What Sort of Movement?

Churches of Christ are known to be an invitational movement, an inclusive, and (from a position of servanthood rather than of power) an influential movement. This has formed some of the background thinking to the work of reimagining a new Statement of Purposes, including the new Common Mission.

The Common Mission is To be a movement of the people of God gathering around the central figure of Jesus Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit, living out his Way in our local contexts and inviting others to do the same.

Let’s look at our Common Mission, piece by piece:

“To be a movement of the people of God”

What sort of movement? A movement of the people of God. Building and experiencing community, conversation and trusting relationships are important to us. But so is being constantly renewed by God, fluid and organic about non-essentials, yet firm and centred on the essentials.

It looks a bit like this:  Message  >>  Method  >>  Mission Context

Our Message never changes. Since the beginning one of the ways this Good News of the Kingdom has been summed up in John 3:16. We hold firm to the Message. It never changes.

Our Mission Context is constantly changing, often in rapid and discontinuous (or unexpected) ways. We no longer live in earlier centuries. We now live in the 21^st Century. It is different to earlier times. We all live in different contexts too.

Our Methods must be completely flexible so that the unchanging Message can be heard, understood and received in the changing and different Mission Contexts we find ourselves.

Prayerfully,we will be a movement characterised by Steve Addison in his book Movements that Change the World, so we will have: White hot faith, a commitment to a cause, contagious relationships, a capacity for rapid mobilization and to implement adaptive methods.

“gathering around the central figure of Jesus Christ”

For the movement known as Churches of Christ, it’s all about Jesus. He is central to everything we are on about, for “nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus”. We gather around nothing and no one else.

It will always look like this for us: Christology  >>  Missiology  >>  Ecclesiology

We must always get our understanding of Jesus, our Christology if you like, right before we look at anything else. More than that, we must get our relationship with Jesus right. We must discover and express this in the biblical ways of faith and repentance and confession and baptism and receipt of the Holy Spirit. Through faith we must place ourselves in him, and allow him to be Lord of all we are and hope to be, and all we have and hope to have.

When we get our Christology right, our Missiology will emerge spontaneously, and any necessary Ecclesiology (the shape of ‘church’ and gathering together as the called out people of God) will also emerge in ways that are right for each context.

“empowered by the Holy Spirit”

As a movement of the people of God, gathering around the central figure of Jesus Christ, the words of the prophet Zechariah ring true: “He said to me, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord of hosts”.

We become the movement God wants us to be not by human strength or wisdom or imagination, or through manmade systems or structures, but through the empowering of God’s Spirit; we are drawn to the central, saving figure of Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit; we are united together (interdependent like the human body) by the Holy Spirit; we are gifted and impassioned to live out the Jesus Way (and to invite others to do the same…) by the Spirit; and we will be daily renewed by the same Spirit.

“living out his Way in our local contexts”

It is important to see that the movement of the people of God we are committed to being does not follow our way, but the Way of Jesus. And his Way is the Way of the cross, of selfless, sacrificial service. The Way commanded that we be people who are loving God, and loving people; people who are living as Christ lived, as outlined for us in the New Testament, including rather starkly in texts like Philippians 2:1-11.

As noted above, all local mission contexts are different. We are called to live out the Way of Jesus where God has located us; to discern where God is already at work in our neighbourhoods; and to announce his presence, the presence of the Kingdom, and how this is best understood and lived when in relationship with Jesus Christ.

Our Message is the same (which is the basis for the unity and interdependence of our movement), but the Methods used to live the Message out will be different in almost every local context (which provides the rich beauty of our movement’s diversity).

“and inviting others to do the same.”

The deep story as Churches of Christ is that of a movement of the people of God with an invitational culture. This deep story incorporates endless stories of inviting people: into a relationship with God the Father, Son and Spirit, through Jesus; to be baptised by immersion as believers; to ‘break bread’ and to participate in the Lord’s Supper, which is always an ‘open table’; into a relationship with all other like-minded and like-spirited Jesus-followers around the corner and around the world; to receive the gifts and the fruit and the passion of the HS, releasing all people—women and men, young and older—into life- and world-changing ministry and mission.

I’m excited to part of this movement. What about you?

~ Paul Cameron, Executive Officer ~

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