What's in a mission statement?
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
In the Book of Discipline, the United Methodist Church's book of canon law and doctrine, the mission of the Church is described as follows:"The mission of the Church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world" (par.120, p.87).
There are ways in which I think that statement is apt and helpful as local churches seek to focus their ministries to reflect the work of followers of Jesus charged with witnessing to his gospel through word and deed.
But in other ways I'm not such a big fan of the statement. For one, I'm not sure that an ecclesiastical communion like the United Methodist Church needs a mission statement. It seems simplistic and far too indebted to a marketing culture better at selling commodities than spreading the good news. I mean, why can't our mission statement simply be the Apostles' Creed?
Another way that I'm ambivalent about the Church's mission statement is the relatively recent prepositional phrase attached to the end of it: "... for the transformation of the world." This is difficult to explain fully in something the length of a blog post, so let me offer a Stanley Hauerwas aphorism instead: "The first task of the Church is not to make the world more just. It is to make the world, the world."
That is, God the Father has called a people together in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ. This people is known as the Church (1 Peter 2:4-10). And it is the community called Church that is serving as a light to the whole world, beckoning people to follow the way of salvation (Matthew 5:14-16). Through the power of the Holy Spirit, the Church is able to glorify God and mediate the saving grace of Jesus Christ to all those come within her bounds - namely, via the sacrament of baptism (Galatians 3:27-29). From within the covenant community, men and women are able to experience the transformation that brings them from sin to righteousness, from death to life!
The Church is charged with making the world see itself as the world, because only then can the world know a better form of life than the life that worships death. And through that very conviction, those who are lost in the wilderness of the world can be drawn to the salvation known in the Church.
So what does this have to do with the United Methodist statement? Simply put, I don't think we are charged with transforming the world. That's God's job, and God has promised to do it in God's own time (2 Peter 3:8-9).
We are charged with building the Church through the Holy Spirit's guidance, baptizing believers and forming them in holiness of heart and life.
Will those believers go out into the world and do works of justice and mercy, spreading the love of Jesus Christ in the world's institutions and structures? Absolutely! And thank God for it.
The teleological thrust of Christian discipleship, though, is not some kind of Pelagian transformation of the world into the kingdom of God. The belief that we can actually do such a thing is the tragedy of Protestant liberalism, which has led to a watering-down of both doctrine and the lived reality of the Church's life. It is an erroneous belief that still infects the Church, and I fear that our current mission statement doesn't help things in that area.
Colin Williams wrote John Wesley's Theology Today in 1960, at the height of the mid-20th century ecumenical movement. His presentation of Wesley's thought aims at providing Methodists with a theological basis from which to engage in dialogue with Christians of other traditions. The particular ecumenical moment in which people like Williams and Albert C. Outler were prominent Methodist actors has passed, but the heart of Williams' analysis holds up remarkably well.
At the end of a chapter on Wesley's nuanced understanding of justification by faith, Williams offers a passage that can serve as a corrective to our short-and-sweet mission statement:
"Our hope is in Jesus Christ, not in the transformation of the world or even of ourselves. Consequently our hope is not destroyed by the failure of the kingdom of God to become visible or even by our own failure to make visible progress to the goal of Christlikeness. Nevertheless, Wesley laid great stress on the fact that because our faith relation is in Christ, we live under the promise of present transformation and are able to move forward in creative, ethical endeavor because Christ continually offers his transforming presence to believers, and, through the Church, to the world" (p.73).
Williams' quote predates our current mission statement, of course, but it is superior to it in content and articulation.
Labels: Missiology, UMC, Wesleyan Theology
posted by Andrew C. Thompson at 3:34 PM
12 Comments:
In most respects, I'm in agreement with you. I thin the "for the transformation" part is unnecessary, but I don't think there is a worldliness to the mission statement nor any necessity about the world. Most likely, it was the desire of whomever formed it to include "for the..." in order to put an emphasis on the history of the social creed with the MEC and then the UMC.
The mission statement rests no hope in the transformation of the world (its just a simple preposition), but allows that if disciples of Jesus Christ are being made, the world will be transformed. Not necessarily by their actions, but by the Grace of God made manifest in order to make them disciples.
This, you could say, is a charitable reading:)
Although I heartily agree with the idea that our hope is in Christ, not in any evidence of the transformation of the world, I'm not sure that that creates a problem with the mission statement. The Reign of God is the transformation of the world. This grounds us in the present and prevents us from migrating too far into an ecclesiology which simply gathers and waits for the life of the world to come.
Thanks for those two comments. Those perspectives help me think that perhaps my fears are a little overblown. If the two of you are checking back in, what did you think about the Colin Williams' quote?
Also, Wilson, I have been enjoying checking out Fragments of Varro.
Great comment. Question: What happened to Colin Williams? I always thought his text was wonderful, but I could never find anything else from him. Does anyone know?
Bishop Lindsey Davis (then of the North Ga. Conference, now in Kentucky) articulated his understanding of the "transformation of the world" phrase at the 2005 Southeastern Jurisdiction Ministers’ Conference. (This was before the phase officially became part of the mission statement.)
You can read — and listen to — his comments at http://methodistthinker.com/2008/08/28/bishop-davis-the-primary-task-of-the-church/
(You'll have to cut and paste; Blogger apparently won't allow a live link in the comments area).
First of all, I'd say the Apostle's Creed wouldn't make a good mission statement, because the Apostle's Creed is a statement of belief and doesn't actually say "this is what we want to do with our belief."
Second, I don't think the UM mission statement says that we are trying to change the world. It says "for the transformation of." In my mind, that "for" is very important - it still leaves the changing of the world up to God. We are but conduits of the transformative power of God, and I think our mission statement reflects that.
I find it interesting that you cite modern liberalism as the rationale behind the phrase "the transformation of the world", and yet without the notion of God transforming the world through grace-empowered disciples of Jesus Christ, we lose all sense of evangelicalism.
Hauerwas would have us "retreat" from the world, and yet clearly the gospel mandate is to go INTO the world. (Mt 28)
While you (rightly) discredit theological liberalism in the first breath, you affirm it in the second by suggesting that the transformation must be Pelagian rather than grace-empowered, thus leading people away from our call to be evangelical, that is, declaring the good news where it most needs to be heard.
I would counter that "Transformation of the world" is the proper teleological worldview and Christian motivation, in that our hope is in the new heaven and the new earth brought about here when the eschaton arrives, through God's grace working in us and through us.
Unknown Traveler -
I'm certainly not opposed to the transformation of the world, and especially when that transformation is effected through disciples of Jesus being used as instruments of the Holy Spirit. My point is an ecclesiological one; it is around the doctrine of the church - what it is, what is purpose should be, and how it is built - that I think the Protestant liberal tradition went fatally astray. (An argument can be made that other doctrinal wrong-turns, particularly around Christology, were prior and that the surrender of ecclesiology came later. I'm open to considering that.)
Our mission statement is so short and concise that it might lead one to think the church can make disciples as easy as baking cookies, and even more, that the transformation of the world is a kind of self-evident task thereafter. But one baptism (or one altar call) does not a disciple make, and on its own, a phrase like "transformation of the world" has form but no content.
My original worry was that the liberal tradition's belief in the key to happiness and salvation lying in society (or the nations) is only encouraged by a pithy statement like ours, particularly since so much of the UMC is still gripped by that mindset. The collected responses so far make me think that perhaps my fears are a bit overblown, but I'm still not convinced that we need a mission statement at all.
Since I've picked on the liberal tradition, let me do so with evangelicalism as well, since you brought it up. In an interesting way, latter-day evangelicalism can buy into the mission statement uncritically as much as liberals can (although evangelicals' and liberals' idea of what "disciple" and "transformation" suggest might differ considerably). But that's because evangelicalism since the early 19th century has been plagued by the twin diseases of a heretical belief in free will and an idolatrous faith in individual autonomy.
The evangelicalism of Wesley (or Jonathan Edwards, for that matter) is a different animal. And that's why the almost universally consistent misreading of Wesley's phrase, "No holiness but social holiness," is such a tragedy. Cyprian's phrase for this concept is much less easily misunderstood:
"You cannot have God for your father unless you have the Church for your mother."
The good bishop was right, of course. For if we do not receive the grace of salvation through Mother Church, how will we recognize the Father when we meet him? The world does indeed need transforming. But if God is going to use us to do any of that, we've got to receive transformation first. And that means that "making disciples" is a project that takes a lifetime, and can only happen in a particular kind of community over time.
I'm just a pastor in the Durham District a few years out of Div School, who enjoys reading this blog, but I found myself saying, "Yes, yes, yes!!" We ARE charged with building the Church through the Holy Spirit's guidance, baptizing believers and forming them in holiness of heart and life. Then transformation happens and usually not the way we expect. We have to BE disciples before we make them. Thank you, Andrew, for reminding me what it's all about.
Aha! Now you are preaching to the choir! Free-will IS heretical, and I too affirm Wesleyan evangelicalism over the nonsense that passes as such today.
I think in order to be a good "mission statement" it has to have two qualities. First, it has to be biblical. I think our statement meets that standard, both in the Great Commission and the promise of the new creation at the parousia, as described in John's apocalyptic writing, the coming of the Kingdom (Reign of Christ if you prefer) in its fullness.
Second, if the statement is going to make ANY difference in how we view the role and function of the church, it HAS to be short so people will remember it and understand it.
I don't disagree that by having such a succinct statement, there is danger of misinterpretation or even heresy, but making it longer won't make that risk any lower, and eliminating it altogether, as you propose, increases that possibility greatly, afterall, if we don't have a unifying statement about what we are to be about in this world, then we will find very shortly that we will find all kinds of comfortable, easy reasons for existing as an entity unto ourselves, rather than the bride of Christ.
Thanks for the good thoughts and good dialogue.
~Andy B.
How about good old fashioned "spreading Scriptural holiness across the land"?
Andy -
I think you make all good points. Thanks for sharing them.
I can see the virtues of the mission statement. But as to its necessity, it strikes me that the church got by for well near 2000 years with no corporate-style mission statement. Perhaps our current cultural context makes it helpful to faithful ministry. But I certainly wouldn't want to place too much stock in its efficacy for mission or ministry. I think its form and creation owe more to Steven Covey's influence than anybody in the Wesleyan (or broader Christian) tradition.
- AT
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