First, I'm skeptical of the talk of "church" here as an intentional community of believers– and the likelihood that this is really a kind of organizational shorthand for "congregation." If we talk seriously about what congregations are honestly seeking to be the body of Christ, even haphazardly, unless they are anabaptist, we're not talking about a very high percentage of actual congregations at all. Prior to Theodosius more congregations could have met those kinds of descriptions– faithful bearers of the the way of Christ in their contexts– but after Christianity becomes the public religion, the nature of the congregation itself radically shifted from being that "communitas fidelium" with deep face to face relationships and accountability into being the public format of Christian community in which such discipling relationships no longer defined the core of the congregation's life or work. Most people in post-Theodosian congregations have little interest in such things. They are there for many other reasons than this, and this isn't high on their priority list. And that is still true today.

Second, given that, I do find Hirsch's shorthand a helpful reminder a) that congregations as we have them aren't the be-all and end-all of what the church is or is called to be and b) that if we as a genuine community of the Triune God baptized into Christ truly intend to be bearers of him (Christology) and proclaimers of and participant in his mission (missiology) whatever we do with ecclesiology– especially since we see how disconnected the congregation as we have it is from either Christology or missiology in the sense that Jesus seems to have put it forth– has to be driven by Christology and missiology first.

This doesn't mean that ecclesiology lacks an independent and important claim in the conversation. It simply means that the bearers of ecclesia in its fullness are very hard to come by these days, and perhaps impossible to come by if we keep equating "church" with "congregation"– as least congregations as we actually have them, which are still designed and expected (by denominations and even the wider culture) to function as if we were in a Theodosian world.

Very helpful conversation starter. I have wrestled over how to describe the flow in linear terms. It seems Ed Stetzer uses some overlapping circles along with a linear progression – something of “crescendo-ing” ellipses.

Even more helpful for me is your exchange with Len over the place of the Trinity. I have long thought it not bad to borrow from the Eastern Orthodox the implications of the social Trinity. It seems a move Grenz was making in his later writings. Your assertion this may come from the economic Trinity rather than deriving a social ontology from the immanent Trinity gives me more to think about.

As always, thanks for the time you take to write.

I haven’t read Hirsch’s original, so I can’t comment on that. But my argument has long been that when we say the church is “apostolic” we’re doing more than claiming a historic link with the apostles. We’re saying that a mark of the church as church is that it is a sent community (“as the Father has sent me, so I send you.”) Missio is a perfectly fine translation of apostello.

All three, christology, missiology, and ecclesiology are inseparable, so the challenge is trying to figure out how they relate, which I thought you have added a very valuable way of thinking about these issues.

Is there also a question of ontology? I thought ontology was the basis of Frost/Hirsch assessments of christ->mission-> church (which seems very much related to Moltmann’s views in Church in the Power of the Spirit. The church exists because God’s mission exists which is exemplified by Christ’s action in the world past, present, and future.
Yet, I do think you bring valid epistemological concerns.