And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Amen.
Gospel of St. Matthew 28:16-20
This is the missional mandate from Christ Himself.
What does it mean for the Church to make disciples? What does evangelism look like? Is it a frenetic street corner preacher? Or is it donning a shirt blazoned with an unequivocal slogan? Perhaps a bumper sticker? Or does it take the form of a conversation over a caffeine-rich beverage?
These are actions within the world. Many of our words and actions can be placed within the categories of “mission” or “evangelism.” Many can not, and should not. However, these are not getting to the heart of the question: what is evangelism? What is mission? What is the shape of mission?
We find our framing in Lesslie Newbigin’s missiology:
“To be baptized is to be incorporated into the dying of Jesus so as to become a participant in his risen life, and to share his ongoing mission to the world. It is to be baptized into his mission.”
The Orthodox Christian has been baptized into the Kingdom of God. This means that we are part of the people of God, His royal priesthood. Chrismation is the anointing of each believer to be priest, king and prophet. By our very entrance into the Church, we have become part of Christ’s mission. In our age of specialists, we often assume that mission work is for the professionals, i.g. clergy or missionaries. If we take seriously the missional mandate of Christ and Newbigin’s understanding of that command, then each and everyone one of us is called to be part of Christ’s mission.
I’ve often compared two models of mission.
Modern – Isolationist Model
- Buffered individual is accentuated
- Relationships are compartmentalized
- Church is not primary identity
- Whatever energy is leftover flows into next, smaller circle
Unfortunately, the above model is the one that is often found in most contemporary churches–whether they know of it or not. We need to employ a different model, one that shows the interconnectedness of the different spheres of one’s life.
Proposed Model
- You are part of the Church
- Church is in the world but not of it
- The overlap of relation to others and the world is emphasized
A few things to take away from this model:
1.) We need to envision a world in which we as persons are a part of something larger, we live and move and have our being within the Church
2.) The Church is within the world (cosmos, creation), yet not of the world (principalities and powers of this age).
3.) However, we live with the tension that we inhabit a secular, pluralist, and postmodern world. We have jobs and obligations that are in the world, and sometimes we bring that world into the world of the Church. The key to this is to let Christ transform that world into the world of the Kingdom, and not the other way around.
4.) The one thing I added to this model is that at the very center is the Eucharist, symbolized by the cross
5.) The concentric circles model, in my mind, is the same as Christ the transformer model (see the work H. Richard Niebuhr). What happens at the center ripples outward to the other spheres.
This notion of ripples reminds me of the oft quoted St. Seraphim of Sarov: “Acquire the Holy Spirit and thousands around you will be saved.”
To make this model more congruent with Orthodox ecclesiology, I offer a variant model
- Decentralized individual
- Emphasis of traditional Orthodox understanding of personhood: a person stands vis-à-vis the other–we are persons-in-relation
- The Church is comprised of persons centered on the Source of Life–Christ Himself
- Person is microcosm, and Church is microcosm of creation
- Cross representing the Eucharist is prominently at center
“…what the soul is in the body, Christians are in the world. The soul is dispersed through all the members of the body, and Christians are scattered through all the cities of the world. The soul dwells in the body, yet is not of the body; and Christians dwell in the world, yet are not of the world”.
The Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus
Next we will continue to examine the concentric circles model and what it means in practice.
