Alfred Kuen's book on the Church, Je bâtirai Mon Église, starts out by showing that the Church is:

Important to God:

• Christ said that He would build His Church and that it will never be destroyed by evil forces (Mt.16:18)
• Christ loved the Church and sacrificed Himself for her.
• Through the Church the eternal wisdom of God is proclaimed in the heavenly places (Eph.3:10)
• The Church is God's household (1Tim.3:15)

• It is through the channel of Church history that we got to know the Gospel.
• The Church was intended to be the place where God's children can enjoy fellowship with "family-members" and where they can flourish and be nurtured spiritually (Eph.4:11-15). With reason Ignatius of Antioch accuses those who do not participate in the church of pride (his letter to the Ephesians 5:2. Solitary religion is unthinkable to the early christians.

B. False conceptions of the Church

God could have hardly given higher privileges to the church, but in spite of that we see in church history that Satan has succeeded in planting in the mind of christians an overestimation of the church. This developed in such a way that the Roman Catholic Church stated that there would be no salvation outside of the Roman Mother-Church.

The overestimation by Catholics led to an underestimation on the side of protestants. Instead of stressing the fact that conversion means being born into God's family, protestants (and evangelicals in particular) stressed salvation as an affair of the individual. These conceptions led to different missionary approaches. The way the local Church is conceived determines the role and strategy of the missionary on the field.

Both conceptions can get out of balance. But to us, Evangelical European christians, the underestimation of the importance of the Church is the disease we are most susceptible to.

In many cases it has led to organising the missionary enterprise around a certain individual with a special call. As this individual had his personal support-group, he conducted his work in order to convert individuals rather than aiming at the establishment of churches.

IF WE SEND OUT MISSIONARIES WITHOUT A SOLID ECCLESIOLOGY, WE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE WEAKNESS OF THE CHURCHES THEY PLANT

C. The biblical position of the Church: ‘intensive and extensive.’

This is not the place to work out an ecclesiology as such, but let us just state in summary that the Church has an inward function and an outward function. H. Berkhof calls this duality intensive and extensive:

Both aspects need a well-organised structure. In order to accomplish this the local Church-community needs, on the inward-side a meeting place, church-bulletin, time-table for those to preach, schedule for those members to pay a pastoral visit, sunday-school program, good management of money-matters etc. etc.

These are all important things, but again the danger exists of getting out of balance. In what follows we are going to stress especially the danger of being too inward-bound.

In order to avoid one-sidedness, it needs to be said that we do not want to fall into the same trap as did the study-report of the World Council of Churches, published in 1967, entitled: The Church for others. This report was mainly influenced by Dutch theologians like A.A. van Ruler and J.C. Hoekendijk and went too far by stating: "It is the world that must be allowed to provide the agenda for the churches."

This led the ecumenical movement to become more like a social aid agency in the sixties and like a political pressuregroup in the seventies. Berkhof summarized this development in his and concludes that the Church's service to the world depends on her relationship with God. The church first responsibility is to cherish this fellowship with her Lord, so that He can give her what she can pass on to the world.

But having said that, we notice that the inward-aspect is the one church members are most concerned about. The church-leadership will be tempted to give most of their time and energy to this aspect. If not, the members will start complaining for not receiving enough nurture and care.

In his concise book entitled Church and Missions Alive, Samuel Stoesz rightly remarks "that the lost do not complain if they remain unreached", and he adds that "a church tends to drift away from, never toward evangelism or missions" (p.38).Therefore if the inward-aspect needs a well thought-through structure, that applies even more to the the outward-side.

As the inward-aspect concerns every church-member, the same should be true for the outward-aspect. Kenneth Strachan compared fast-growing movements and concluded that one principle semed to underlie all other factors: "The expansion of any movement is in direct proportion to its success in mobilizing its total member-ship in continuous propagation of its beliefs" (Stoesz, 38v).

It must be sensed by all members of a local church that everyone has a part to play in a multinational endeavour. This gives an obligation, but it also can be a reason for a feeling of contentment. Just like we Dutch are proud of our national airline, because it operates well internationally, so there can be contentment in a tiny little village-church through the awareness of being part of a world-wide enterprise.

The question to be answered then is: How to mobilize all individual members for the Global Task?

Howard Snyder worked this out during the first Lausanne Congress and showed the exciting fact that the church does effect the world and the heavenly regions, as Paul shows especially in the letter to the Ephesians. But the average christian is not aware of the great implications of his christian living. He does not see the effects and for that reason he cannot get enthusiastic about it.

Imagine Mr. So-and-So working in the Rolls Royce factory in England. When people ask him what work he is doing, he can answer: My work is putting pieces of iron in a corner on a factory-site. This answer never impresses people and it does not give him a sense of contentment.

The reaction is totally different when he answers that he is involved in the production of Rolls Royces. When he answers that, he cannot help but feel a little proud and he is better motivated to do a good job the next day. A good director of a company will make sure that alle workers have a sense of producing an important product. So does good church-leadership make sure that each and every church member is aware that we are part of God's Strategy in Human History (title of an excellent book by R.T.Forster and V.P.Marston).

The community should hear regularly that the church is made for world-wide outreach.

B. A central Task Force needs to be set up.

This is just another way of saying that a committee needs to be installed, but this wording (which I owe to Stoesz) sounds more active and is therefore more accurate. Its task will be to further missions-awareness.

There is the real danger that the moment a committee is formed, all other members will think that they are not actively needed any more. The main purpose of the Central Task Force should be to achieve the opposite: to make sure that every church member becomes connected to the missionary enterprise.

The seize of the committee should fit proportionally to the seize of the local community, but if possible, people of different age-groups and from both sexes should be involved.

Ideally this Task Force is interlinked with the Leadership-team, the Youth Group, the Men's group etc.

The Central Task Force will have to write a Local Church Policy that, among others: - prevents decisions based on personality or momentary whims - defines responsibilities of church, missionary and the mission agency

This committee will be in contact with the denomination's missions headquarters, and/or with other organisations. Members of the Task Force can divide the responsibilities so that all following aspects are given attention by at least one member.

C. The church must become globally active.

In order to achieve this the following actions need to be taken: