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Course 11 · Lesson 1.3

The mission of the church

11 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 11 outline

Module 1: What the Church Is

  1. Biblical images of the church: body, people, temple and bride
  2. One, holy, catholic and apostolic: the four marks
  3. The mission of the church
  4. The visible and invisible church in Augustine, the Reformers and the East

Module 2: Ministry and Apostolic Succession

  1. Ministry in the New Testament: apostles, elders, overseers and deacons
  2. The bishop in the early church: Clement, Ignatius and Irenaeus
  3. Apostolic succession: three meanings (a line of bishops, the teaching, the mission)
  4. Ordination in the Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant traditions

Module 3: Scripture, Tradition and Church Authority

  1. Scripture and tradition in the early church
  2. The Catholic account: Scripture, tradition and the magisterium
  3. The Orthodox account: the living tradition of the church
  4. The Reformation and the question of sola scriptura

Module 4: Three Systems of Authority

  1. The bishop of Rome in early history
  2. Papal primacy and infallibility in Catholic teaching
  3. Orthodox conciliarity and the role of the patriarchs
  4. Protestant principles of authority: Scripture, confessions and the priesthood of believers
  5. The strongest objections each tradition raises against the others

Module 5: Sacramental Theology

  1. Mystery and sacrament: the words and their history
  2. Augustine and the definition of a sacrament
  3. How many sacraments? Seven, two, or none
  4. Validity, efficacy and the role of faith

Module 6: Baptism and the Eucharist

  1. Baptism in Scripture and the early church
  2. Infant baptism and believers baptism
  3. The Eucharist in the early church
  4. Real presence: transubstantiation, the Orthodox mystery, Lutheran, Reformed and memorial views

Module 7: Reconciliation and Liturgical Worship

  1. The forgiveness of sins in Scripture
  2. Confession and penance in the history of the church
  3. Confession across the traditions: Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran and Reformed practice
  4. Liturgy, word and table, and the church year
  5. Worship without a fixed liturgy and its principles

Module 8: Schism and Christian Unity

  1. Early schisms: the Donatists and the churches after Chalcedon
  2. East and West: the long division and the events of 1054
  3. The Reformation divisions
  4. Ecumenism and the prospects for unity

All courses

Program / Course 11: Church, Sacraments, and Authority / Lesson 1.3

What you will learn

  • Define mission and describe the main tasks the New Testament gives the church.
  • Explain the relation of worship, witness and service in Christian mission.
  • Compare how Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant traditions describe the church’s mission.
  • Recognize a debate over whether mission means preaching, serving, or both.

The big idea

The word mission comes from the Latin for sending. In the New Testament the church is sent by Christ, as he was sent by the Father. The traditions agree that this sending includes worship, the proclamation of the gospel, teaching, baptism and care for the needy. They differ in emphasis. Catholics speak of the church as a sacrament of salvation for the world. Orthodox writers speak of the liturgy as the center from which mission flows. Protestants often stress the preaching of the Word. All three have debated how proclamation and service relate.

Key terms

Mission
The work that Christ sends the church to do in the world. From a Latin word meaning to send.
Evangelization
Proclaiming the good news about Jesus Christ so that people may believe and follow him.
Great Commission
The name often given to Jesus’ command in Matthew 28:19-20 to make disciples of all nations.
Diakonia
A Greek word for service. Often used for the church’s works of mercy and care.
Koinonia
A Greek word for fellowship or shared life, used in Acts 2:42 and elsewhere.
Liturgy
From a Greek word meaning public work. In Christian use, the church’s official worship.
Inculturation
Expressing the gospel and church life within the forms of a particular culture.

Background

Christian mission begins with the idea that God sends. In John’s Gospel Jesus says, “As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you” (John 20:21). In Matthew he sends the eleven to “teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” (Matthew 28:19). In Acts the risen Lord tells his disciples they will be witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth (Acts 1:8).

From the start the sending has several parts. Acts 2:42 describes believers devoted to the apostles’ teaching, to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayers. Acts 2:44-45 and Acts 6:1-6 show care for the poor. Paul’s letters show the church planting new congregations, instructing converts and collecting gifts for the needy. The traditions inherit this mixed picture and give it different weights.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: Worship

Many writers place worship first, because the church exists to glorify God before it does anything for the world. Orthodox theology especially treats the liturgy as the church’s foundational act. Alexander Schmemann, an Orthodox author often read by Western students, argued that the liturgy sends the church out into the world, and that the dismissal at the end is the beginning of mission. A person does not have to agree with every part of his writing to see his point: that mission grows out of worship.

Catholics and Protestants can say the same in their own terms. The Second Vatican Council called the liturgy the source and summit of the church’s life. Reformed confessions begin their account of human purpose with the glory of God, and the Westminster Shorter Catechism says the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.

Step 2: Proclamation and teaching

The apostles preached, taught and made disciples. Paul writes that faith comes by hearing, and that people cannot hear without a preacher (Romans 10:14-17). Protestant traditions have often placed the preaching of the Word near the center of what the church does, and the Reformation produced new missionary work in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries through groups such as the Moravians, Methodists and Baptists.

Catholic and Orthodox mission has also been rich in proclamation. Medieval missionaries carried the gospel through Europe. Orthodox missionaries such as Cyril and Methodius in the ninth century created a written script for Slavic peoples so that they could hear the liturgy in their own language. Later Orthodox missions went to Alaska, Japan and elsewhere. In recent times Catholic documents use the term new evangelization for renewed proclamation among people who have already heard the gospel.

Step 3: Sacraments and incorporation

Matthew 28:19 links disciple-making with baptism. Mission in the New Testament is not only talk. It brings people into a community with a shared life. Catholic and Orthodox teaching understand the sacraments as the means by which Christ forms his people. Lutheran and Reformed teaching hold that Word and sacrament together are marks of the church. Baptist and free church traditions emphasize that baptism follows faith and joins a believer to a local congregation.

This step is where a student can see why missions among Christians of different traditions look different. A Catholic missionary may build parishes around the Eucharist. A Baptist missionary may plant a congregation of baptized believers. An Orthodox mission may begin with translating the liturgy.

Step 4: Mercy and justice

Jesus identifies himself with the hungry, the stranger and the prisoner (Matthew 25:35-40). James says faith without works is dead (James 2:17). The early church became known for caring for the sick and the poor, and even critics of the faith noted this. Hospitals, schools and relief organizations have long been part of church history in every tradition.

The debate is about priority and relation. Some Christians, especially in evangelical and some Reformed circles, insist that the gospel message is primary and that works of mercy follow from it. Others, especially in Catholic social teaching and in many mainline Protestant churches, speak of the pursuit of justice as part of mission itself. Many Orthodox writers speak of liturgy after the liturgy, meaning that the Eucharist should show itself in care for the neighbor. These positions overlap more than slogans suggest.

Step 5: A hard question about other beliefs

Mission always raises the question of how Christians relate to people of other faiths and none. The traditions agree that the gospel is to be offered to all. They differ in how they describe the salvation of those who have not heard it. The Catholic Church teaches that those who through no fault of their own do not know Christ may still be saved (Lumen Gentium 16). Orthodox writers generally decline to define the fate of anyone, leaving judgment to God. Protestants hold a wide range of views, from those who stress the necessity of explicit faith in Christ to those who hope for wider mercy.

  1. Who sends the church, and what is it sent to do?
  2. How are worship and mission related in this tradition?
  3. What part do the sacraments play in bringing people into the church?
  4. Is mercy a result of the gospel, a part of the gospel, or both?
  5. How has this tradition handled the gospel in different cultures?
  6. What past mistakes in mission has this tradition recognized?

Examples

Cyril and Methodius

Two brothers from Thessalonica, sent from Constantinople in the ninth century, are traditionally credited with devising an alphabet for the Slavs and translating Scripture and liturgy into the Slavic language. Eastern Christians honor them as apostles to the Slavs. The example shows mission through translation.

A congregation’s food pantry

A small Baptist church in a rural town opens a pantry each Tuesday. The pastor says it is part of preaching the gospel. A Catholic parish nearby runs a similar ministry as part of its social teaching. Both claim a scriptural basis (Matthew 25), and both are examples of service as mission. (A constructed example.)

Mission and conquest

In several periods, mission was tied to empire, and missionaries sometimes served as agents of conquest or accepted harsh treatment of native peoples. Christians of all traditions have criticized these episodes. A fair account of mission includes both its achievements and its failures.

Different perspectives

Catholic

Lumen Gentium teaches that the church is in Christ a kind of sacrament, a sign and instrument of union with God and of the unity of all people. The Second Vatican Council’s decree Ad Gentes states that the church is missionary by its very nature. Catholic teaching ties mission to the sacraments, to the bishops and to the care of the poor.

Orthodox

Orthodox theology often says that the liturgy is the beginning of mission, not a retreat from it. The church is sent to bring the whole creation into the praise of God. Orthodox missionary history stresses local language, local clergy and the establishing of self-governing churches.

Protestant

Protestants have been strongly missionary since the eighteenth century, with an emphasis on the Word preached, Bible translation and conversion. There is a lasting debate among them, sometimes sharp, about how evangelism and social action relate. Lausanne-style evangelical statements and World Council of Churches statements illustrate two familiar poles.

Scholarly note

Historians point out that the modern idea of mission as an organized program of sending people overseas is fairly recent. Earlier centuries spread the faith through monastic communities, trade, migration and political change as well as deliberate preaching. The early church grew largely through personal contacts and communities of worship.

Why it matters

How a church understands its mission shapes what it values: preaching, liturgy, charity, politics or education. Students often meet claims about what the church should be doing before they have learned what the traditions actually teach. Knowing the range keeps a reader from assuming that one emphasis is the only faithful one, and lets them see why believers of good will argue about priorities.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: Mission means only foreign missionaries.

Correction: The New Testament describes witness beginning in Jerusalem, where the church already was, and moving outward. Mission includes the local congregation’s witness, worship and service as well as work in distant lands.

Misunderstanding: Protestants care about preaching and Catholics and Orthodox only about ritual.

Correction: All three traditions preach, teach and serve. They differ in how they relate those activities to the sacraments and the liturgy.

Misunderstanding: Caring for the poor is a modern replacement for evangelism.

Correction: Works of mercy are found in the New Testament and in the early church. The disagreement is about how they relate to proclamation, not about whether they belong to the church’s life.

Misunderstanding: All Christian traditions teach the same about the salvation of non-Christians.

Correction: Each tradition includes more than one voice. Official teaching, scholarly discussion and popular belief should be kept distinct when describing them.

Knowledge check

What does the word mission mean, and which New Testament passages express it?

Mission comes from a Latin word meaning to send. John 20:21 states that Jesus sends his followers as the Father sent him. Matthew 28:19-20 commands making disciples of all nations, and Acts 1:8 speaks of witness to the end of the earth.

Name three activities that the early church practiced as part of its life and mission.

Acts 2:42 lists the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread and prayers. Acts 2 and 6 show care for the poor. Matthew 28 adds baptism. Preaching and the planting of new churches are also found in Acts and the letters.

How do Orthodox writers relate liturgy to mission?

Many Orthodox writers teach that mission flows from the liturgy. Worship forms the community, and the dismissal sends it out to bring the world into the praise of God. The phrase liturgy after the liturgy expresses the idea that worship should lead into service.

Describe one disagreement among Christians about proclamation and social action.

Some, especially in evangelical circles, give priority to proclaiming the gospel and see mercy as its fruit. Others, in Catholic social teaching and many mainline churches, include the pursuit of justice as part of mission itself. Both sides appeal to Scripture and cite Matthew 25 and the Great Commission.

Think it through

  1. If the church is sent, who sends it, and how does that affect the way it understands its authority?
  2. How might worship shape the way a congregation serves its neighbors?
  3. What does a church lose if it only preaches, or only serves?
  4. How should a church respond when parts of its history of mission cause harm?

Independent assignment

A mission statement comparison

In your notebook, find or write a short summary of the mission of the church from each of three sources: the Catechism of the Catholic Church, an Orthodox author such as Schmemann or Ware, and a Protestant confession or catechism. Quote briefly or paraphrase. Then write 250 to 350 words comparing them. Note where they agree and where one tradition adds an emphasis that the others do not. Keep the work in your notebook.

Further study