Video for January 16th, 2025
Hello everyone and welcome to this week’s video. Back on terra firma this week.
At 3am on New Year’s Day, 1739, the Holy Spirit came to an all-night prayer meeting in Fetter Lane, London. “The power of God came mightily upon us,” recorded John Wesley in his journal, “insomuch that many cried out for exceeding joy, and many fell to the ground.” John Wesley was propelled out of that prayer room in London to ride 125,000 miles preaching the gospel, while his brother Charles Wesley began writing 6,000 hymns. Their 25-year-old friend, George Whitefield, crossed the Atlantic to stir the fires of America’s First Great Awakening. The world would never be the same again.
Such evangelistic enthusiasm is what many of us associate with the word mission. The mission of Christ is at the heart of our year of engagement. To paraphrase the South African missional scholar David Bosch from 2015, “Its not so much that God has a mission for his church in the world, but that God has a church for his mission in the world”. The Swiss Theologian, Emil Brunner, said, “The Church exists by mission, just as a fire exists by burning”. We may recoil from the cultural model of mission that is the child of that great Wesleyan revival, but that doesn’t let us off the hook. Brunner’s analysis of the purpose of the church is as true for the Diocese of Hereford as for any other church at any time or place.
I wonder whether we struggle with this idea more in the Church of England because of our foundational liturgical documents. You will find virtually nothing about mission or evangelism in the services of the Book of Common Prayer or the 39 articles. If mentioned it is in slightly veiled allusions to the ‘godless heathen’. The fundamental assumption from the depths of 17th century Christendom was that everyone was basically a Christian and the churches role was to act as pastor to nurture that faith and enforce moral conformity. That was a patently false premise in the 1600’s as it is even more so today when less than 2% of the population of our diocese will be in an Anglican church on an average Sunday.
Mission is fundamental to our calling as Christians. The problem may be the model or our wariness of the stereotype. The Anglican Consultative Council in 1984 identified five marks of mission which are going to provide the framework for our Year of Engagement in 2025. I’m going to be looking at each one in turn over the next few weeks. The first is to proclaim the good news of the Kingdom; second, to teach, baptise and nurture new believers; third, to respond to human need by loving service; fourth to transform unjust structures of society, to challenge violence of every kind and pursue peace and reconciliation; and fifth, to strive to safeguard the integrity of creation, and sustain and renew the life of the earth. In other words: tell, teach, tend, transform and treasure.
It is important that the proclamation of the Kingdom comes first and is foundational to all the others. This was one of the first things Jesus said publicly in Mark, chapter one. “The time has come; the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news”. Repentance was to live in the new reality demonstrated in Jesus’ life death and resurrection. This is envisaged as a radical re-orientation of life around King Jesus as our saviour and Lord. It is brought out very powerfully in the promises and affirmations candidates make in our confirmation services. They turn to Christ, repent of their sins and submit to Christ as Lord. To enter the Kingdom is to turn our lives over to Jesus Christ the king of kings. The following four marks of mission are symptoms or manifestations as citizenship of the Kingdom takes root in individual lives. It is perfectly possibly to care for the poor, seek to overturn unjust societal structures and care for the earth with no Christian faith at all. Many people do. It is more difficult to construct a rationale or generate and energy for that sufficient to overcome lethargy and basic human selfishness. The announcement of the kingdom of God places all these things as outworkings of God’s creation and redemption of humanity. We are called to participate by the Spirit in the transformation of the world. What could be a greater privilege and motivation than that.
+Richard