Comments on: Top Ten Posts 2009: Merry Christmas and a Look Back at This Blog

By: Links for December 29th | jonathan stegall: creative tension

Links for December 29th | jonathan stegall: creative tension — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 23:02:52 +0000

[...] Reclaiming the Mission » Top Ten Posts 2009: Merry Christmas and a Look Back at This Blog [...]

By: David Fitch

David Fitch — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 00:05:31 +0000

Steve, Will …
ecclesiology is often generalized into things like church polity, order of worship etc… but ecclesiology should mean what does it mean to be the people of God and what are the things that mark us as “the body of Christ” … each one of these creedal issues however require contextualization. To me … allowing context … to determine ecclesiology is similar to doing something like “context determines Christology – the divinity of Christ. Doctrine is worked out locally within the integrity of what God has already begun in Christ. Those who say missiology precedes ecclesiology probably don’t intend context to drive doctrine … yet that’s the danger for me by phrasing it this way. Some of course are trying to say “The Sent nature of the Church” drives its localized form. To me this falls within the doctrine of the church – eccelsiology. One is not possible without the other. Yet to allow contextualziatiomn to drive what it means to be the church sacrfices formation necesary to be the church. mega church – Joel Osteen – the assimilation of Christianity into an upper class lifestyle cannot be far behind.
For sure high church – or European forms of church have been shaped by feudalist Euro-Christendom. Evangelicalism and congregationalism has been shaped by democracy. Yet there are core issues that are constant … can we be the churh without the Eucahrist? – without the service to the poor? To me these are eccleisological questions that shape mission …
This is why I shy away from missiology precedes ecclesiology and instead prefer missiology is eccelsiology …
Blessings …

By: Will Clegg

Will Clegg — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 18:15:09 +0000

David, why does #2 have to be an either/or?

By: Steve Hayes

Steve Hayes — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 06:14:26 +0000

Missiology and ecclesiology: surely one of the tasks of missiology is to determine how far ecclesiology influences the practice of mission. Do groups with different ecclesiologies do mission in different ways? Or is the way they do mission entirely divorced from their ecclesiology?

By: Matt Johnson

Matt Johnson — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 06:48:50 +0000

I love this bit: “I contend Jesus comes via his incarnation in the church through the sacraments (Catholic), the preaching of the Word (Reformed) and the community of the gifts (Anabaptist) all of which require the social space of the church out into the world.” A reconciling word to a church body that often looks down it’s nose at it’s own members.

By: Jim Robertson

Jim Robertson — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 01:32:10 +0000

My thanks and appreciation for you and what you do David. Of the blogs that I read, yours is the I attend to most faithfully. Blessings upon you and your family this Christmas. I look forward to meeting you in the New Year.

By: Andy Rowell

Andy Rowell — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 19:47:59 +0000

I went back and read almost all of these. Good stuff. Thanks, David.