Vol 3:2 The Relational Nature of God’s Mission
These days I am reading Craig Van Gelder’s and Dwight J. Zscheile’s The Missional Church in Perspective: Mapping Trends and Shaping the Conversation. In this book, Van Gelder and Zscheile are exploring how the missional conversation has unfolded since Missional Church was published in 1998. The conversation has moved in different directions, many which are indeed not very missional, but reframe perspectives in missional language which have little to do with discerning where God is active in the world. In their section on “Expanding and Enriching the Theological Frameworks” they present an important discussion on the relational nature of God’s mission in relation to Trinity.
They make clear, and I agree, we cannot understand or engage in God’s mission unless we embrace a theological understanding of the Trinity. They express that a major facet of a theological focus in Trinitarian renewal “is the fresh attention being given to the relationality of God” (p. 105). Which they state, “represents a crucial complement to the sending emphasis so characteristic of the West” (p. 105).
They relate “that theologians such as John Zizioulas have argued that the Cappadocian fathers . . . made a revolutionary move against the backdrop of Greek philosophy by asserting that relational personhood . . .” (p. 105) is an inherent aspect of understanding God as Trinity. Stating further, “in this view, God’s very being is not an abstract divine substance characterized by certain attributes, but rather is profoundly personal. There is no personal identity without relationality” (p. 105). What this means is that Trinity is to be understood more in terms of the relationality inherent within the Godhead – expressed by the concept of perichoresis, than an abstract defining of God by God’s attributes or functions. In essence, we begin to grasp what it means for God to be Trinitarian when we realize that “Trinity is seen as a community” (p. 105).
This reveals the relational character of God’s mission in which we, as the people of God, are invited into relationship with God to participate with God in God’s mission. As the Van Gelder and Zscheile express, “in this Trinitarian perspective, to be a person is to participate in others’ lives, to have an identity shaped by other persons, rather than to be an isolated individual” (p. 105) – each person in the Trinity is in relationship with and involved in each person of the Trinity and God’s mission is an expression of the relationality inherent within Trinity.
One of my take aways from this, in the brief space of this blog, is that for God, the mission of God is not merely a “task.” Mission is not just something God merely does – as an act outside of the personhood of God – God’s mission matters to God. Because God is relational, God’s mission involves God in all of God’s Trinitarian relationality – God cannot be any other way. Mission is something personal for God; mission is something that does not happen outside of God, but involves God’s heart, involves God’s character, involves God’s love. God enacts God’s mission not as an act outside of God, but rather God is personally involved in bringing about what God is purposing in reconciling humanity to God and recreating creation – bringing about God’s eschatological telos.
This helps me to understand my participation with Jesus in the mission of God. It has often been said that to be adept in ministry that we need to exercise professional boundaries in relation to those we serve. To me this is merely an excuse for being impersonal (though I understand that “boundaries” are essential if we are not abuse others – but that is another discussion about a different kind of understanding of boundaries). The result of being impersonal is that we are apt to exercise our own ministry, but not God’s mission. To be involved in ministry that participates with God in God’s mission has to be inherently relational and personal. I believe, ministry to others must not maintain a professionality, but must involve all of who we are as persons, in relationship, taking the risk of being hurt by the love we extend to others and receive from others – ministry, like God’s mission, must be intensely personal and relational. To minister in any other way is to not participate with God in God’s mission – because to minister in any other way is to minister in ways which are foreign to God’s Trinitarian relationality.
I know I need to develop this line of thinking some more – and so I am open, as always, to your constructive comments.
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Roland–I appreciate your last paragraph about personal and relational ministry and thought I would share with you my recent experience with this. During my holiday at home, I reflected on my work at Project PLASE and if and where I felt I was being best used, serving to my fullest potential, participating in God’s mission. I came to the conclusion that I was enjoying about 50% of my time–the time with the most direct contact with clients–and the other 50%, involving administrative duties, made me feel useless and unimportant both personally in my ministry and also within the agency. By no coincidence, at the first meeting I attended after being back, the need was mentioned for more people to accompany clients to appointments and ally with the, care for them individually, one-on-one. I spoke to the man who does this now afterward and told him that I would like to help with this. He is an episcopal priest and works as a “pastoral psychotherapist” at PLASE, combining pastoral care and psychological counseling. He immediately told me one of his infamous stories, about how he divides the world into 2 categories, those who view humans since the fall as beasts and the role of the world is to control that beastliness, and those who view humans after the fall as still created in the image of god and the role of the world, and thus ours in it, to seek that God-image in everyone and call it out and nurture it. He told me with tears in his eyes that he sees me as falling into the second category and would not only love it if I began accompanying clients as a mean to an end of showing the compassion that I so readily display, but that he would like me to start co-leading his groups and being available to meet with clients to give pastoral care and psychological counseling. When I went home, I was filled with thanks to God for providing a person at PLASE with the same mission as me, God’s mission, to seek the God-image in everyone and be God to others through caring, attentive, available, non-judgmental, personal relationship.
Just thought I would share.
Laura
Roland, this is very helpful and the last paragraph sums it up well. My primary basis for discernment has been to compare with Jesus’ commandment to “love one another, just as I have loved you” and “love your neighbor as yourself.” I think the Apostle Paul would agree (see Gal. 5:14 and 1 Cor. 13:1-3). To love as Jesus did would require that we get personal and relational, as He did with His disciples.
Also helpful – in his book “The Road To Missional”, Michael Frost says, “Incarnational mission means moving into the lives of those to whom we believe we’ve been sent.” (p. 123, emphasis added) and then later, “Let God make use of your presence, your proximity, and your prayer.” (p. 124)