I was just thinking the other day that missional theology and the mission church movement seems to have had its day, and is inadequate for the mission challenges of this era. We need fresh language and imagination in this space.
Ted love your innovation to help move the church from being comfortable.
Our Lord has called us as Luke 9:23 says. I loved this comment…
We still struggle with the dilemma posed by a gospel of demonstration versus a gospel of proclamation - Missio Dei did not help with this. The paltry amount of giving that is focused on the least reached points to a broken paradigm of mission, and Missio Dei has played a role in this, I believe.
The missiological concepts that have the greatest effect are those they are rooted in scripture. The reason that people groups took off 50 years ago was it was rooted in a biblical word and concept. The good value to Missio Dei was how it drew attention to the a concept in scripture for what God is doing in the universe. Unfortunately, it didn't stay rooted in scripture very long and became short hand justification to do any good deed because it was a part of what God was doing in the world. The idea that we join God in doing what he was doing is compelling. But it was effectively robbed of any meaning when the result was just doing whatever we wanted anyway. I find the concept still helpful in emphasizing that our mission is not to be participating in the Missio Dei. That's God's mission, not ours. God has given us something much more limited in scope, a specific task. The church's mission is a subset of God's mission.
Hi Ted, thanks for this provocative piece! I appreciate the way you challenge us to question whether we are just recycling old paradigms. It’s a necessary wake-up call.
That said, I wonder if the 'stagnation' feels real only because we are looking for innovation in the wrong place? I suspect the 'new missiology' is already here; could it be that it’s just being lived out in the Global South before it’s being articulated in Western academia?
We see this vibrant innovation happening in the tension between social action and evangelism, and in the shift from colonial-style sending to authentic mutual missiology. These aren't just buzzwords; they are lived realities for practitioners who are solving complex problems on the ground right now. Perhaps the issue isn't that missiology is aging, but that its cutting edge has moved out of the classroom and into a global context that our textbooks haven't caught up with yet. Thanks for sparking this!
At the least we can agree that the "missional" conversation is quite stale. Nearly everyone identifies as missional these days, but little has changed.
"Motus Dei" is a newish meta-concept attempting to complement missio Dei. See From "‘Missio Dei’ to ‘Motus Dei’: The Recovery of Movement"
Wes. I think you are on to something here. I do think in a more abstract way than it is being applied, motus is a powerful reset for missio., But... let me say that the movement folks have morphed a bit into the very thing they were fighting against 20 years ago: models over all else. The straight-jacket methodology of movement people has become so formulaic that I despair a bit over the direction of CPM/DMM. It is always the same method, despite incredibly diverse local contexts. The challenge of the West, for example, has proved intractable for movement methodology. Thus, we need to make sure we are not simply attempting to use a method everywhere. But on a more theological and abstract level, you might be right here: motus is a powerful and possible successor to missio.
Thanks Ted. I agree that the discourse tends to lean formulaic. But in practice, and phenomenologically, movements are incredibly diverse. DMM reads more like a philosophy of ministry to me (who is doing the "pure" DMM?), rather than a manual. I like to say that every movement is a missiological innovation in a context, and as you have written about, we don't think/write well through the lens of innovation. Your concern though that the movements community is falling into the same trap as the "church growth movement" is well noted.
Yes, but... what the theological concept of Missio Dei means has adjusted quite a bit since Willigen. The pendulum swing toward "God's Mission" that caused decreased mission participation/activity in ecumenical and mainline churches directly lead to the creation of Lausanne which renewed emphasis on mission participation/activity even within the framework of this being God's mission. I've seen academic ecumenical missiologists over the last 15 years re-emphasize the role of the church in God's mission, with some excellent works in the last 3 years from Farrell and Khyllep, “Freeing Congregational Mission: A Practical Vision for Companionship, Cultural Humility, and Co-Development” and Catholic missiologist Bevans, “Community of Missionary Disciples: The Continuing Creation of the Church.”
This re-adjusted Missio Dei understanding is still a very helpful anchor for those of us actively engaged in mission. It reminds us that 1) God is already present and active everywhere in the world, 2) Our role is to join in what God is already doing, 3) It is God who does the saving, not us. And for those of us who care deeply about language and culture (because we care deeply about the incarnation of Jesus and translatability of the Good News), the Missio Dei framework continues to remind us that because God is already there, language learning, culture study, and examination of local religious practices are all very powerful practical tools in our missionary tool bag. Without a Missio Dei framework, it seems all too easy to disregard different ways of thinking, to devalue culture and language, and quite frankly, to fall back into our inherited missiological racists tendencies of thinking the missiological endeavor is about helping people become like us.
I love that evangelicals like yourself are even talking about the Missio Dei concept these days. A problem I note in the West is the increasing divide/disconnect between the networks of people thinking missiologically about mission (like IAMS and ASM), the networks of people thinking evangelically about mission (like Lausanne), and the networks of people focused on organizational leadership (like MissioNexus). The missiology folks aren’t getting a popular hearing (and their message is often too complicated for popular consumption), the evangelicals get pulled into fervor to save the nations and caught up in creating systems for how we are going to finish the task that are simplistic (yet popularly well-received), and the organizational leadership folks take what practically works but seem to eschew deeper reflection over pragmatics and marketability in the organizational leadership sector (because we are tasked with organizational sustainability and we need help!).
In short, I fully believe the Missio Dei framework for mission continues to be extremely valid and important (even biblical), if we are talking about the way that most of us actually engaged in mission have re-adjusted the Missio Dei concept since Willigen. I’m thankful for your theological/missiological posts that keep these questions in front of us. I’m hoping your keep inviting some missiologists in for deeper conversations with the MissioNexus constituents. I loved the discussions with Peter Lee in 2024!
Kip, great thoughts all. I think the temptation here is to think that "the next missiology" (could I be teasing the name of a book I am working on...?) is going to be opposed to Missio Dei. It will not be, it will be orthogonal. That is, it is not opposing but different. Missio Dei is not so much wrong as it is increasingly irrelevant. It needs to be adapted to a world in which indigenizing forces (which show up in many forms) are more important than homogenizing forces (from which, I would suggest, our concept of global Christianity has arisen). I don't know where it will go, but if we like Latin terms for our missiology, it might be that Imago Dei, in which we recognize God's image in our neighbor, is a stronger concept for the future. Another way of saying this is a missiology of mutuality. What I find often happens in these conversations is that somebody will say, "Well, Missio Dei addresses that... or can be stretched into that." I don't think so, unless one abstracts it to the point of losing its meaning. Which is what is going on right now.
On its last legs? What is rising? Missio Ecclesia once again? But Missio Dei and Missio Ecclesia are not two options, as if we were going to paint a house and choose between two colors. Missio Ecclesia is man-made, a sleight of hand, an "interchurch aid" missiology. The Bible must guide us, and more so if there is an unbiblical challenge as I think Missio Ecclesia is. I just downloaded an article called "The Mission of the Church." Very unhappy to see the title; it is an endless discussion, the wrong starting place. The Book of Acts is about the Acts of the Holy Spirit, not the Acts of the Church. All is won or all is lost in validating the Missio Dei.
I was just thinking the other day that missional theology and the mission church movement seems to have had its day, and is inadequate for the mission challenges of this era. We need fresh language and imagination in this space.
Ted love your innovation to help move the church from being comfortable.
Our Lord has called us as Luke 9:23 says. I loved this comment…
We still struggle with the dilemma posed by a gospel of demonstration versus a gospel of proclamation - Missio Dei did not help with this. The paltry amount of giving that is focused on the least reached points to a broken paradigm of mission, and Missio Dei has played a role in this, I believe.
The missiological concepts that have the greatest effect are those they are rooted in scripture. The reason that people groups took off 50 years ago was it was rooted in a biblical word and concept. The good value to Missio Dei was how it drew attention to the a concept in scripture for what God is doing in the universe. Unfortunately, it didn't stay rooted in scripture very long and became short hand justification to do any good deed because it was a part of what God was doing in the world. The idea that we join God in doing what he was doing is compelling. But it was effectively robbed of any meaning when the result was just doing whatever we wanted anyway. I find the concept still helpful in emphasizing that our mission is not to be participating in the Missio Dei. That's God's mission, not ours. God has given us something much more limited in scope, a specific task. The church's mission is a subset of God's mission.
Hi Ted, thanks for this provocative piece! I appreciate the way you challenge us to question whether we are just recycling old paradigms. It’s a necessary wake-up call.
That said, I wonder if the 'stagnation' feels real only because we are looking for innovation in the wrong place? I suspect the 'new missiology' is already here; could it be that it’s just being lived out in the Global South before it’s being articulated in Western academia?
We see this vibrant innovation happening in the tension between social action and evangelism, and in the shift from colonial-style sending to authentic mutual missiology. These aren't just buzzwords; they are lived realities for practitioners who are solving complex problems on the ground right now. Perhaps the issue isn't that missiology is aging, but that its cutting edge has moved out of the classroom and into a global context that our textbooks haven't caught up with yet. Thanks for sparking this!
I 100% agree that the replacement (or better, modification) for Missio Dei won't be coming from Western academic missiology. It will be practitioners.
At the least we can agree that the "missional" conversation is quite stale. Nearly everyone identifies as missional these days, but little has changed.
"Motus Dei" is a newish meta-concept attempting to complement missio Dei. See From "‘Missio Dei’ to ‘Motus Dei’: The Recovery of Movement"
https://evangelicalfocus.com/middle-eastern-perspectives/27422/from-missio-dei-to-motus-dei-the-recovery-of-movement
Wes. I think you are on to something here. I do think in a more abstract way than it is being applied, motus is a powerful reset for missio., But... let me say that the movement folks have morphed a bit into the very thing they were fighting against 20 years ago: models over all else. The straight-jacket methodology of movement people has become so formulaic that I despair a bit over the direction of CPM/DMM. It is always the same method, despite incredibly diverse local contexts. The challenge of the West, for example, has proved intractable for movement methodology. Thus, we need to make sure we are not simply attempting to use a method everywhere. But on a more theological and abstract level, you might be right here: motus is a powerful and possible successor to missio.
Thanks Ted. I agree that the discourse tends to lean formulaic. But in practice, and phenomenologically, movements are incredibly diverse. DMM reads more like a philosophy of ministry to me (who is doing the "pure" DMM?), rather than a manual. I like to say that every movement is a missiological innovation in a context, and as you have written about, we don't think/write well through the lens of innovation. Your concern though that the movements community is falling into the same trap as the "church growth movement" is well noted.
Keep this conversation going. @Ted, Wes is a deep thinker on this topic.
Yes, but... what the theological concept of Missio Dei means has adjusted quite a bit since Willigen. The pendulum swing toward "God's Mission" that caused decreased mission participation/activity in ecumenical and mainline churches directly lead to the creation of Lausanne which renewed emphasis on mission participation/activity even within the framework of this being God's mission. I've seen academic ecumenical missiologists over the last 15 years re-emphasize the role of the church in God's mission, with some excellent works in the last 3 years from Farrell and Khyllep, “Freeing Congregational Mission: A Practical Vision for Companionship, Cultural Humility, and Co-Development” and Catholic missiologist Bevans, “Community of Missionary Disciples: The Continuing Creation of the Church.”
This re-adjusted Missio Dei understanding is still a very helpful anchor for those of us actively engaged in mission. It reminds us that 1) God is already present and active everywhere in the world, 2) Our role is to join in what God is already doing, 3) It is God who does the saving, not us. And for those of us who care deeply about language and culture (because we care deeply about the incarnation of Jesus and translatability of the Good News), the Missio Dei framework continues to remind us that because God is already there, language learning, culture study, and examination of local religious practices are all very powerful practical tools in our missionary tool bag. Without a Missio Dei framework, it seems all too easy to disregard different ways of thinking, to devalue culture and language, and quite frankly, to fall back into our inherited missiological racists tendencies of thinking the missiological endeavor is about helping people become like us.
I love that evangelicals like yourself are even talking about the Missio Dei concept these days. A problem I note in the West is the increasing divide/disconnect between the networks of people thinking missiologically about mission (like IAMS and ASM), the networks of people thinking evangelically about mission (like Lausanne), and the networks of people focused on organizational leadership (like MissioNexus). The missiology folks aren’t getting a popular hearing (and their message is often too complicated for popular consumption), the evangelicals get pulled into fervor to save the nations and caught up in creating systems for how we are going to finish the task that are simplistic (yet popularly well-received), and the organizational leadership folks take what practically works but seem to eschew deeper reflection over pragmatics and marketability in the organizational leadership sector (because we are tasked with organizational sustainability and we need help!).
In short, I fully believe the Missio Dei framework for mission continues to be extremely valid and important (even biblical), if we are talking about the way that most of us actually engaged in mission have re-adjusted the Missio Dei concept since Willigen. I’m thankful for your theological/missiological posts that keep these questions in front of us. I’m hoping your keep inviting some missiologists in for deeper conversations with the MissioNexus constituents. I loved the discussions with Peter Lee in 2024!
Thank you, Ted!
Kip, great thoughts all. I think the temptation here is to think that "the next missiology" (could I be teasing the name of a book I am working on...?) is going to be opposed to Missio Dei. It will not be, it will be orthogonal. That is, it is not opposing but different. Missio Dei is not so much wrong as it is increasingly irrelevant. It needs to be adapted to a world in which indigenizing forces (which show up in many forms) are more important than homogenizing forces (from which, I would suggest, our concept of global Christianity has arisen). I don't know where it will go, but if we like Latin terms for our missiology, it might be that Imago Dei, in which we recognize God's image in our neighbor, is a stronger concept for the future. Another way of saying this is a missiology of mutuality. What I find often happens in these conversations is that somebody will say, "Well, Missio Dei addresses that... or can be stretched into that." I don't think so, unless one abstracts it to the point of losing its meaning. Which is what is going on right now.
On its last legs? What is rising? Missio Ecclesia once again? But Missio Dei and Missio Ecclesia are not two options, as if we were going to paint a house and choose between two colors. Missio Ecclesia is man-made, a sleight of hand, an "interchurch aid" missiology. The Bible must guide us, and more so if there is an unbiblical challenge as I think Missio Ecclesia is. I just downloaded an article called "The Mission of the Church." Very unhappy to see the title; it is an endless discussion, the wrong starting place. The Book of Acts is about the Acts of the Holy Spirit, not the Acts of the Church. All is won or all is lost in validating the Missio Dei.