A Living Organism An Enduring Institution
Our understanding of the nature of the local church significantly impacts how we perceive its mission in the world. When Jesus established the church, he said, “I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”[1] How did Jesus’ disciples understand His words? The book of Acts gives us helpful insight into that question. Empowered by the Holy Spirit and guided by the words of the Great Commission, the apostles went throughout the Roman empire not merely to win individual converts for Jesus but to establish local redemptive communities known as local churches. While the universal visible and invisible church is present in the New Testament, the local church is the focus of the New Testament writers. God’s mission in the world is seen through the lens of the local church. While we affirm many parachurch ministries, we also believe God’s “Plan A” is the local church, with no “Plan B” found in the New Testament.
The local church, as the body of Christ, is a living, breathing, dynamic organic community. It exists both as a tangible reality in space and time and as a visibly present enduring institution. The many metaphors of the church in the New Testament reflect both its organic and institutional aspects.[2] The local church is both a people and a place where new creation being and new creation belonging are experienced and embodied. Within this spiritually embodied relational reality, we know and are known as brothers and sisters in Christ, forming a new family with its commensurate privileges and responsibilities.
In creation, God designed the institution of the family for human flourishing, and in redemption, God designed the institution of the local church for human flourishing. Both divine institutions are now aimed at advancing God’s redemptive and restorative mission in the world. We are committed to the timeless truth that without individuals, nothing ever changes, yet without institutions, nothing ever endures. Christ Community fully embraces its institutional stewardship with a long-time horizon and multigenerational faithfulness in our city and our world. As an institution with a faithful, enduring presence in our broader culture, we view ourselves as a quiet catalyst, uniting with prayer and joy to advance God’s kingdom in the world.[3]
The Church In Our 21st Century Context
Our missional approach recognizes there’s a remarkable parallel between the first-century world and our twenty-first-century world. The world Jesus came to was, in many ways, uniquely positioned to take the good news of Jesus and his kingdom to the ends of the earth. The Apostle Paul pens these words in Galatians 4:4, “But when the fullness of time came, God sent forth his son…” While Paul’s inspired words capture that opportune and prophetic moment of redemptive history, we must not miss that a sovereign God had also carefully arranged the course of human history leading up to it.
The first-century Roman world provided an ideal context for the spread of the gospel from a remote and obscure part of the world. It was the Pax Romana, the peace of Rome, that created a sense of stability that facilitated the spread of the gospel. The remarkable building of Roman roads catapulted travel. Both the Pax Romana and the Roman roads contributed to church planting and the spread of the gospel during the first three centuries. In addition, the Greek language became the cross-cultural language of commerce and a good deal of intellectual thought. It is not incidental that the New Testament writers, considering their global audience, penned the Bible in Greek.
Just as the Pax Romana and the Roman roads once unified the world, both the internet and the global economy have now brought the world together in unprecedented ways. The English language and the U.S. dollar serve as the standard reserve currency to facilitate the global economy. Many of us enter this interconnected global world each Monday and are more likely to speak with an English-speaking colleague in India than a neighbor across the street. Similar to the first three centuries on interconnectedness, the twenty-first century is remarkably linked, with its missional intersection often occurring in the Monday marketplace.
Church historian Alan Kreider points to the marketplace as a main catalyst for the rapid growth of the early church. The gospel and its transformational influence were primarily spread in the context of the marketplace. It was ordinary Christians in their specific vocations, not clergy, who were the key to gospel expansion. Kreider notes, “Christians followed their business opportunities.” Kreider notes that non-Christians observed the distinctive behavior of Christians in the marketplace, such as the “patient way the Christians operate their businesses.” Kreider summarized the profound impact of vocational discipleship and vocational mission by stating, “What happened was this. Non-Christians and Christians worked together and lived near each other. They became friends.”[4]
Just as past moments in redemptive history provided opportunities, our world of the twenty-first century is an open door of opportunity for followers of Jesus. Like the Pax Romana, the common Greek language, the development of Roman roads, the English language, the internet, and our interconnected global economy have brought the world together in ways previously unimaginable. The strategic twenty-first-century intersection is the Monday workplace, where God has called many of us to join him on mission. Perhaps this is why Billy Graham suggested that the next great movement of God would take place in the marketplace.
This is one of the strategic reasons we must move from seeing “missions” primarily through a geographical lens and look through a more missional lens of the workplace and vocation. At Christ Community, we are a church for Monday, equipping our congregants as the scattered church to be on mission each and every day, wherever God has specifically called them. Our workplaces—whether paid or unpaid—serve as a primary place for worshiping God, being formed spiritually, sharing the Gospel, and loving our neighbors. Through our work, we embody common grace and further the common good. We are passionate about vocational discipleship and engaging in vocational mission.
Some Practical Implications Of Our Missional Approach
Flowing out of our missional approach are seven practical ways Christ Community seeks to integrally indwell our mission with a long-time horizon and prayerful intentionality.
01 SENT ON MISSION: We believe all apprentices of Jesus are sent on mission wherever God has called them. Therefore, we are deeply committed to equipping the scattered church for their Monday worlds. While we recognize the significance of the gathered church and are committed to planning and implementing a high-quality experience for Sunday, our paramount stewardship is equipping apprentices of Jesus for the majority of their life callings. We are passionately a church for Monday.
02 ACTIVE IN THE WORKPLACE: We believe a primary work of the church is at work. Given that we spend so much of our time inhabiting paid and unpaid workplaces, our mission focuses on equipping congregants to view their workplace as the primary place of worship, spiritual formation, gospel witness, and furthering the common good through acts of neighborly love.
03 VALUE INSTITUTIONAL PARTNERSHIPS: We emphasize the priority of institutional partnerships over individual partnerships. We believe partnering with institutions rather than individuals brings greater accountability and promotes long-term effectiveness and impact. Practically, this is evident in how we work with, celebrate, and financially support organizations we partner with at local, national, and global levels.
04 VALUE OUR DENOMINATION: We are a local church that is a vital part of and deeply values our connection to the Evangelical Free Church denomination. Our national denomination provides important external accountability and aligns with our mission-focused opportunities. We are committed to financially supporting our denomination and responding with financial aid for EFCA-coordinated disaster relief and other humanitarian needs, both nationally and globally.
05 OUR MISSIONAL BUDGET: While we have a generous budget line item for our outreach ministry partners and desire this total amount to continue to grow, we do not specify a percentage of the total budget for this purpose. We believe that every part of our budget is missional, including our outreach ministry partners. Each campus is encouraged to establish both local and global outreach ministry partnerships. We also collaborate in supporting national partners such as the EFCA and Made to Flourish.
06 ENCOURAGE GENEROSITY: We encourage everyone who calls Christ Community their church home to give generously to the financial support of the church. At Christ Community, we embrace design-based giving, recognizing the local church as God’s “Plan A.” This perspective makes supporting the local church the primary focus of our tithing first fruits and philanthropic legacy.
07 INTEGRAL COMMITMENT: We are deeply committed to financial integrity and transparency. We conduct both internal and external audits, and our elder board is actively involved in our financial oversight, institutional planning, policy formulation, and competent management of resources. Every dollar entrusted to Christ Community is a stewardship taken seriously.
Christ Community is not a perfect church by any means, nor do we get everything right. However, anchored in biblical truth and grace, and empowered by the Holy Spirit, we strive to be an integral people as well as nurture a healthy institution. Our focus is not on celebrities or visionaries; instead, our hearts and minds are knit together in a value-rich organizational culture on mission for the advancement of Christ’s kingdom and God’s great glory. Will you prayerfully consider joining us in this mission that matters?
OUTREACH BLOG PART 1
Additional Resources
Craig Van Gelder, The ministry of the missional church, Baker
Amy Sherman—Kingdom Calling and Agents of Flourishing, IVP
Tim Keller –– Center Church
Darrell Guder, Missional Church, A Vision For The Sending Of The Church In North America, Eerdmans, 1998
Giving God our Best: God’s Design for Generosity
[1] And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it — Matthew 16:18 (CSB)
[2] See Ekklesia, Rediscovering God’s Design For The Church, Tom Nelson
[3] For more on the church as a faithful presence, see James Davison Hunters, To Change The Word, The Irony, Tragedy and Possibility of Faith In The Late Modern World, Oxford
[4] Kreider, Alan, The Patient Ferment Of The Early Church: The Improbable Rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2016).
