02/10/2018
Glocal Missiology: A Practical Approach
for the Millennial Church
For us, as individuals, it is not enough to simply represent Christ on a limited basis. You either worship Christ all in all or not at all. He is either Lord of all or not at all. Josh McDowell once said that Christ is either one of three things. He is either a Liar, Lunatic or Lord. Christ requires us to choose between a life of meaningless pursuit and vanity or complete abandon and surrender.
The church is no different. If the church is to survive in the coming Millennium, it must rediscover its true purpose. The church is a missional group with a glocal approach to ministry. You do not get to choose if you will be on mission and true to the call. The call is to be on mission. The mission is the call and the call is the mission.
The church has a calling to carry the Gospel to every corner and down every path, even to make a path if necessary. The perspective is broad and wide ranging. In order to reach such a broad focus, you must narrow in and carve out a niche in order be effective in ministry. For too long the church has been a master of many crafts but lacking in efficiency. Efficiency comes with practice. Therefore, the church needs to practice missions. It needs to broaden the range while carving out a focus.
The act of broadening while narrowing is what is referred to as a glocal approach. It is necessary to broaden in order to widen the necessary impact. Yet is also important to focus in order to increase the depth of the impact. Much like an object in motion with mass and speed has a greater impact, so to the church by widening, increases its mass and by narrowing its focus it increases the depth of its impact.
The global analogy necessitates breadth, and the local necessitates specificity. The Gospel was always intended to be introduced and interpreted into a very small unit and specific venue, at the narrowest level, i.e. The Home. The metric of the Gospel starts at the personal/individual level, with a relative/friend, who is a part of family/group, and lives in a city/state, who travels on occasion in a region/nation, in proximity to a world/globe. Therefore, the church needs to have a glocal missiology.
To be on mission, you need to leave a footprint. If you are not leaving a footprint, you are not on mission. So how big is your footprint. This is opposite of carbon footprint, you want leave evidence you were here. This is not like a National Forest where if you pack it in, you pack it out and leave no trace. Yet somehow that is exactly what is happening to the church. It is not existent. As far as the Case for Christ, well, Lee Strobel’s work is a cold case at this point. But it is not the message that is worn out and tired. Believe it or not, the methodology is still effective. It is simply a case of not practicing or not practicing enough to have meaning.
Folks the message is not only linear, it is also spatial. The world is not only flat, it is round. The message is not simply binary (yes/no) it is also triangular(God/you/others). It is not that we are not getting the message out, we are not getting the whole message out. The whole gospel is not in addition to the gospel, it is the transformation of the gospel, moreover, the translation of the gospel.
This post is not meant to be confusing, if you are thoroughly confused, don’t fret. I will elaborate more later. In the mean time, sharpen your tools and get in the game. If you are tracking and need to find out what you are lacking, then track on. If you are there and want to go further, keep on keep on. Let’s do this thing called the church. But let’s do it right. Let’s light the fire that when it burns others will come to see it for themselves. That fire starts with me and you. It starts in our hearts and it translates to the world. So take to the four corners!
