II          The Church according to the Bible

If there was a clear missionary task for Israel, it is only to be expected that the church has a similar calling. In the New Testament era, the church plays a most important, global role.

1.         The importance of the Church

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)

- important to us:

·        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.

2.         False conceptions of the Church

God could have hardly given higher privileges to the church, but in spite of that we see in churchhistory 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

3.         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. Berkhof (Christelijk Ge­loof, p.400) calls this duality intensive and extensive:

1             inwardly the Local Church is the place where christians worship God and get spiritually nurtured. This is what is mainly exposed in Paul's writings.

2             outwardly the Local Church serves as a centre for evan­gelism and missionary outreach. This is found in the Book of Acts.

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 agengy in the sixties and like a political pressuregroup in the seventies. H. Berkhof summerized this development in his Christelijk Geloof(p.404^vv) and concludes that the Church's service to the world depends on her relationship with God. The church first responsa­bility 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 churchmem­bers 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, 38^v).

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?

Read further on the next page!

"There was a rainbow around the throne,
in appearance like an emerald." Rev. 4:3
The rainbow indicates that this precious stone reflects more than one color.
It is like the diversity of peoples within "our" region.
Let it be our desire to see all these peoples together may shine as a rainbow,
a colorful emerald, around the throne of God, with just one desire: to magnify our Creator and Savior!