Coadunatio Dei – Michael Peck

The missional church conversation has been a difficult one to grasp on a congregational level because of our proclivity for functional programs and measurable data. The selling point for any evangelism or stewardship program is that it will increase numbers in the pews and dollars in the offering plate. Ministry conferences held at large churches leverage our desire by offering tricks, tips, and ideas with the unstated, yet very much implied promise that you can be successful too! The missional church conversation doesn’t work that way.

I intentionally frame my use of missional church with the word “conversation” because a missional ecclesiology understands that the nature of the church is inherently apostolic and contextual.  The “how” of missional will take on a variety of manifestations as the church participates in God’s ongoing work of redemption; what has been called the missio Dei.

Another difficulty with the missional church conversation is that our primary missional paradigm has long been one which involves doing God’s work “over there” on behalf of others. Missionaries are those people sanctioned by the church to travel overseas with the message of the Gospel. Fortunately, the missional church conversation has helped congregations begin to see their own contexts as the new mission field, and yet, because of our tendency to think functionally, we limited the scope of our missional activity to much of what we used to call “service projects.” Granted, our work of service can be labeled missional. Any act of service can be seen as participation in the missio Dei. In fact, our liturgy concludes with the commission (pay attention to the etymology of that word) “Go in peace. Serve the Lord.” I often describe our missional calling to be that of making the love of God a reality in the lives of others through tangible means. But how do we make the missional turn?

One of my struggles in leading a congregation to embrace a missional ethos has been getting them to move beyond a community service mindset. Here at Holy Cross we’ve got many people doing great work throughout our community. Every week, there are those in our congregation who are feeding the hungry, building wheelchair ramps for low-income households, delivering back snacks to schools, serving on community boards and foundations, providing clothing for the homeless, and on and on.  The missional turn happens when people see these activities as more than the product of a benevolent heart or Christian duty, but rather as partnership with God who, in the power of the Holy Spirit, is already at work.  This is the reason that we no longer use the language of membership in our congregation.  Instead, everyone who formally joins our community is called a mission partner.

One of the go-to texts for the missional church conversation is Luke 10:1-11, the mission of the seventy. We begin every Mission Partner Orientation in our congregation by spending time reflecting on this text utilizing the practice of Dwelling in the Word as a means of generating conversation around our vision for mission at Holy Cross. Lately, my attention has been drawn to what happens when the apostles return (vv.17ff). Jesus debriefs, reflects, and instructs his missional community. He engages in missional praxis.

What I am now seeing with greater clarity is that in order to make the missional turn in our life together, there must be greater emphasis on missional praxis rather than practice. The church that proclaims “Go in peace. Serve the Lord” must also be a church that asks: “How did it go? What did you see? What is God doing?”  A missional community not only sends, but also gathers. It is reflects the social and relational nature of the Triune God. Just as there is a missio Dei (sending of God), I propose we give equal consideration to the reality and importance of a coadunatio  Dei (gathering of God). A missional community engages in both action and reflection, practice and discernment. Gathered together, three primary questions are explored in conversation with scripture and one another: “What is God up to?” “What does God want to do?” “How are we being called to participate?” These missional questions are rooted in the contextual reality to which the congregation has been called and where God is already at work.

How the missional congregation participates in the coadunatio Dei is the territory that I find myself exploring these days. How do worship, ministries of faith formation, and intentional community serve as means of missional praxis? In addition to these traditional technologies, we have new and ever expanding technologies through which our conversation and discernment can and should take place. How do these means shape pastoral leadership? Clint Schnekloth has fed my missional imagination in this area with his book: Mediating Faith: Faith Formation in a Trans-Media Era. Thanks to new and changing media, our gathering no longer needs to be limited to a specific time and place, i.e. Wednesday night Bible study at 7:00pm, but can extend beyond these boundaries.

When the local congregation embraces God’s mission, it undergoes a Copernican revolution in how it understands itself. Rather than seeing its purpose as attracting new members through appealing programs and ministries, the local congregation aligns itself with God’s purposes in the local context. But leaders must be careful that they don’t swing the pendulum too far to the neglect of spiritual formation within the community. A missional congregation trains and equips people with the biblical and theological tools that allow them to discern God’s activity in the world and to act in ways that reflect the priorities of the kingdom of God. When this happens, congregational evangelism shifts from marketing schemes designed to attract people to worship to an incarnational embodiment of the gospel in the lives of God’s people as they invite others into the reign of God. Leadership in the missional church fosters community life that sends and gathers. While we are a sent church, we are sent together to bear witness to the reign of God.

Michael Peck is an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. He is currently Senior Pastor at Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Overland Park, KS.  An avid runner, Mike blogs about the intersection of faith, fitness and missional leadership at www.missionalpulse.blogspot.com