Discover how the Postmodern Church can effectively carry out mission strategies with real-life stories, biblical principles, and practical solutions. Learn cultural engagement, incarnational mission, and more.
The Church’s Mandate in Mission
The mission of the Church is rooted in the Great Commission given by Jesus in Matthew 28:18-20. But how can the Postmodern Church live out this mandate in a world that’s becoming increasingly secular, culturally diverse, and politically complex? How can the Church engage effectively with today’s world while maintaining fidelity to the gospel?
In this post, we’ll explore effective mission strategies for the Church today, focusing on cultural engagement, incarnational mission, and how to adapt these strategies in the Postmodern context. We’ll take a look at real-life examples, both from biblical stories and missionary history, showing how the Church can overcome the barriers of culture, government, and society.
By the end of this post, you will understand how to navigate the complexities of culture, government laws, and social dynamics in mission work, all while still making disciples for Christ.
Key Terms: Understanding Mission Strategy
Before we dive into the specifics of The Church in Mission Strategy, let’s define a few key terms to ensure clarity as we proceed.
i. THE CHURCH
The term "Church" comes from the Greek ἐκκλησία (ekklēsia), meaning "the called-out assembly." It refers to God’s people, set apart by Him for a divine purpose (1 Peter 2:9). The Church is not just a building; it is the spiritual community of believers, tasked with advancing God’s kingdom through worship, evangelism, and service.
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Church as a Building: This refers to the physical structure where believers gather for worship and fellowship. While important, it is not the biblical definition of the Church.
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Church as a People: The true essence of the Church is God’s people called to live out His message and mission in the world. The Church is missional, focused on spreading the gospel and serving others in Christ’s name.
ii. MISSION
Mission is the act of spreading the gospel to transform individuals, communities, and cultures. It involves proclaiming the message of salvation and meeting the holistic needs of people—spiritual, physical, and psychological. Mission is about transforming lives not just spiritually but in all areas of human need.
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Proclamation: Preaching the gospel to bring people to faith and spiritual transformation.
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Service: Meeting practical needs like education, healthcare, and community development.
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Cultural Transformation: Engaging with local cultures to redeem and transform them with God’s Kingdom values—peace, justice, and love.
iii. STRATEGY
Strategy is the plan of action the Church uses to fulfill its mission. It requires intentional preparation, cultural awareness, and resource deployment to effectively reach people and make disciples. It’s about being smart and strategic in engaging communities, overcoming barriers, and making disciples for Christ.
iv. THE CHURCH IN MISSION STRATEGY
The Church in Mission Strategy is the purposeful approach the Church takes to fulfill its mission. It combines cultural engagement, intentional planning, and action to proclaim the gospel and transform societies, adapting to new contexts while staying faithful to Christ’s core message.
Understanding Culture and Its Role in Mission
What is Culture?
Culture refers to the total life of a society, including its customs, beliefs, practices, worldviews, and social structures. As missionaries, we must understand culture as the lens through which people interpret life. The gospel is not just about proclaiming salvation; it’s about engaging culture. Culture is the lens through which people interpret life, and missionaries must know how to communicate the gospel in ways that connect with the cultural worldview of those they seek to reach.
Culture is God-given—we are called to steward culture and transform it with God’s truth. The gospel does not seek to destroy culture; it redeems and transforms it.
Culture in African Contexts
When the first missionaries arrived in Africa, they encountered deeply rooted traditional religions. These cultures were saturated with practices like ancestral worship, spiritism, and fetishism. Early missionaries were faced with local gods, rituals, and spiritual beliefs that often served as barriers to Christianity.
However, the early missionaries adapted by contextualizing their approach. They brought practical items like food, medicine, clothes, and mirrors to build trust and open doors for the gospel.
Example: When colonial missionaries introduced mirrors, books, and guns, they didn’t just bring material goods. They offered new knowledge and a new way of life. They used snuff and soap as cultural bridges, showing respect for local customs.
Overcoming Cultural and Governmental Barriers
Cultural Barriers
Cultural barriers are some of the strongest obstacles missionaries face. Traditional religions in many regions resist Christianity, seeing it as a foreign religion that threatens their cultural identity. But did the missionaries leave? No! They learned to live among the people, understanding and respecting their cultural practices.
The gospel worked its way through these cultures like the HIV virus, infiltrating and transforming them gradually.
Example: Missionaries in African villages didn’t start by condemning local customs. Instead, they built relationships and modeled Christlike behavior, which created an environment where the gospel could slowly take root.
GOVERNMENTAL BARRIERS
Governments often restrict or hinder missionary work. In countries like Saudi Arabia, China, and parts of India, laws either restrict religious freedom or outright outlaw proselytizing. Even in Western nations, laws against public preaching and prayer in schools act as reminders of the secularization of society.
Example: In Saudi Arabia, strict anti-conversion laws punish those who convert from Islam to Christianity. In China, government surveillance makes it difficult for missionaries to operate freely. However, missionaries continue to find creative access points to share the gospel, like through business ventures, NGOs, and education.
Strategies for Overcoming These Barriers
- Cultural Sensitivity: Missionaries must understand and respect local beliefs and customs before preaching.
- Inculturation: Present the gospel in a way that respects the culture without compromising its core truths.
- Creative Access: Find ethical and legal ways to enter restricted regions—through business, education, or humanitarian work.
The Incarnational Mission – Representing Christ in Mission
The Church’s mission is to incarnate Christ in the world. Just as Jesus took on human flesh and dwelt among humanity (John 1:14), missionaries are called to live among the people, share their lives, and represent Christ in their culture. The gospel is not only preached, but also lived out through day-to-day life.
Mary Slessor’s Strategy of Incarnational Mission
Mary Slessor, a Scottish missionary, is one of the finest examples of incarnational mission. She worked in Calabar (now southeastern Nigeria) where, instead of simply preaching to the people, she embodied the gospel. She embraced the local culture by understanding their needs and addressing social issues like infanticide (the killing of twins). This practice was prevalent in the community due to the belief that twins were evil omens.
Mary didn’t condemn the people; rather, she loved them through tangible acts of service, such as adopting and raising the abandoned twins, demonstrating Christlike love in a culturally relevant way. Her approach was relational, showing that gospel transformation often happens through deep personal sacrifice and long-term commitment to the people.
Example: By embracing local customs, Mary helped shift the mindset of an entire community. The cultural taboo of killing twins slowly changed because of her incarnational ministry. In doing so, she showed that the gospel of Christ can dismantle fear-based traditions and replace them with life-giving beliefs rooted in God’s love.
This method is a reminder that mission work isn’t just about preaching but about living the gospel in the cultural context of the people.
David Livingstone: A Model for Incarnational Mission
David Livingstone is another exemplary missionary who truly embodied incarnational mission. Livingstone didn’t merely preach the gospel from a pulpit, he lived among the African people, sharing in their hardships, their sorrows, and their joys.
Example: As soon as David Livingstone arrived, the Africans asked him for charms to stop sickness and death. He taught them that these challenges are common in life, and the only way out is through knowing and serving God. He didn’t just evangelize; he immersed himself in African life, gaining cultural understanding and building lasting relationships.
Livingstone’s mission was not about bringing a foreign gospel, but presenting the gospel in a culturally relevant way that spoke to the hearts of the people.
Historical and Contemporary Mission Strategies
1. Early Missionaries’ Approach to African Traditional Religions
Early missionaries were faced with deeply entrenched cultural and religious beliefs. They employed strategies like:
- Provision of material goods: This was a way to build trust and start relationships.
- Translation of the Bible: Translating the gospel into local languages made it accessible. Africans were sent abroad to study and learn the white man's way of life and they returned and became translators of the bible to local languages and interpreters of the white man's language and this forder took mission to remote village.
- Establishing education: Missionaries empowered local communities by setting up schools.
- Medical outreach: Providing healthcare services addressed both physical and spiritual needs.
2. Learning from Paul’s Approach in Athens (Acts 17:22-34)
Paul’s approach in Athens offers a model for culturally engaging people without compromising the gospel. He didn’t condemn their idolatry but used their altar to the unknown god as an entry point to reveal the true God. This strategy shows how missionaries today can engage with culture while staying faithful to the gospel.
Moving Missions to New Contexts Without Complicating Issues
1. Building Relationships First
Missionaries must build genuine relationships before preaching. People will listen to the gospel only if they see authenticity in the missionaries’ lives.
2. Using the Law of First Mention
The Law of First Mention helps missionaries understand biblical terms and concepts in their original context and cultural meaning. It ensures that the gospel message is communicated faithfully without diluting its meaning. This deals with the question of "Where was it first mentioned and what led to it?"
3. The Law of First Audience ensures that missionaries respect the culture of the original audience. For example, preaching to American (with their cultural context) is different from preaching to A Jew, and missionaries must adapt without imposing their own cultural biases to other people because we're all born into one culture or the other. So we mustn't impose the culture or biblical laws of the first audience to a Postmodern dispensational Christian in the USA without studying the times, context and culture of USA and then contextualising our message in a way that it'll be relative to the USA society without diluting the core truths of the word of God.
Making Disciples in the Postmodern World
The mission of the Church remains unchanged: to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:19). However, our methods must adapt to the ever-changing culture, governmental restrictions, and social dynamics. The Church must engage Postmodern society effectively without complicating the gospel message.
Key Takeaways:
- Be Christlike in every culture you engage with.
- Be sensitive to people’s backgrounds and context.
- Use modern tools like media and relationships to reach people.
- Always aim to make disciples, not to condemn or force change on people.
The Wrong stratagy to Doing Mission
Real-life Example: A Scripture Union member heard about a woman known for her moral failings. He thought he was doing God's work by preaching to her. However, his actions were more condemning than redeeming. He placed his megaphone opposite her shop and railed on her sins, similar to Jonah's approach with Nineveh. As a result, she threw hot oil on him and nearly wounded him. He returned to Scripture Union to share his testimony of how he was persecuted and how God miraculously saved him, yet failed to realize he had placed himself in harm’s way without wisdom.
As we conclude this teaching on The Church in Mission Strategy, we are reminded of the crucial role mission plays in advancing God’s Kingdom. The Church’s mission must engage and overcome cultural, governmental, and social barriers while staying true to the gospel.
The mission evolves, adapting to the challenges and barriers of different times and places. The strategies we’ve discussed—cultural engagement, incarnational mission, creative access, and contextual mission—empower us to move forward with wisdom, building lasting relationships and making disciples for Christ.
As you read this, I encourage you to reflect on how you can apply these strategies in your own mission work. How can you become Christlike in the world around you? Share your thoughts below, and let’s engage in meaningful conversations about how we can all make a greater impact for the Kingdom of God.
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