Church and Mission: Book Review #4

God’s Missionary People by Charles Van Engen

Charles Van Engen was raised in Chiapas, Mexico, where his parents were missionaries, and later returned as a missionary there himself. He is currently Arthur F. Glasser Professor of Biblical Theology of Mission in the School of Intercultural Studies at Fuller Theological Seminary. As such, his writing focuses heavily on missiology and other titles by him include Mission on the Way, You Are My Witnesses, God So Loves the City (co-editor), and The Growth of the True Church.

Van Engen’s thesis is that, “as local congregations are built up to reach out in mission to the world, they will become in fact what they already are by faith: God’s missionary people (17).” He shapes his argument into three parts: an explanation of the church as being God’s missionary people, a new vision for the church as such, and a discussion of how local churches can go about becoming more mission-focused.

Van Engen begins by first sharing two somewhat paradoxical, yet upon reflection true, viewpoints of the local church, explaining first that it is through living out its missionary nature that the local church becomes the Church and that local congregations are in mission through being part of the universal Church (33), and then the idea that the church is already that which it is becoming and must continually change, reform, and improve (41). In order to supply a biblical foundation for his ideas, Van Engen turns to the book of Ephesians, in which Paul views the critical character of the church within the world as being one of unity continual growth and renewal in mission, which bolstered my own preexisting leanings towards ecumenism. Furthering this, he traces the missional quality of the church throughout its history as it expresses the four qualities attributed to it in the Nicene Creed (one, holy, catholic, apostolic) in action (a reminder to me personally that we as Christians are called to live these qualities and not just talk about them).He then concentrates on what the church, as a missional entity, should be concerned with addressing in its continually changing mode of expression: being for the world, identification with the oppressed, mission, proclamation witness, and yearning for numerical growth (74), which reminds me that all of these qualities, not just those on which I tend to focus, are necessary.

The practical and present side of the discussion is then visited beginning with a look at the purpose of the local church, which Van Engen describes as community through koinonia (loving each other), kerygma (proclaiming Jesus as Lord), diakonia (service to the needy), and marturia (witness to the Resurrection) - once again re-emphasizing action rather than discussion to me, which I struggle with to some extent. He then expands upon this, relating these to the larger perspective of the Church as the beginning of the coming of the Kingdom of God, and even further as the body of Christ in the world, enacting Christ’s roles of priest, king and prophet, which I thought fit handily with my new appreciation for the Orthodox ecclesiological idea of the Church as being an icon of the Trinity (enacting Christ’s three roles, the Spirit’s bringing the Kingdom, and the Father’s sending out of “little Christs,” the literal translation of “Christians”).

In the final section of Van Engen’s book, he expounds upon the, “process by which missionary congregations get a vision of their mission in their various contexts (133).” He explains that, ultimately, it is the laity that enacts ministry and mission and that the purpose of the clergy is actually to aid them in doing so, rather than being the ministers, an idea I have been toying with for a while. He then expands upon this view of leadership by describing the biblical idea of the servant leader, which was actually a refreshing section for me since I resonated with the idea of true servanthood that Van Engen puts forth for a term that has almost become a shibboleth in the Church world. He concludes with a discussion of the necessity of, “culturally-appropriate and contextually-equivalent (180)” administration in helping the church to become missional, explaining that evaluation is crucial in order to become truly mission-minded, which I saw as an admonishment to me to be far more thankful for those with the gift of administration (which I most certainly do not have), since they are absolutely vital in helping me to minister.

Overall, I found this to be a refreshing read that supplemented my previous readings nicely in that it discusses why the church changes, rather than how the church has changed or is changing. In that way, it would build a good foundation for those beginning ecclesiological studies.