. Fascinating but hideous. Sounding like an idiot and feeling like an outsider are not nice. But we're called to be aliens and strangers and I am longing for a better country - a heavenly one, in a Hebrews 11-style. 

So, I challenge you to think: Is God the God of the whole world? Is he your loving Heavenly Father who knows what's best for you? Then don't limit where or how you will serve him. Let him be God. Be open to being made into the person he wants you to be.

We didn't sugar coat, neither did we put undue pressure on anyone. Our aim was to set forth the truth plainly and provide stimulus for a challenge. There were plenty of good conversations going on over the next hour or so and a number of Relay Workers have expressed an interest in Relay Homestart, the programme that prepares and supports Relay Workers to serve with an IFES movement somewhere else in the world for at least a year after Relay. When I was Relay Administrator, my boss, Andy Shudall, started that programme, and two of our colleagues here in Greece, Tim and Nicky, first came to Greece as Homestarters.

Relay 1 "Bedtime Story" September 2001

We were very aware of the poignancy of our role at Relay 1. Conscious of how God was using us to make his mission to take the good news of the gospel of grace resonate in the hearts of those Relay Workers. We knew what it might be like for them; we'd sat in their seats; we weren't asking them to do anything we hadn't already done. It was a real privilege and responsibility to be involved. 

Ten years ago (there's a theme here...) we visited Forum and I wrote a blog about it (which you can read here). After his talk on John 20:21, John Piper challenged two groups to stand. The first group, those that felt called to commit vocational (whole-life) cross-cultural mission, somewhere between 150 and 200 stood. The second group those that felt called to do some short-term cross-cultural mission - a week, a month, a year or two - a further 400 stood. I was overwhelmed by the enormity of seeing students respond to the call to go to all nations. I wanted to warn them of how painful it was going to be and advise them to think more carefully. 

I didn't feel any of that helplessness this time. I understand the cost; I understand the call; I know the value of responding in faith. We both teared up in our talks. We want to see people take action, to know the cost and count it worth it.

Please pray for these Relay Workers, and the staff, that they would respond to the challenge, whatever that looks like. And pray especially for the 20 or so who are considering Homestart as an option. Ben, the current Relay Coordinator, would like to see at least 10 Relay Workers join Homestart.

We were so encouraged and blessed by our brief time at Relay 1. It was GREAT to be able to join in on a end-of-day Relay staff team meeting and hear staff feeding back on how the Relay Workers are doing. It was like the old days when Jonathan and I were on Relay staff. The kids loved it too and some are considering if they might want to be Relay Workers some day...

I want to dedicate this post to a few key influences during our time on Relay especially: Nigel Pollock, Tim Rudge, Andy Shudall, Richard Cunningham, Neil Powell, Rose Dowsett.

A slightly awkward house situation

We've not said much about this to everyone before now but I've decided to write briefly about our house situation. We've been here almost five years and it really is an ideal home for us. A bit cluttered and chaotic at times, but just a great space and we don't want to leave.

However, in November we learned that the bank is in the process of repossessing it from our landlords, which means we're in tenancy no-man's land until there are new owners of the property. If we had €200000 knocking around we might consider buying it! 

The long and short of it is that in the coming weeks or months we may have to move out. While this would be a pain in the neck, as well as most other parts of our bodies and wallets, it isn't the end of the world - but we'd love to not have to move, for so many reasons.

One result of this process is that I've had to stop paying our rent to the former landlord and pay it into a government fund for this kind of situation, which has been a bureaucratic challenge and has result in me getting the assistance of a lawyer who has recently joined our church, for which we incredibly grateful. 

My first three attempts at doing this properly were amusingly unsuccessful because no one in this particular facility seemed able to actually tell me accurately what needed to be done. I had to hold my tongue when the director said to my lawyer (in my hearing, but in Greek) 'I told him what he had to do but because he's a foreigner he didn't do it properly'. She had told me nothing of the sort! The result was that instead of her taking 2 minutes to tell me what needed to be done properly in January, she ended up taking an hour with a colleague trying to work out what needed to be done to correct the kinks in the process that resulted from my first attempts! Oh well, it all seems to be sorted now... apart from the uncertainty about the apartment.

We'll update it.

Some broad conclusions

I've finished reading the book, and I said I'd write some broad conclusions in this post. 

I want to start with one, taken from the epilogue on page 535:

'It was the rise Jesus...who opened the eyes of the disciples to understand the Scriptures, by reading them in the double light of his own identity as the Messiah and of their ongoing mission to all nations in the power of the Spirit. "This is what is written,... and you will be my witnesses...to the ends of the earth," he said, in that richly missional account which spans the ending of Luke's Gospel and the beginning of Acts.'

'...Christ crucified and risen is the key to all history, for he is the one who accomplished the mission of God for all creation.'

'If, then, it is in Christ crucified and risen that we find the focal point of the whole Bible's grand narrative, and therein also the focal point of the whole mission of God...'

I totally agree. 

And again I raise the question: the way that the many, many different things that are touched on in this book fit together under the heading 'The Mission of God' surely - surely - can't be flattened out in the way that Chris Wright's commitment to holistic mission seems to do so. That is not to say there is only one thing to do - evangelism. I agree with his critique of certain streams of Protestant mission thinking that reduces everything to merely winning souls for heaven. That is truncated and reductionistic.

But what if there is a clearer, simpler, more fundamental answer to the question 'what is God's mission?' that makes the answer to the second question: 'and how do I participate in it?' more accessible and more faithful?

I am convinced there is a better answer. I doubt if Chris Wright would really disagree with it, but I don't think this book has uncovered it.

The last chapter - and the big questions

I'm thinking of writing two more posts after this one:

This one - briefly, some big questions
The next one - some broad conclusions
The final one - my main point.

How's that for succinct?

Today then: if the New Testament deals with God's mission (seemingly exclusively) in terms of the gospel of the messiah being proclaimed to the ends of the earth, of God's salvation being offered to all, then surely that is God's mission? And if so, why has so much of this book seemingly been about how God's mission is so much more than this?

Is it just semantics? Is it unnecessary for me to be seeing distinctions between God's overall mission, his big plan for the world, and the execution of that plan in time, such as the apostles and the early church? In other words, is it possible that the New Testament's clear focus and emphasis on a verbal proclamation of good news about the crucified and risen Jesus just happens to be a New Testament thing, and really only one element or one dimension of a much broader mission?

I think that's unlikely... 

Furthermore, questions remain, not really as a result of what Wright says, but because of the implications of what he says:

What is the gospel? What is the good explicit, and what is the bad implicitly, in the 'good' of good news?
What is salvation? 

These are such fundamental questions...

It's really hard to set aside my preconceptions

Reader(s), I've been trying to read the book fairly. I stated early on in the process that I'm reading this book because I have long had a hunch that part of its legacy is unhelpful in our understanding and practice of mission. So I'm inherently biased - I can't pretend otherwise! - but I am trying to read it fairly. 

One of the components of my hunch has been to do with the problem of continuity and discontinuity, and the contribution of Old Testament theology to the whole Bible picture of mission. I need to state clearly that I am a staunch supporter of reading the Old Testament, and I'm often frustrated when it's routinely ignored in preaching programmes or in an individual's reading. The New doesn't trump the Old, but fulfils it.

One reason why I've been concerned about Wright's treatment of things is that the Old seems to be co-opted to make a case that the New doesn't. Here's the most recent instance (forgive me if I'm just misunderstanding him):

'The new creation will preserve the rich diversity of the original creation, but purged of the sin-laden effects of the Fall. [Amen!] Or, the mission of God is not merely the salvation of innumerable souls but specifically the healing of the nations.' (p 456)

It seems to me this language is slightly pejorative, and another way in which he's reacting against an over-individualised, western evangelical subculture. 

And yet, is it not clearly the case, in the unfolding story of the church in the New Testament, that God does deal entirely with individuals? (Or at the largest scale with families - this isn't the place to argue about paedobaptism!!!) Where do we see nations as whole nations being approached, in the way that many of the prophets of Old declared God's verdicts or promises to whole nations (think Ezekiel, Jonah, Obadiah, Jeremiah etc)

Now this is a minor point in some ways - Chris Wright isn't resting a huge weight on this one plank. However, on page 462 we see the following summary:

• If it were not the case that all nations stand under the impending judgement of God, there would be no need to proclaim the gospel.
• But if it were not for the fact that God deals in mercy and forgiveness with all who repent, there would be no gospel to proclaim.

Isn't that exactly right? I raise this because if I was to be constructing a theology of mission, it would most certainly revolve around the proclamation of the gospel (why, how, when, what it is, what it isn't, where it comes from, why it's necessary and so on). And yet the previous 400 pages have to an extent been about deconstructing this (in my view) fundamental issue. I've come away with the impression that to centralise the proclamation of the gospel as a unique or primary or exclusive or foundational (pick your adjective) task is to truncate the gospel and to be reductionistic about mission. But here in chapter 14 (God and the Nations in Old Testament Vision), we have exactly this summary suggesting that the gospel and its proclamation is central. Somehow. 

It's more than possible I've just read the book badly, or that my limited ability to hold it together in overview means that I've misunderstood points he's making or I've read my own bias too easily into it.

I suppose one conclusion from all this is that we are largely on the same page. But it's those little bits on other pages that I think are proving troublesome and about which I'm increasingly concerned. We're almost at the end and I'll nail my colours to the mast soon!

The Mission of God and my own hobby horses!

Dawn often ribs me gently (joining in a long line of others who rib me...) about how I have a Bible that only really has three or four books in it. While not quite on the level or in the style of the heretic Marcion, who dispensed deliberately with most of the Old Testament, it is true that I return disproportionately often to certain books. Generously, my Bible consists of Ezra and Malachi and the Old, and Mark, Ephesians, 2 Timothy and Titus in the New. The Ezra inclusion is the legacy of my friend Andy in Beeston, with whom I read it properly for the first time in the gloriously sunny spring of 2000 on the grassy banks outside Nottingham University's Portland Building. Titus makes it in because it's a short little letter, ideal for reading 1-2-1 with students when you want to complete a series and it's difficult to plan months of meetings. I must have read it with dozens of students, individually and in small groups.

Why this reminiscence?

My Biblical hermeneutic has been shaped over the years mostly by influences from UCCF and the Proclamation Trust, and Andy Gemmill, our former pastor at Beeston Free Church. It's therefore unsurprising that the main questions in my mind with Biblical texts, large or small, are these three:
1. Where does this book fit into the whole Bible?
2. What did the author want me take from it? (i.e. why is it in the Bible?)
3. How is it about Jesus?

(This is just a very quick thought off the top of my head by the way.)

So anyway, I've been wondering a couple of things about this comprehensive book of Wright's that I've almost finished, and poor old Ezra doesn't make it in to the scripture index. This isn't surprising, but I do feel sorry for the guy. When I get to the New Jerusalem I'm definitely going to search him out for a chat because his queue might be shorter. But what does his little, odd, obscure-ish book contribute to our thinking about mission? About the mission of God?

Well, at the very least it puts a very strong emphasis on God's priority for his people to be his people. End of story. The Hebrews exiled in Babylon are brought back to Jerusalem and reconstituted as his people in his land under his rule. That is God's purpose. I'll suggest that it's his mission. (Something that I think is seriously lacking in Wright's book: an emphasis on God's mission being to seek, save and keep his people, now and for eternity).

Put it this way: in the book of Ezra, I'm thinking that really all we see in terms of what God wants to see happening, is that his people live as his people. They do not seem to have a long list of concerns, a wide variety of tasks to accomplish. Just the one. Be the people of God.

And then my other hobby horse - Titus. Titus gets three mentions in the index - chapter 2:9-14 ish - but interestingly none of them pick up on the purpose part of those verses, which I think is both clear and crucial: that God sent Jesus to redeem a people to be his own. That's a purpose statement. It's a mission statement. The contribution of these verses to Wright's argument is to do with the living out good lives to adorn the gospel, which is of course vitally important. But there's a more fundamental purpose behind that adorning, which is so that the gospel goes out faithfully in order to actually do the redeeming work in the first place, in order that God's people be found, called, saved and so on. What that people do follows on from what God does first, and they are distinct movements.

I am convinced that a theology of mission that doesn't have a controlling, central place for the gospel word and the proclamation (teaching/speaking/gossiping/discussing etc - this isn't an apologetic for the primacy of the pulpit) but at least moves in the direction of evangelism and teaching being one amongst many activities that make up God's mission is problematic. And I just don't believe we see that in the New Testament at all.

Sin and mission

God's mission in the world has something to do with sin. Only the most ardent liberal could deny that. One of the questions therefore is 'what is sin?'. Another would be 'how exactly does God's mission tackle sin?' Our perception of sin is clearly going to affect our view of mission, and our understanding of God's solution to sin is going to shape our practice of mission from the roots up. 

Personally, I need to learn to think more deeply about basic things and not be satisfied with primary school level answers, but at the same time if something is simple, we need to not over-complicate it.

I'm wondering if that's the case with Chris Wright's treatment of sin, where in chapter 13 he explains his thoughts on structural or societal sin. I really do not want to fall into the over-atomistic trap of many and simply say we should be talking about getting individuals to pray the sinner's prayer, as if that is the be all and end all of mission. But what shall we make of this quote?

'So if our mission is bringing good news into every area of human life, then it calls for some research and analysis as to what exactly constitutes the bad news, horizontally in the structures of a given society and vertically in its history. Many factors will be uncovered in the process. But only as they are uncovered can the cleansing, healing and reconciling power of the gospel undo their dismal effects.' (p. 432)

The thing is, do we see anything like this approach anywhere in the Bible? Not that the careful thinking about the breadth and depth of sin isn't a good idea. I'm sure it is. But as an approach to mission - well, I need some more help to see that approach in the way the apostles took the full revelation of the good news around the Jewish and Roman Mediterranean lands. 

Do we know what the good news is? Yes I think so. Do we know what the bad news is? Again, yes. And the bringing of that good news to bear against the bad news is, I think, less complex than this chapter suggests. 

Creation care

I've been waiting for this subject to turn up at some point in the book.

Is creation care an essential part of mission?

I'll quote a couple of sentences, which come off the back of some simple points made about the value of creation, the love of God for creation, the continuity (qualified rightly I think) between this creation and the new, renewed one to come, the distinction between creator and his creation, and more. I'm with Chris Wright on those issues, to begin with, but then it becomes a little muddled, I think.

'I would like to make just a few more points articulating how and why it seems to me that a biblical theology of mission... must include the ecological sphere within its scope and see practical environmental action as a legitimate part of Christian mission.'

'In the past, Christians have instinctively been concerned about great and urgent issues in every generation, and rightly included them in their overall concept of mission calling and practice.'
(p 413)

'Being Christian does not release us from being human. Nor does a distinctively Christian mission negate our human mission, for God holds us accountable as much for our humanity as for our Christianity. As Christian human beings, therefore, we are doubly bound to see active care for creation as a fundamental part of what it means to love and obey God.' (p 414)

I want to suggest at this point that part of the nagging concern I've had with the book, as with the wider issue of mission in the circles we move in, is that there is possibly a very basic confusion of categories going on here, which ends up leading us down a wrong track.

To say that Christians - as all humans - are charged with being stewards of God's creation is one thing. And surely we all agree with that. As he says, we are not released from being human. We live in a creation that has value and should be valued.

But to place that at the centre of our mission - along with other tasks such as teaching humans from all of creation to obey what Jesus commands - seems problematic. The charge to all God's human creatures to be stewards holds, but I am sure that it sits in a different place to the command to God's chosen people to be his people with all the concomitant responsibilities that entails. It doesn't sit alongside that command, as if of equal significance. God commands many things, but they do not all sit alongside each other. I think there is an order - I don't think the word hierarchy is right so I won't say that - that we need to have clear when we think about mission, and right throughout the book I do not believe Chris Wright has made this clear, which ends us up in a muddle about what we are supposed to be doing, as the church and as individuals.

Apart from anything else, I'm struggling to think of a single instance in the New Testament where the apostles take us in this direction, explicitly or implicitly. If anyone reading this can help me out, please do so. It seems to me that some significant conclusions are being read back into the Old Testament framework that Wright has constructed, before those conclusions are really warranted.

I'll be more constructive when I write my own conclusions - for the time being however, what is the place of creation care in thinking about and doing mission?

Mission and Ethics

Chris Wright has long been known as a writer and speaker on Old Testament ethics. I've just finished a chapter which he summarises as follows:

'In short, as God's covenant people, Christians are meant to be

• a people who are light to the world by their good lives (1 Peter)
• a people who are learning obedience and teaching it to the nations (Matthew)
• a people who love one another in order to show who they belong to (John)

It would be hard to find a more concise articulation of the integration of Christian ethics and Christian mission.' The Mission of God, page 392

Amen. The way we live as the people of God must be good and be seen to be good.

But here I think we see a significant issue with the theology of this book, and with the wider issue of mission, holistic mission, what is evangelism, what is the gospel, what is the heart of God's mission... I don't think he has satisfactorily argued the case here. And what is really missing is the issue of how God's people are built. How does the people of God come into being? Because the ethical outworking is clear - as summarised in those three bullets above. But ethics is the outworking of the identity of the people of God, and that identity is formed by something else - something that precedes ethics. And I believe that clarity on what that precedence is, is foundational to what God's - and our - mission is.

Read on!

What do we make of the word 'holistic'?

Holistic mission.

This might be one of the big underlying issues with this book - and with a significant stream of western missiology. 

[Let me insert a disclaimer: I am open to having this opinion corrected by the end of the book!]

I have come to the tentative conclusion during chapter 9 that Chris Wright has been working with an assumption that is so foundational that is has possibly ended up controlling his framework - how consciously, I can't say. But it's there, I'm sure of it - and as I've written a couple of times, the conclusions one comes up with in this area really matter!

Now, his stated intention is to 'develop an approach to biblical hermeneutics that sees the mission of God as a framework within which we can read the whole Bible' (p17). But the more I read the more it seems that he is developing the hermeneutic with the a priori assumption that mission must be 'holistic' - and I don't think he has sufficiently justified this. It means that the sweep of scripture is read through the lens of 'mission must be more about getting souls into heaven'.

And in one sense it is, but there is a sense in which it isn't! (I'll keep this powder dry for my overall conclusions).

If you're truly going to develop a whole-Bible view of mission, which we must, then we have to allow the whole Bible to inform that view. It seems to me that the notion that mission needs to be something more than merely evangelism is such a basic foundation in his view, that the books doesn't seem to allow the possibility of actually allowing scripture to define mission. I have reached the end of chapter 9 and it still hasn't emerged from a whole-Bible survey. Lots of helpful insight. Lots of good stuff. But an absolutely critical piece missing. What does God in the whole of scripture actually say mission is? I've hinted at a couple of things that I wonder might be missing in the earlier parts of the book. Perhaps they'll be filled in by the end. But I am increasingly sure that there is a flaw in the foundation of his hermeneutic, and it has to do with this notion of holistic mission. I hope that it is not there purely as a reaction against a reductionistic view of church, mission and evangelism inherited from his Northern Irish roots - something to which he explicitly refers a number of times. I know we're all products of our environment, but I find myself longing to be persuaded far more explicitly by the weight of scripture rather than a lop-sided background. 

This may be very unfair.

I would totally agree with Wright that if we say mission is only about telling people they can go to heaven when they die, of course that's deficient. I think the Bible presents us with a view of mission which IS far richer than that, but doesn't take the theologically lazy way out of saying mission is 'holistic'.

The question still remains to be answered: what exactly is mission?

Aha...

As people have asked me how the reading is going, I've been saying that I feel like I'm about to come across the part of Wright's argument that really shapes his missiology, and does so in a way that clarifies what I've been growing uncomfortable with. It remains to be seen how much the rest of the book augments or diminishes this unease, but as far as I've got so far, I think this is significant and not in a good way.

It's about the Exodus - what sort of a redemption it is, and what it means for us.

Some headlines:

1. There are several aspects to the redemption event in Exodus - but they are not all of equal significance, and Wright doesn't seem to allow for this, which has big implications for his whole missiology
2. The Exodus is as Wright says the first big redemption event but one must take into proper account how it is used and developed and referred to in the rest of the Bible, and I don't think Wright does.
3. The central event of the Exodus redemption is the Passover, is it not? This bloody, deathy, atonementy, first-born-son dominated event is barely mentioned in Wright's treatment. At least so far. I can't quite believe this oversight.
4. It is God who redeems, and his people do virtually nothing (other than grumble subsequently!). To immediately jump from what God does then to what we do now seems clumsy to say the least. It seems like this is what Wright is doing.

I don't want to be overly-polemical in this, but a sentence like this raises concerns in methodology and outcome:

'The inevitable outcome surely is that exodus-shaped redemption demands exodus-shaped mission. And that means that our commitment to mission must demonstrate the same broad totality of concern for human need that God demonstrated in what he did for Israel.' (p275)

I think the words 'inevitable' and 'surely' are unhelpful. There's more careful study to be done of the Exodus, and the place of the event in the rest of Scripture, but at the very least I want to ask: does Jesus, and do the apostles, concur with the inevitable and the surely that Wright affirms? I don't think so. There's little or no evidence of an Exodus-shaped missional life in Israel in the next 36 books of the OT and similarly in the NT. Can I be a little provocative and suggest that it is being read back in from contemporary trends in mission and evangelism?

I'll come back to this but it's a big issue in western evangelical missiology today. 

The big question in my mind is: what exactly are we called to be doing as God's people?

What's next?

I've had a proper break from this mini-project during our Easter holidays and now I'm on the home straight: I intend to finish reading the book this week and finish writing by the end of April so I can move on to the next part of the sabbatical. The plan is to read and review larger chunks over the next few days so that I can then write up the main thrust of the review (which won't be a review of the whole book - that's not really my purpose) and not get bogged down in detail.

This is a good moment to reveal some of my motivation to get into this book carefully.

There are a couple of catchphrases that have been used in (at least) western missionary circles for some years now. I don't know when they started being mainstream terminology, but they were certainly in widespread use by the 1990s. Mission is often described as 'holistic' or 'integral'. I take these terms to mean that mission is about reaching the whole person, or more, with a view to bringing life and progress to all areas of human experience, as opposed to just evangelism with its focus on getting people to eternal life.

I hope this is not an unfair caricature.

This means that mission would include all kinds of poverty relief, economic and social development, education and medical work, ethnic and racial reconciliation, systemic change and so on.

I hope no one would say these are not good things to be doing.

But here we get to the rub, I think. When we define mission we need to be careful because the results of that definition are not inconsequential. They matter. And I have had a hunch for a long time (20 years or more!) that the definition of mission that much of mainstream western evangelicalism is working with is a bit of a reaction against a caricature of mission from previous generations. 

Crudely put, the thinking goes like this:

- evangelical missionary efforts have been largely about getting people into heaven when they die
- God is interested in so much more than that - he is interested in the whole person
- therefore mission should be about reaching the whole person
- therefore mission itself is holistic and includes the spiritual, physical, social, psychological and environmental elements that we see in the full sweep of Biblical revelation.

A more careful thinker could probably analyse things better than this brief outline, but I hope this isn't way off.

And it's here that alarm bells start ringing, although I won't explain why fully just yet, because I think the solution needs to be in view and not just a critique of the problem.

In chapter 8, 'God's Model of Redemption', Wright shows how the Exodus event attaches the Hebrew word group for redemption to several activities in different categories (pp 268-9):

• political
• economic
• social
• spiritual

'In the exodus God responded to all the dimensions of Israel's need. God's momentous act of redemption did not merely rescue Israel from political, economic and social oppression and then leave them to their own devices to worship whom they pleased. Nor did God merely offer them spiritual comfort of hope for some brighter future in a home beyond the sky while leaving their historical condition unchanged. No, the exodus effected real change in the people's real historical situation and at the same time called them into a real new relationship with the living God. This was God's total response to Israel's total need.' (p271)

I don't disagree with any of this. But I am aware of the context into which this is written, and I want to suggest at my halfway point that how this is applied will be absolutely critical. There are two poles being outlined in that paragraph, identified by the two instances of the word 'merely'. I suggest that it would be a basic theological error to suggest that the right thing to do is merely find a balance between these two poles. That's not how biblical theology works. And the consequences of how we define and then practise mission are significant, so we need to get it right. 

Read on.

Mission from the point of view of Old Testament Israel

One of the clearest things to me as you read the Old Testament is how central it is to God's plans that his people be a blessing to all the nations. Mission is too often spoken about in churches only from texts like Matthew 28 and Acts 1. But the whole Bible has this consistent them, and Wright surveys the Pentateuch, the Psalms and the Prophets to show this.

As a caveat, I'm increasingly wondering whether the nagging voice in the back of my head about what's missing sort of begins to become clear here: the continuity of the theme of God's people, i.e. the church, is a bit shaky in his framework. We'll see. But I just read this excellent line:

'The recipients of the Abrahamic blessing [Gen 12 etc] become the agents of it. The principle that those those who are blessed are to te the means of blessing others is not confined to Israel alone, as if Israel would forever be the exclusive transmitters of a blessing that could only be passively received by the rest from their hand. No the Abrahamic promises is a self-replicating gene. Those who received it are immediately transformed into those whose privilege and mission it is to pass it on to others.' (p 236)

What is it to be blessed in Abraham?

This is who we are

One of the reasons for reading up on this subject is that the work we're involved in - helping to build a student movement in Greece that trains believers and reaches unbelievers - is (hopefully!) of long term use here! One of the features of European evangelicalism that we've been able to learn a little about over the years, is the profound inward-looking nature of the small communities of Christians, either locally as in larger countries like France and Italy, or nationally in smaller Balkan countries where networks or relationships exist across the whole nation and down through the generations.

That's not to say that we're not too inward-looking in the UK (or anywhere else), but the extent to which that seems to be true here is quite hard to appreciate until you've been here a little while.

Everyone is cousins with everyone across the churches!

Anyway, the point is this:

This is what I've been reading today. Exodus 19 is a passage that defines who we are as God's people - and it leaves you in no doubt that our very identity and purpose is to represent God among the nations of the earth, to be the bearers of his word and his character and his will.

There is simply no room for us to think of ourselves as here for ourselves. The question is: how do we effectively work to bring about the change that we so urgently need to see, from inward looking to outward? From turned in on our own needs and concerned for our own continuation, to being turned outward to the need of those around us for knowing God and for the growth of his church?

At the end of the chapter that surveys the whole Bible with reference to passages that pick up on the universality of the Abrahamic blessing ('all peoples on earth...') and the particularity of Abraham as the means of that blessing ('...will be blessed through you' - Gen 12), Wright makes the clear and incontrovertible point that Israel's election as God's treasured possession is no different from ours: election is for mission.

We have been chosen so that others might be blessed. Whatever one thinks of election, we need to think this!

Where does the story of mission begin?

If we agree that God's intentions are to be known in all the earth, and if we agree that God has always had that one plan, where is that plan first revealed?

Almost everything in the Bible begins in the beginning...obviously...

[Little plug here for The Bible Project...]

But how far back in the beginning?

Chris Wright goes to Abraham, and while he has a huge role in the Biblical theology of mission, what happens to our picture if we start with Adam? And what about Noah? I just want to make one point from each character, and then I have to try and keep those points in mind as I read on because [spoiler alert] I have been increasingly convinced over the past few years that our ecclesiology plays an enormous role in how we think about global mission, and it is the place of the church that I think is one of the big gaps in much talk about mission.

I'll just keep it to headlines:
If you begin with Adam, then God's mission takes on the character of filling and ordering God's first creation - I write without having done detailed study just now, but just drawing on the big picture of what Adam is charged with. He is a sort of global gardener.

If you begin with Noah, then God's mission has more of a flavour of divinely-provided rescue from a divinely ordained judgement. Noah is the one in the only place of safety - the ark.

If you being with Abraham, then we're looking at the idea of blessing to all nations coming through the one man.

It doesn't take much knowledge or insight to see all these themes in the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus.

I'm writing this for two reasons:
1. If Chris Wright leans as heavily as he does on Abraham, how does that affect the overall view of God's mission?

2. If anyone reading this has any wisdom on all this, I invite your feedback!

I'll come back to the implications of Abraham's place in Wright's book when I've come to the end of part three.

Mission of God - Part Two

In this post I'm going to briefly review the three chapters that make up Part Two - The God of Mission: 

The Living God Makes Himself Known in Israel
The Living God Makes Himself Known in Jesus Christ
The Living God Confronts Idolatry. 

I don't need to go into any detail on these three excellent chapters. I just want to think aloud about a few broad issues that I think are significant for the book, for Wright's project, and for thinking about mission full stop.

The first is to say that what is made very clear is that YHWH is unique, and his mission is unique. There is an exclusivity to the whole thing, for which we should not be apologetic. He writes on page 91, of Moses talking to Israel: 'So this unique knowledge of this unique God is now your unique stewardship.' 

This uniqueness is of course not diluted as you go through Scripture from Deuteronomy onwards - it remains just as unique ('one cannot have gradations of uniqueness', as Alan Partridge was once taught) and becomes, in some senses at least, clearer and more explicit with the incarnation.

This leads on to the second point, which is a question of continuity and discontinuity. If the mission of God, as Moses understood and taught the people in the desert, was that he, YHWH, the only God, be known, how has that mission changed since the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus?

Spoiler alert: unless I've got this quite wrong, the impression I've got is that the definition of mission that Wright's framework leaves the reader with by the end is significantly broader - or at least sounds broader - than simply making God known. I don't want to be reductionistic about that phrase - making God known - as if evangelism is all there is to mission, or to the Christian life, or the only real application of any Bible passage. Of course it isn't. But I do think that if it Moses was right, and if Wright is right about Moses, then the uniqueness of God in his being and in his mission inevitably has a controlling function on everything else. In other words, there is a central issue at stake, and all non-central issues have to find their correct place around that one central issue.

These chapters actually make that point very, very clearly. God is made known in through Israel, and of course ultimately in Jesus, and all other pretensions to divinity, or all other objects of worship, are idolatrous and will be judged and destroyed. That being so, his exclusivity does not change, and neither does his mission. 

The question therefore about how much continuity there is from the Old Testament to the New is a significant question. I can't jump ahead any more than this, but as I read these three chapters, I regularly jotted down in my notes a question mark about continuity. Chris Wright is most well known for his work on the ethical implications of the Old Testament for the people of God, and I've long wondered whether some of the issues around the way in which continuity and discontinuity is worked out is glossed over or in some cases given too much weight.

We'll see.

Let me give one example. On page 92 Wright says:
'It is not necessary to read a missionary mandate into this role [of Israel bearing witness to the nations] within the Old Testament itself, in the sense of the Israelites being physically sent out to travel to the nations to bear witness to this knowledge. But the concept is clearly there: this knowledge  is to be proclaimed to the nations, just as much as the good news of its liberation was to be proclaimed to Jerusalem. Or to be more precise, the good news of what God had done for Jerusalem would constitute part of the good news that would go also to the nations, when "all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God" (Is 52:10; cf. Jer. 31:10). How this would happen is never clearly articulated in the Old Testament, but that it would happen is unequivocal.'

I think it is arguable that the 'how' is not clearly articulated. However, an entire chapter is then devoted to the issue of idolatry, with part of the conclusion being the following:

'Since God's mission is to restore creation to its full original purpose of bringing all glory to God himself and thereby to enable all creation to enjoy the fullness of blessing that he desires for it, God battles against all forms of idolatry and calls us to join him in that conflict.'

I have questions about all this. Is this God's mission, or is his mission to be known? (I know, these aren't mutually exclusive issues, but still, it makes a difference, I think, how we express the central issue). Is there really so little explicit articulation of the how question in the Old Testament? And is the battle against idolatry that is such a big issue in the Old Testament handled in this way by the writers of the New? It took me slightly by surprise to find anti-idolatry taking such a central place in Wright's definition of mission.

As I said, we'll see.

Mission of God - Part One

I'm about a quarter of the way through the book and I'm enjoying it. It's really well written. I've heard Chris Wright speak a couple of times so I can hear his voice in the print - friendly, engaging, fair, serious, but with a twinkle! This is just a few thoughts on part one of the book, 'The Bible and Mission'.

Wright's stated aim for the book is on page 17:
'My major concern has to been to develop an approach to Biblical hermeneutics that sees the mission of God (and the participation in it of God's people) as a framework within which we can read the whole Bible.'

This might not sound very exciting but it's very useful! Any framework that helps one to read the whole Bible well, or even (trigger warning!) correctly, can't be a bad thing! Further, as people involved in full-time, cross-cultural mission (whatever one assumes that to mean) the central purpose of the book is right up our street.

Why read this book now?

Well, over the past few years I've had enough contact with various streams of thought about and approaches to mission (however defined) that make me wonder what people really mean by mission. There seem to be lots and lots of different activities that people sacrifice lots of time and money and emotion for, all described as mission, but really lots of them are at best tenuously linked to (what I assume to be - and maybe I'm wrong) the mission of God.

If Chris Wright can help me think better about this whole enterprise, I'll be glad.

But there's something else as well. I think - and this is what I'm waiting to discover as I read on - that some elements of the framework this book is constructing are themselves linked to the proliferation of 'mission' activities, for better or for worse.

I'm not sure it's possible for me to write this without sounding a bit...judgemental? Narrow? But I can't ignore what I've come across in speech and print that seems to me to be veering off the Bible's consistent teaching about God's plans for his world as revealed in his Word. If we agree that Scripture is authoritative, and that we are constrained to live and think and act and do and plan in line with it, then it's no small thing to be clear on what God wants of his people in his world. None of us want to be wasting time and money and prayer and resources on something that isn't important. Also, if there are important things being neglected because we've been too narrow and blinkered, that needs correcting.

So, I'm going to read, try and be clear on what the framework is, and then be clear on what the implications of that framework are. It will certainly have a bearing on what we do here in Athens, but I suspect on what churches do full stop.

The Mission of God

For part of my sabbatical I'm reading (with a view to reviewing) this excellent book:

The reason for this is that while excellent (so far at least - I'm about a quarter through) I've been wondering in recent years whether some of the issues we observe in mission work broadly, and student ministry specifically, is quite directly influenced by some of the conclusions that Chris Wright points to, implicitly if not explicitly. We'll see. It's at least for my own thinking and learning, but I'm gently hoping it might prove useful in our wider organisation.

I've decided to post the occasional bit of the review here rather than only putting it all down in one larger article. This is partly for my benefit but some people might be curious.