Church
centered Mission to World centered Mission
Church Centered Mission
Before the wellingen
Conference, traditionally mission was understood as church centric mission.
Some of the features of Church Centric mission are
1) An
emphasis on Church as the only agent and locus of mission. In this view, the
Catholic Church’s maxim ‘outside the Church there is no salvation’ was also at
the heart of protestant missionary movement.
2) In
this approach Mission means evangelization.
3) In
this view Church is equated with Kingdom of God.
4) Saving
the soul and planting of Churches were the aim of mission.
5) As
an essential institutional activity of the church, mission (evangelization) was
considered as church’s activity carried out in overseas and in foreign
cultures. In this way traditional mission was considered to be a “whiteman’s
burden to reach the unreached/uncivilized/undeveloped/unevagelised of the
‘other’ part of the world.”
6) In
other words mission was understood as missionary work of the church rather than
the radiant presence of God’s character of justice, peace and love in the local
context.
World Centered mission
Before Willingen, the
ecumenical movement on laid greater importance to the unity and inseparability
of Church and mission.” After Willingen, there was a shift from “church-
centered missions to World centred Mission.” In other words, there was a
radical assertion of the ‘God-World-Church’ pattern in mission understanding.
This means God has a mission in this world in which church is privileged to
participate. Therefore, the church was seen as an instrument in the hand of
God, participating in God’s mission in the World. God so loved the world. Since
Reign of God is the goal of God’s action in the world, the issues related to
justice and peace in every context sets the agenda for participation in God’s
mission. As Upsala Assemble of WCC pointed out World provides the agenda for
Mission.
Some of the features of
World centered Mission
1) Mission
is not just evangelization. It is more than that
2) Mission
is not just planting the church and soul winning rather involvement in the
liberative mission of God in this world. God is actively involving in the
issues of the World.
3) Church
is reign of God but the sphere of reign of God is not limited within Church. It
is active and ongoing even outside the Church.
4) Church
is not the author of mission only the participant in God’s mission.
Characteristic features:
(a) Church does mission and mission is for the
sake of planting and building the church – carryover of Rufus Anderson’s theory
of a three-self movement of self-governing, self-propagating, self-sustaining
churches
(b) A focusing biblical text: Matt 28:
19-20 “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in
the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them
to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you
always, to the end of the age.”
(c) Ecumenical meetings with this as a primary
emphasis -- Edinburgh World Missionary Conference, 1910; Tambaram meeting of
IMC, 1938
(d) Emphasis on making disciples, baptizing,
teaching – debates about which should come first and HOW mission should best be
accomplished
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