Aptitudes of Missional Congregations in Context From the book The Missional Church in Context Craig Van Gelder editor

1. Missional congregations learn to read a context as they seek their contextuality. It is critical that congregations develop the ability to read a context. This aptitude is inherent within the church that is missionary by nature. This means that the church will always seek to be contextual in engaging the context wherever it is located.

Study and understand the people and the culture where you intend to serve.

2. Missional congregations anticipate new insights into the Gospel. The very act of translating the gospel into new vernacular languages often opens up fresh understandings regarding its meaning. This was certainly the case in the New Testament when the gospel was translated into a Hellenistic worldview in Antioch.

Expect to gain new insight into the Gospel as you serve missionally.

“From the beginning of his time in India, Newbigin knew he was an outsider who needed to listen to and learn the cultures of that vast country’s people.”

“He would do this by sitting in villages with local religious leaders and they would read each other’s sacred texts. Then Newbigin made a discovery: he needed to relearn the gospel itself. He realized he hadn’t come to India just to convert the Indian people…”

“As he lived among these people, he realized that the gospel was converting him; it was questioning some of his most basic assumptions.” Missional: Joining God in the Neighorhood Alan J. Roxburgh

3. Missional congregations anticipate reciprocity. Reciprocity occurs when the cultural group that has brought the gospel into another context is itself changed by those who have received the gospel.

Expect to be changed by the people that you work among. Expect to be changed by the people that you work among.

Treating the Neighbor as Subject Instead of treating people as objects by delivering goods, services, and truth to them – we assume they have gifts, talents, and leadership capacity. We trust that they will teach us things about God that we don’t know yet. We expect to learn from them. Instead of treating people as objects by delivering goods, services, and truth to them – we assume they have gifts, talents, and leadership capacity. We trust that they will teach us things about God that we don’t know yet. We expect to learn from them.

Acts 10 - Cornelius

4. Missional congregations understand that they are contextual, and thus also particular. The church, as a local church, can only come into existence in its relationship to the reality of culture and cultures within a particular context. In reality, there can be no model congregation. While there can be illustrative examples of contextualized congregations that might help inform others, no congregation can function as a model for others.

There is no one model for doing missional ministry that works everywhere.

5. Missional congregations understand that ministry is always contextual, and thus also practical. Ministry takes place in relationship to a particular context, and, as ministry takes place, congregations develop specific practices for that context. In reality, there can be no common program that works the same in each congregation and context. While a basic programmatic framework may inform the development of ministry, each congregation is best served by thinking carefully about how such a program might need to be adapted to fit its particular ministry and the context it serves.

Because every context is unique, there is not one program that will work in every context.

6. Missional congregations understand that doing theology is always contextual, and thus also perspectival. In reality there can be no universal confession: every congregation needs to learn how to confess the faith in its particular context. While it needs to draw on historical confessions to engage in confessing the faith, a congregation needs to actively engage in translating the themes and insight of historical confessions in order to address the issues within its own context.

We need to translate our beliefs into language that people in the host community can understand.

7. Missional congregations understand that organization is always contextual, and thus also provisional. In reality, there can be no standardized polity. Polity needs to focus more on guiding principles rather than prescribed practices, because polities need to be adaptive and flexible as they consciously take context and culture into consideration in the midst of the processed of forming and reforming.

Each missional community should establish its own unique guiding principles and way of doing things. Each missional community should establish its own unique guiding principles and way of doing things.

We should never have transplanted Christianity without breaking the pot in which the plant came. Transforming Mission by David J. Bosch

Our hope lies not in trying to create (for instance) just an Indian Christianity but a Hindu Christianity. Transforming Mission by David J. Bosch