I have been interested in discussions as to whether missional churches are sufficiently discipleship oriented. Can't we have both? Can't a community of Jesus Followers be both discipleship and missionally oriented? Must we choose between a salvation culture or a Gospel culture? Again, can't we have both? Or, better yet, why can't we have all four? In the first century, the 74 AD setting of the Messiah Scrolls, there existed a Christ Culture (including the Gospels as they were being written, including a picture of salvation) that was both discipleship and missionally oriented - whose members were (at least) civil to one another. (For more detail, see Christ Culture and #ChristCulture on Twitter.)
This Messiah Scrolls novel shows one vision of the first century Christ Culture and how first century Jesus Followers did all four; building a picture, as the Gospel was being written, of how God intended us to live, then and now:
(1) achieving Jesus Christ's command to build born again discipling, faith communities, and
(2) honoring the Holy Spirit's missional zeal to use
(3) the Word of God as our daily guide, and
(4) including eternal life with God in Heaven.
Michael Frost is helpful here:
"Life is rarely so neat as to present us with such sharp distinctions (much less a civil ethos?) between whether to evangelize (building discipleship) or socially engage (building missional)...our mandate is to do whatever is required in the (providential) circumstances to both demonstrate (missional) and announce (evangelical) that Kingship. We feed the hungry because in the world to come there will be no such thing as starvation. We share Christ because in the world to come there will be no such thing as unbelief." (The Road to Missional, page 28)
Let us work towards a new Christ Culture of all His discipled, missional healers as they join across denominational, non-denominational and mega-church jurisdictions to form a sustainable, Jesus Follower community. Staying parochial in our secure congregations won't do it. Let's consider how the first century Christians might have connected to each other...
In this novel, first century Christian disciples used the Hebrew words Barach Chaba, meaning "to go forward, secretly", as a means of establishing and verifying contact with other disciples. The proper Jesus Follower response was Shalach, a Hebrew word referring to "being sent out", that is, Jesus Followers (in the novel, disciples aka Jesus Followers) going forward with a secret mission of forming “sustainable missional community” throughout the 55 Roman provinces.
Early chaba (Hebrew for "secret/stealth") Messiah communities were secret for their own safety, e.g., primarily to be safe from Rome and its scorched earth policy, started in earnest under Caligula from 38 AD onward. In the first century, the growing numbers of Jesus Followers worldwide lived in these chaba communities, like the discipling/missional communities of our own day, confirming and exchanging original and copied Christian Texts (which the Romans and the High priests wanted to capture and destroy) and solidifying both the training of disciples composition and missional grants covering inter-community projects. .
While Hebrew Priests added fuel to the Roman scorching of Christians, both in the novel and in history, it is the presence of Satan himself, in the novel personified as Belial, who hunts down and kills key apostolic leaders. Belial's avowed goal (then as it is today) was to crush the new Christ Culture with its inspired scribing and distribution of the Word; thereby ending the Jesus Follower movement before it really began. The Belials of today can be identified and called out as they appear. In too many cases, Belial comes from within, for example from Christian scholars who have lost their hermeneutical focus.
As I write today, December 29th 2011, the BBC reports that Christians are beating each other with clubs in the holiest of places. So much for Christians being martyrs to the world. One of the many sadnesses within our overall Christian mission is that we can't even maintain basic civility among ourselves as this kind of internal hurt extends all the way to the public deconstruction of the witness bearing among the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God help us.
Nonetheless, having shared that reality, in the first three centuries AD, the Follower community of Jesus Christ was destined to spread worldwide, not grouped, known by or associated with one particular sub-culture, community or denomination, as is the case after Constantine and the Council of Nicaea. The Christ Culture and His discipling/missional emphasis, energized by the within Presence and counseling guidance of the Holy Spirit (John 14), placed His Followers on the street (Matthew 28:16-20), warts, doubts and all; to "go therefore" as first century Micahs.
Under the guidance of the Presence of the Holy Spirit (dear Lord Jesus come now as well), Jesus Follower communities were called to go forward, sustainably and secretly,
(i) accessing the Hebrew and Roman cultures and converting them to a Christ culture,
(ii) caring and feeding the "least of these" among them,
(iii) doing magistrated justice across their missional communities,
(iv) being faithful to Christ’s command to scribe the Word of God and then to love and disciple according to that Word,
(v) maintaining a Christ culture inspired community heritage of newly established institutions, while (vi) "walking humbly with their God": as the first century AD Christian Follower response to, "What does the Lord require of you?", echoing Micah 6:6-8.
As 21st century Christians, how willing and able are we to witness civility across congregational lines and promulgate a Christ Culture of collective Holy Spiritual power to both care for non-Christians and disciple new Followers, while missionally Micah Sixing the evils within the consumer culture, eating away at Christian praxis like a Leviathan? Praise the Lord for those present day Jesus Follower congregations acting with Holy Spiritual zeal who are "helping others while making born again disciples" in their social justice outreach and church plant initiatives.
Reggie McNeal has written that there currently exists a post-congregational context to our Following of Christ’s mandate. While this context, if true, may need to be more fully realized to be properly so identified, I say Amen to a combined discipling effort and missional direction, brought to the current discussion. Daily prayers for "the civilty of first steps" reinitiated, and blessings upon you, male and female, Christ culture warriors.
Don Chatelain
The Messiah Scrolls Project
December 2011