David Bosch: Transforming Mission

[featured_image]I have been strongly influenced by David Bosch on understanding the church and mission. Here are some quotes that have challenged me – and I hope will challenge you…

“The church is seen as essentially missionary.”

“The church is not the sender but the one sent. Its mission (its “being sent”) is not secondary to its being; the church exists in being sent and in building up itself for the sake of its mission.”

“Ecclesiology therefore does not precede missiology.”

“Missionary activity is not so much the work of the church as simply the Church at work.”

“Since God is a missionary God, God’s people are a missionary people.”

“It has become impossible to talk about the church without at the same time talking about mission. One can no longer talk about church and mission, only about the mission of the church.”

“A Church without mission or a mission without the church are both contradictions.”

“The church is both missionary and missionizing.”

“The missionary dimension of a local church’s life manifests itself, among other ways, when it is truly a worshipping community; it is able to welcome outsiders and make them feel at home; it is a church in which the pastor does not have the monopoly and the members are not merely objects of pastoral care; its members are equipped for their calling in society; it is structurally pliable and innovative; and it does not defend the privileges of a select group. However, the church’s missionary dimension evokes intentional, that is direct involvement in society; it actually moves beyond the walls of the church and engages in missionary ‘points of concentration’ such as evangelism and work for justice and peace.”

For more on this theme – see David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission, 1991, pp 372ff