Ecclesiology

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Ecclesiology So what is church ?
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The new Christian community in which the walls
are broken down not by human legalism or
democratic legalism but by the work of Christ
is not only a vehicle of the gospel or only a
fruit of the gospel it is the good news. It is
not merely the agent of mission or the
constituency of a mission agency. This is
mission. John Howard Yoder, The Royal
Priesthood, 1994
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Prayer and Support
Loving Service
Evangelism and Disciple- Making
Forming Community
Evolving Public Worship
Listening and Following Gods call
Connection
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Missional Church
With the term missional we emphasise the
essential nature and vocation of the church as
Gods called and sent people. Darrell Guder,
Missional Church, A Vision for the Sending of
the Church in North America
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Missional Church
Church is missional by its very nature. It is
not a thing the church does but it is why church
is.
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Missional Church
Three key concepts

• The Missio Dei
• Missio Spiritus
• The Trinity
• 2. Kingdom of God
• 3. Incarnation

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Missional Church
The church is not a collection of individuals who
choose to associate primarily to have their
spiritual needs met or to do some good in the
world. Rather the church is a community of mutual
participation in Gods own life and the life of
the world- a participation characterised by
openness to others. Just as the Trinity's
interdependent , communal life is generative and
outward reaching in love, so too must the
church's life be focused towards others and the
world. Craig Van Gelder.
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Missional Church
Three key concepts

• The Missio Dei
• Missio Spiritus
• The Trinity
• 2. Kingdom of God
• 3. Incarnation

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The gospels transforming impact on culture is
constantly in tension with the cultures
reductionistic influence on the
gospel. Darrell Guder
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How can we seek to re-imagine what it means
to be the Church and create new communities if we
lack the language and ability to talk and
reflect about what it means to be the Church in
dialogue with Scripture and our tradition.
Steven Croft, Mapping Ecclesiology for a
mixed economy in Mission Shaped Questions.
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If a fresh expression can properly be said to
be a church then it must contain the
fullness of the universal Church and thus contain
everything that is required to sustain a
spiritual sacramental life in communion with
other churches.
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The situation in which these doctrinal standards
were originally formulated, was very different
to that facing the Church today. The
contemporary context of Christian mission in
Britain calls for a radical departure from the
past in favour of an innovative theological
understanding of the Church and its
mission. p10.
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Eight criteria for proper Church. p181

1. Community of people called by God
2. Regularly worships and is sent out in mission
3. Gospel is proclaimed
4. Scripture preached and taught
5. Baptism
6. Holy Communion
7. Authorised ministry for Lords Supper
8. Connected to wider church through various ways

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There is no single authorized source
that contains a comprehensive statement of the
Church of Englands official teaching
concerning the nature of the Church itself. p91

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OHCA
Enduring Marks
Four linked Journeys
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The church is comprised of four sets of
relationships centred on Jesus, to the Godhead,
between members of the local church, to the world
and between each part and the whole body. p106.

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Church as four sets of relationships.
up
of
out
in

Moynagh, Church for Every Context p 106.
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• 1. A large city centre church has started a
  student congregation.
• 2.A church which has two congregations which meet
  in the same premises
• at the same time one using English, the other
  using Korean.
• 3. A congregation that meets in the school hall
• at 3.30 pm on Monday afternoons in order to reach
  parents/carers and their children.
• 4. People can log onto a cyber-church to receive
  teaching and pastoral advice,
• leave prayer requests and share in discussion.
• 5.An Christian organisation has started a meeting
  for
• prostitutes and drug addicts who have been
  converted through their work.
• 6.An evangelist is starting a walkers church
  a monthly hike with
• Christian meditations en route
• 7.A gathering in a pub organised by a pioneer
  after playing football together
• which includes eating together and prayer

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Basic questions of church

1. Who?
2. What?
3. Why?

Maybe we should ask Where from? Where to ?
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• Four voices of theology
• What people on the ground say. Espoused
• What is practised and experienced. Operant
• Scripture and the tradition. Normative
• Theological voices from the academy. Formal

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Concrete Church
The identity of the concrete church is not
simply given, it is constructed and ever
reconstructed by the grace enabled activities of
its members as they embody the church practices,
beliefs and values.
Nicholas Healy
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• Where from ?
• The Body of Christ
• Pentecost
• The Trinity

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Where to ? Following Jesus -
disciple Pilgrims- alien Eschaton- mystery of
the future
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• Unity in freedom
• Catholic in partianship
• Holiness in poverty
• Apostolic in suffering

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Organised Organic One
Diverse Holy
Charismatic Catholic
Local Apostolic Prophetic
Howard Synder , Decoding the Church. Baker Books
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The missionary church will not aim to
spread its own form. It is not a subsidiary of
the old one. It is a new church of the same
apostolate. It preserves its unity when it
fulfils Christs apostolic mission to its own
historical situation.
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the theological doctrine of the church cannot
be simply expressed in abstract terms about the
churches timeless nature. It will have to provide
points of departure for reforming the church,
for giving it a more authentic form.
Faithfulness and the fresh start are not
antitheses in the history of the Spirit.
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• A retrospective ecclesiology
• A reconciling community
• Foretaste of the Kingdom
• A reconciling unity
• The very essence of church life is that she is
  pressing
• forward to the fulfilment of Gods purpose
• pressing forward to the ends of the earth and the
  end
• of the world.