Rethinking the gospel

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The Body of Christ is now re-thinking the Great Commission scriptures of Mark 16:15 and Matthew 28:19-20. Instead of viewing them as commands to merely evangelize individual souls, now many are viewing the command in Mark 16 to ‘go into all the world and preach’ as a command to apply the gospel to both individual sinners and world systems. Matthew 28:19-20 is now regarded as the New Testament equivalent to the Cultural Mandate found in Genesis 1:28.

II. Kingdom leaders attempt to nurture and release world-class leaders who serve their communities. Church leaders nurture only those who serve in Sunday ministry.

Kingdom leaders understand that only 2% to 3% of those in their congregations are called to full-time church ministry. These leaders believe they are called to equip the saints for the work of the ministry which, in the kingdom, includes marketplace vocational ministry, not only ecclesial ministry. With this view, there is room for everyone in the congregation to be set apart and trained as a minister of the gospel.

III. Kingdom leaders understand and work with God’s common grace. Church leaders only understand and work with those who have experienced saving grace.

Kingdom leaders understand that God’s grace has been poured out to all of humanity so the world can function normally. Romans 13:1-7 calls civic leaders God’s ministers (diakanos or deacons). If God calls unredeemed leaders His ministers then kingdom leaders know they can also partner with political and community leaders, even if they are not in full agreement when it comes to faith and core values.

Church leaders only work with those that are in full agreement with their core religious values, thus insulating themselves from the world around them.

IV. Kingdom leaders have a biblical worldview that encompasses all of life. Church leaders have a semi-Gnostic Greek view of Scripture that regards only spiritual things as important.

Kingdom leaders know that the earth is the Lord’s and not the devil’s (Psalm 24)! They know that the Word became flesh. Thus, the material world is also sacred and something to be cultivated (Genesis 2:15).

Church leaders are only concerned with spiritual things like prayer, healing, the gifts and fruit of the Spirit, etc. These spiritual things are only really effective if they are applied to our walk with God and its concomitant love of neighbor as salt and light.

V. Kingdom leaders are working towards a new Christendom. Church leaders are only trying to produce individual Christians.

Kingdom leaders desire to interweave the principles of God’s Word into every fabric of culture so every nation and city favors Christianity and bases civic laws on biblical precepts.

Church leaders are not overly concerned with politics and economics but with adding new converts who, without a biblical worldview, will only perpetuate humanistic ungodly systems with their partial “spiritual” gospel.

VI. Kingdom leaders teach the church to embrace their secular communities before they experience conversion. Church leaders embrace people into their faith communities only after they experience salvation.

Kingdom leaders regard their cities and communities as gifts to the church and to the people who live in them. They embrace their communities in humility and send their members into their communities as servant leaders who will be the greatest problem solvers of the most challenging human needs.

Church leaders only embrace individuals in their communities after they have professed faith in Christ. Thus, they insulate and isolate themselves and their churches from the felt needs of their communities, yet are joyful as long as their churches are growing and their bills are paid.

VII. Kingdom leaders turn the world upside down (Acts 17:1-7). Church leaders restructure their local churches.

In Acts 17 it was said, when the apostles came into a community, that ‘those who turned the world upside down have come here also.’

Nowadays the typical church mindset is only concerned with what happens within the four walls of the church building. There are many churches that, if they closed down, the local community boards, police stations, and political leaders would barely notice they were gone!

VIII. Kingdom leaders articulate Christ as Lord over every culture. Church leaders preach Christ as only the head of the church.

Kingdom leaders recognize Jesus’ place as King of every secular king. This has vast cultural and political implications, and pressures the church to engage the secular arena.

Those with a church mindset only preach Christ as the head of the church and neglect Jesus’ function as King over the unredeemed world!

IX. Kingdom leaders shepherd whole communities. Church leaders shepherd only their church congregations.

Kingdom leaders understand they are called to communities, not only to local churches. Hence, they see themselves as chaplains and spiritual leaders of regions.

Church leaders feel no responsibility to their communities because they feel committed only to those who attend their Sunday services.

X. Kingdom leaders attempt to exorcise demons out of ungodly social systems. Church leaders only cast devils out of individual people.

Kingdom leaders understand that Jesus came to redeem systemic sin, not just individual sin (read Colossians 1:20).

Church leaders only feel called to deal with individual evil. Thus, they interpret passages such as Luke 4:18 as dealing with the individual poor and oppressed, neglecting the systemic reference from which it came. (Read Isaiah 61:1-4 to see that Luke 4:18 concerns redeeming and restoring desolate cities, not just individuals in need.)

XI. Kingdom leaders pray for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. Church leaders pray for revival in their churches.

The Lord’s Prayer (Luke 11) teaches us to pray that God’s will would be done and His kingdom would come on earth. Thus, kingdom leaders have as their prayer focus the kingdom being manifest on the earth.

Leaders with a church mindset are content with only the signs of the kingdom (healing and deliverance of individuals as found in Matthew 12:28 and Hebrews 2:1-3) instead of striving for a manifestation of the kingdom in their cities that impacts the quality of life politically and economically (Isaiah 61:3-4).

XII. Kingdom leaders believe for the gospel to economically lift whole communities. Church leaders believe for greater tithes and offerings to support their building projects and programs.

XIII. Kingdom leaders gravitate toward the complexities and challenges of cities. Church leaders gravitate toward lives of isolation and inward focus.

Before the Civil War, when the American church preached the kingdom message, the church was able to draft the founding documents of this great nation, and start schools and Ivy League universities, all for the purpose of placing godly leaders in society as the future presidents, governors, mayors, scientists, artists, writers, etc. The church took the lead in cultural reform.

But after the horrible experiences of the Civil War the church lost hope in the kingdom being manifest on the earth and started to focus on the imminent return of Christ and the rapture. This resulted in American culture being lost to secularists in one generation!

This turning away from the kingdom message led to church leaders isolating themselves from the looming threats of biblical higher criticism, Marxism, Darwinism, the infiltration of non-WASP immigrants, Sigmund Freud and psychology, and the Industrial Revolution. These brought many pressures upon the nuclear family as men had to go into the cities to find work. Instead of engaging the culture and these challenges head-on, the American church started looking for escape and changed its theology! The present move of God is finally bringing the church back onto the biblical footing of the kingdom message.

XIV. Kingdom leaders equip people for life. Church leaders equip people for church life.

Kingdom leaders inspire and equip the saints to serve in their cities as salt and light, to be like Daniel and Joseph who prospered and held significant leadership roles in the midst of pagan systems and kings.

Church leaders train people to be good altar workers, ushers, Sunday school teachers, Sunday preachers, etc.

XV. Kingdom leaders honor Jesus’ dual role as Redeemer and Creator. Church leaders separate redemption from creation.

Kingdom leaders realize that the Jesus who died on the cross (John 3:16) for the sins of the world (John 1:29) is the same Jesus who created the world (John 1:3-4).

When we apply the Word of God to culture we are embracing Jesus’ ownership of the whole world. But when we preach the cross of Christ only for individual sinners and do not also apply it to the created order we separate the Redeemer from the Creator!

XVI. Kingdom leaders are forward thinkers. Church leaders long for the past.

Kingdom leaders are excited about the future advance of Christendom in every facet of life and for every nation. They are excited over the increasing influence of Christ in culture. They train believers to replenish the earth by placing godly leaders in the realms of science, art, media, education, economics and politics. The sky is the limit for them!

Those with a church mindset long for the past, when life was much simpler and everyone in a community embraced the role of Christianity in culture. They do not like the vast complexities that social fragmentation has presented because it distracts from, and interferes with, their nice and neat Sunday church attendance parish structures.

XVII. Kingdom leaders apply their faith to the earth. Church leaders are focused on escaping the earth and making it to heaven.

The Bible is essentially not a book about heaven. It is not concerned with another geographic location whether spiritual or physical. It is mainly concerned with the person of Christ and His rule and dominion in the cosmos (read Ephesians 1:9-11)! Because of this, the Bible is the most practical book about life on the earth that has ever been written! Kingdom leaders understand and embrace this reality.

Church leaders emphasize heaven since they have no real sense of purpose to give to the majority of their congregants who are not called into full-time church ministry.

XVIII. Kingdom leaders envision the building of universities with theology serving as the “queen of the sciences.” Church leaders envision the establishment of church-centered Bible institutes that avoid liberal arts and the humanities.

XIX. Kingdom leaders are entrepreneurs. Church leaders are stuck in maintenance mode, merely holding their ground until Jesus comes back or they make it to heaven!

XX. Kingdom leaders pray for revival to bring people into the church and reformation to place believers as leaders in world systems. Church leaders merely pray and believe for higher attendance on Sundays.

XXI. Kingdom leaders work for cultural transformation. Church leaders focus on waiting for the rapture.

Jesus told the church to occupy until He comes. Kingdom leaders are busy strategizing how they are going to start schools of government to train political candidates, start businesses to create wealth to expand the kingdom, and develop educational programs to break cycles of poverty for at-risk children.

Those with a church mindset do not get involved in quality of life issues because their theology doesn’t allow for it! They think it is like arranging the chairs on the Titanic because the world will soon end when the antichrist takes over!

XXII. Kingdom leaders train their children to walk in biblical dominion in society. Church leaders’ highest hope is that their children don’t fall away from the faith!

Kingdom leaders have dominion as the primary goal for their children. They don’t teach their children to get secure jobs in big companies; they teach them to become the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies! They don’t teach them how to fish but how to own a lake! They echo the words of Moses in Deuteronomy 28:10-13 that teaches believers are called to be the head and not the tail, to be above and not beneath, to lend to many nations and not to borrow!

Church leaders take a defensive posture with their children by merely praying that they would not fall away from the faith. Even many who teach apologetics and biblical worldview are stuck in the church mindset because they are only teaching their children how to defend the faith instead of also how to advance the kingdom!

XXIII. Kingdom leaders empower the poor to own the pond. Church leaders give the poor some fish.

Kingdom leaders understand how to break poverty mindsets over people by equipping them to create their own wealth. Church leaders have an entitlement approach in which they merely feed the poor instead of equipping them to start their own businesses or work in high-level positions that will enable them to be prosperous for the sake of the kingdom!

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“Transformation” is a current hot topic in the church and in missiological circles. In general Christian usage, the concept reflects a movement from darkness to light – from individual and societal brokenness caused by sin toward the healing of that brokenness. This healing expresses itself in the relative presence of God’s Shalom – relative to the degree that God’s will is done.

Unfortunately, I think this concept is often presented from an unbiblical perspective. Specifically, there is an emphasis in current literature and in conferences that by doing certain things, churches, missionaries, Christians, etc. can – by their actions – cause movement from brokenness to healing. The actions proposed are generally projects that address general or specific expressions of brokenness such as poverty, human trafficking, abortion, etc. While such efforts are good, the current dialogue tends to suggest that it is our actions that bring about the changes we would love to see.

My reading of Scripture presents a subtle but I think crucially important difference. In brief I see the difference this way:

1. The personal and societal brokenness which results from sin is so complex and deep that it is beyond human solution. In other words, the best human wisdom and skills cannot in and of themselves result in biblical healing/transformation.

2. Biblical healing is supernatural and requires God’s supernatural intervention.

This intervention is both promised and conditional. First, it is conditioned on God’s people (note: not all people) acting in obedience, i.e., living the way God asks/commands. Second, it is promised. To the degree that His people live in such a way as to reflect his will/His character the shalom of His Kingdom will come.

This is one thing we learn from the Lord’s Prayer, “…thy kingdom come,” How? “thy will be done.” When? Now! Where? “On earth as it is in heaven.” This reading of Scripture doesn’t discourage human action but recognizes that our healing comes not from our action, but from God in response to our obedience. Our works are vitally important as a condition of God’s action. But we need to be aware that “transformation” is a result of God’s response to our obedience rather than of our good works. If we see transformation as a by-product of our efforts, we are at risk of glorying in our works rather than celebrating God’s initiative and thereby glorifying Him.

Bob Moffit is co-founder of Disciple Nations Alliance – www.disciplenations.org

Recently I have been looking back at times in history when business and mission have been connected. Although the term ‘business as mission’ is a fairly new one, there have been numerous points in the history of the Church where business strategy and mission strategy have been somehow integrated. This integration had much to do with how people were thinking at the time, reflecting both the ideas they had inherited and the mindset that they were intentionally trying to pass on.

It has been said before that the current emphasis and growing activity in business as mission is part of a broader paradigm shift in the global church, a long, slow shift in thinking sometimes referred to as the ‘breaking down of the sacred-secular divide’. Today when we talk about the sacred-secular divide, we often mean the latent tendency by evangelical Christians to label some activities as spiritual, worshipful or ‘sacred’ and others as material, worldly or ‘secular’ and to, consciously or unconsciously, ascribe value to those activities accordingly.  In practical terms, as we break down this divide in our thinking, we begin to integrate the whole of our life with our faith and values, we see our work and our business as a gift from God and as an arena for service to Him.

Over the years, as I have talked with those involved in business as mission, a breakthrough in thinking has almost always been part of their journey. As I consult with those preparing to launch into missional business, people often relate that a great barrier for them is the lack of understanding among Christian friends or from their church as to how business could glorify God. In some cultures the ‘barrier to action’ is higher than others, whether it is overtly expressed or not. For many Christian communities business is irrevocably tainted, the working life is not valued and if you want to really serve God the best thing you can do is to give up business and do something more ‘spiritual’.

We are still very much in a season of breaking out of ‘old ways’ of thinking!

However, looking back a couple of hundred years, we have a different picture. Many Christians in the 1700-1800s had the firm idea that they could change society and serve God through the arena of their vocation. Some of the global brands we know and love today: Cadbury’s, Boots and Guiness were started by business people who were weaving into their business strategy a clear goal to transform their communities, to bring about change in their own society. These were men and women committed to doing good, but crucially it had to make good business sense too. Alongside them, influential Christians like William Wilberforce, Lord Shaftsbury and others were working for change in other spheres.

William Carey, who is often called the father of modern missions, had a very rounded approach to his mission to India during the 1790s and into the new century. His biographers Ruth and Vishal Mangalwadi 1 describe how Carey put a lot of effort into translating and printing scriptures because he understood that individuals first needed to repent and know Christ, that personal transformation was the pre-requisite to family and societal transformation. However, Carey did not stop there. The Mangalwadi’s describe how he got involved in education, scientific advancement, social reform, literacy projects, healthcare, media and also in business and industry. He was involved in bringing innovation and new technology into the weaving, printing and forestry industry, and he started the first savings banks. Carey’s influence in Indian society was broad and lasting.

These are some of the famous cases from past centuries. Many hundreds and thousands more must have been quietly serving God through their business or working lives, just as many hundreds and thousands of Christians are today, whether that is in their home town or in another country. The point is that our actions and our working models reflect our ideas about work, vocation and service to God, as was the case for Christians in the 1700s and 1800s.

Some of the roots for the ideas they inherited were put down in the Reformation in the 16th Century. Martin Luther was the first to use the word ‘vocatio’ or calling to apply to all types of work. He went against the prevailing idea that the Priesthood or becoming a Monk was the true spiritual vocation. He realized that biblical values needed to be worked out in the context of ordinary life and that daily work is an arena for service to God. John Calvin reinforced this theme with his ‘doctrine of callings’, as he taught spiritual principles among the traders and artisans of Geneva. Gradually what became known later as the ‘Protestant work ethic’ emerged amongst Christians in Europe in the 17th Century and then through the Puritans into the New World.

The Moravians, themselves religious refugees in Europe, launched one of the first church mission movements in the early 1700s.  They were artisans and traders who started enterprises necessary for the survival of their own displaced community in Hernhutt, East Germany. When they then embarked on overseas missions, they instinctively integrated enterprise. Their leader Count Zinzendorf reflected Protestant attitudes to work when he said “man works not only to live, but man lives that he may work”. 2  In Zinzendorf’s writings he expressed that the missionaries should earn their own living first for the benefit of the people to which they were sent, in order to teach the people the dignity of labour, and then for their own good, to support themselves. 3

And this in turn brings me to a related question. If the ideas we inherit are so important, if our actions are confined or expanded by the ideas we embrace, what ideas are we in turn passing on? 

The Moravians realized, in the tradition of the Apostle Paul and Martin Luther, that the context of business and of working life is a powerful arena for discipleship, precisely because that is where we spend our lives. We are able to live out Christian values and apply a biblical way of thinking in the daily grind of a business.

Paul the Apostle had numerous reasons for being in the business of leatherworking or making tents. In modern times we have loaded up the metaphor of ‘tentmaking’ with so much meaning of our own, we have lost some of the original intent (pun intended!). A key reason that Paul gave to the church in Thessalonica for being in trade was to provide a model for new believers; ‘….with toil and labour we worked night and day, so that we might not burden any of you. This was not because we do not have that right, but in order to give you an example to imitate.’ 2 Thess. 3:8b-9. Paul was addressing a work ethic problem in the Thessalonian church and he set out to deliberately counter the sacred-secular divide of the day, a Greek mindset that disdained work.  Paul not only challenges prevailing attitudes towards work through his writings, but he very intentionally provides a living model for the new believers to follow.

If our life in business is a powerful means of discipleship, then we must be intentional and careful about what we are modeling.  Do we have lingering areas of divided thinking? Do we unconsciously place more value on certain activities over others?

I have observed that people often get into business as mission type activities with a particular focus or motivation, perhaps it is to start a social enterprise based community development project or to evangelize amongst an unreached people group. There is nothing wrong with being motivated in a particular way. However, often this quite narrow starting focus becomes much broader when those involved begin to see the wider impact that their business is having, or could potentially have, in terms of social, spiritual, environmental, political and economic transformation.

The paradigm shift we are experiencing today in our attitudes to business, mission and service to God are necessary because Christians in the 20th Century became much more polarized in their outlook. To simplify history a great deal, getting people saved became the focus for evangelicals, so in contrast, ministry to meet other needs became distracting or secondary. ‘Mission’ took on a much more exclusive meaning.

The challenge for us, even as we engage in business as mission, is not to polarize but to keep thinking biblically about mission and about business. If our business as mission enterprises are just a means to an end or reduced to a particular strategy, then we will pass on that way of thinking to the new believers around us.  Is the daily act of hard work and honesty in our transactions as ‘sacred’ or glorifying to God as the opportunity to share our testimony with words? Does creating jobs line up as an important outcome for our business alongside sharing the gospel? The challenge is to keep transforming our own thinking so that we can embrace the fullness of what it means to be a missional business.

Footnotes

1 Ruth and Vishal Mangalwadi, The Legacy of William Carey Crossway Books 1999

2 Plitt, H. Zinzendorfs Theologie (Zinzendorf’s Theology), 3 Volumes, Gotha 1869-1874, p428

3 Weinlick, J.R. Count Zinzendorf, 1956, p100; cited in Danker, W.J. Profit for the Lord, 1971, p32

Additional Resources

Lifework – Darrow Miller, 2009 – subtitled a biblical theology for what you do everyday, essential for understanding the historical and contemporary worldviews that influence your thinking.

The Integrated Life – Ken Eldred, 2010 – invites us to change our minds and as a consequence to change our action in the world through business. 

Business as Mission – Michael Baer, 2006 – explores ‘the seamless integration of business and mission’ in this pioneering BAM focused book. 

The Missional Entrepreneur – Mark Russell, 2010 -  gives a comprehensive overview of how Paul’s tentmaking connected with his mission, along with a lot more on principles and practices for business as mission.

Profit for the Lord – William Danker, 1971, 2002 – tells the story of how the Moravians and the Basel Mission Trading Company integrated business and mission.

Business Power for God’s Purpose – Suter and Gmür, 1997 – gives an overview of historical examples of missional business and lessons to be learned.

The Legacy of William Carey – Ruth and Vishal Mangelwadi, 1999 – along with other books written by them about Carey, this book is subtitled ‘a model for the transformation of a culture’.

Evangelical Faith and Public Zeal – John Wolffe (Ed), 1995 – collection of essays on how evangelical affected society in Britain, 1780-1980

Jo Plummer edits the Business as Mission e.zine. Visit their website www.businessasmission.com

In just over 100 days, nearly one million citizens (and church members) were killed – by other citizens and church members – in a brutal genocide in the spring of 1994. The country? Rwanda.  It had seen tremendous success in evangelism and church planting but little penetration of the gospel in ethnic relationships – it had people in church but not church in people.

How we define our mission has both short and long term implications. Church planting and growth is not wrong but clearly insufficient as a success criterion.

As we look at sub-Saharan Africa today it has some of the most Christian countries in the world (percentage of Christians), some of the poorest countries in the world and some of the most corrupt countries in the world. What is wrong with this picture? Is this success? Is this in line with our mission as Christians? Is this what God wants?

Our mission and success criteria must include transformation. We want people and societies to be transformed – holistically.

The global Business as Mission (BAM) movement is aiming at transformed lives around the world through ethical business with integrity. Sounds grand. But what does it mean?

Transformation: It is about a good and lasting change. And that takes time; we need to have an inter-generational perspective. BAM is an intentional praxis of faith at work in all relationships in and through business. BAM is about practicing business based on ethical principles. It is about following Jesus in the market place to see people and societies transformed.

We also need to give a priority to small & medium size businesses (SME’s).  They are strong transformational agents – not only economically. They are in many ways the backbone of developed economies. SME’s are often missing to a large extent in the poor countries and regions.

Lives: We are all people with physical, social, spiritual, emotional, economical and other needs, operating in a political and cultural context. So transformation must be holistic – for people and societies. This is also what the word ‘integrity’ means – something whole and complete. Our mission is and must be more than evangelism and church planting – we don’t want to create another Rwanda!

Around the World: The BAM movement can never be true to God and our mission if we limit ourselves to a local outlook. We must be a part of God’s centrifugal force, moving out and beyond our immediate comfort zones. To all peoples and nations.

Mats Tunehag is Senior Associate on Business as Mission for both the Lausanne Movement and for the World Evangelical Alliance Mission Commission. This is his website – http://www.matstunehag.com