and as a long-term hope. A world reconciled to and in Christ is what God’s Kingdom is like.
1.28 The Five Marks of Mission have been instrumental in shaping the mission imagination of the Church of England. They have been a major instrument in reconciling different views of what constitutes mission. One example of this is the dichotomy between evangelism and social action. Through their profound simplicity they have helped the church at all levels to hold together different expressions of mission and at the same time seeing each mark as part of a whole.
1.29 The Five Marks are being used to shape perceptions of what mission means for new generations of younger Christians who are exploring and finding their vocation in taking part in God’s mission. Whether as a foundation in study courses or exploring Christianity more generally, the Five Marks offer a simple but not simplistic set of images of God at work in the world and the many ways in which younger as well as older Christians are called to serve. The Anglican Communion is in the process of publishing a book by young people on the Five Marks of Mission following the Edinburgh 2010 World Mission Conference ‘Witnessing to Christ Today’.
1.30 The role of young people participating in God’s mission is vital for the future of the Church of England and the Anglican Communion. Young people are increasingly becoming the leaders in participating in mission through the Mission Agencies, Companion Links, Development Agencies or through parish and higher education links. They are experiencing the breadth and diversity of the world and church in numbers previously unimaginable through short-term visits. The Church of England needs this experience to be held and heard at the centre of its life and throughout its structures.
Integral mission and holistic mission
1.31 An influential and helpful way of describing God’s mission in the world is known as Integral Mission. Originating in Latin American evangelical mission theology in the 1980s it holds as its centre the belief that
‘Integral mission or holistic transformation is the proclamation and demonstration of the gospel. It is not simply that evangelism and social involvement are to be done alongside each other. Rather, in integral mission our proclamation has social consequences as we call people to love and repentance in all areas of life. And our social involvement has evangelistic consequences as we bear witness to the transforming grace of Jesus Christ. If we ignore the world we betray the word of God which sends us out to serve the world. If we ignore the word of God we have nothing to bring to the world. Justice and justification by faith, worship and political action, the spiritual and the material, personal change and structural change belong together. As in the life of Jesus, being, doing and saying are at the heart of our integral task.’25
1.32 This framework or lens for understanding and expressing God’s mission in the world focuses on moving beyond previous dichotomies in an evangelical understanding of mission such as whether evangelism or social action should take precedence. The Micah Declaration envisages evangelism and social action as being one in God’s mission though with different practical expressions. As the Cape Town Commitment states,26
‘Integral mission means discerning, proclaiming, and living out, the biblical truth that the gospel is God’s good news, through the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ, for individual persons, and for society, and for creation. All three are broken and suffering because of sin; all three are included in the redeeming love and mission of God; all three must be part of the comprehensive mission of God’s people.’
1.33 While Integral Mission represents a significant attempt to overcome and unite certain polarizations within an evangelical understanding of mission it has value within other areas of the mission of the church. It is representative of the nature of mission discourse that seeks to unite differing understandings or lenses rather than polarize – a notable characteristic of current mission theology and a welcome rhythm to the theme. One example is the differing approaches between mission and development which will be discussed in a later chapter.
1.34 Today the mission imagination emerging from Anglican, ecumenical and evangelical spirituality shows a distinct movement towards integration, wholeness and embracing what were previously divided understandings such as evangelism and social action. A search for continuity, wholeness and togetherness is happening despite the existence of issues which divide sharply. Integration rather than polarization in God’s mission in the world is an evident trend. The search is for frameworks that unite in understanding mission rather than debates about a single definition of mission. Wholeness and integration are becoming the common elements of such a framework.
Conclusion
1.35 Having briefly reviewed the movements and rhythms of God’s mission in recent history it is time to ask: How might we imagine the participation of the Church of England in God’s mission in the future? In other words, what are the next steps on the journey? Where is God calling the Church of England, together with other churches in the West, to change and what to sustain from our histories? What is it that God is calling to change and renew? The future foundation of the Church of England’s participation in God’s mission will be a renewed confidence in the local mission of the parish as it has been historically understood as presence in local communities throughout England. At the heart of such local presence will be the faithful proclamation of the Kingdom of God through worship through which it engages in the world and its prophetic pointing to new ways of living. Fundamental to this will be the confidence of new generations of young people taking their place in God’s mission. It will be a new awareness that the local church can only find its vocation in connection with the global mission of God. Local will find connection with the global in joy and in suffering as each stands alongside the other. All of this can only be realized through the vulnerability, sacrifice and service of the incarnate one – Jesus Christ. This will mean playing a new tune, a new rhythm with its roots in the mission of God which is always new, always moving and always at work. It will mean taking part in the infinite and surprising nature of God’s Spirit at work in the world.
Notes
2 Presence and Prophecy, Introduction, Churches Together in Britain and Ireland, Church House Publishing, 2002, p. ix.
3 Presence and Prophecy, p. ix.
4 This term is adopted by Andrew Walls, ‘The Ephesian Moment’, in The Cross-Cultural Process in Christian History, Orbis Books, 2002, pp. 72–81.
5 Walls, ‘The Ephesian Moment’, pp. 72–81.
6 Presence and Prophecy, Introduction, p. 27.
7 Foreign missions were often viewed separately from home missions by those who were less involved in them but not by the founders of such missions. The work of the Clapham Sect and the Oxford Movement, to name but two, is witness to this fact.
8 The Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel had been established in 1698 and 1701 respectively.
9 The term ‘Majority World’ is used in preference to Global South or Third World because most of the materially poor people of the world live in the continents of Asia, Africa and Latin America and this term does not imply inferiority as the term ‘Third World’ had tended to do.
10 See Kim, Joining in with the Spirit, Connecting World Church and Local Mission, Epworth, 2009.