The Short Blanket

Theology, Ecclesiology and Missiology Are Not Competing Endeavours

Photo by Kin Li on Unsplash

So a few nights ago I had an idea, but the providence of that idea was something I hadn’t intended. We’re off the back of a heat wave in Ireland that in relative terms was scorching. To my friends in warm climates I feel embarrassed to share that we almost hit 33ºC (I think around 90ºF) Temperatures have settled a bit, but every few days we’ll get a little warm weather. Due to the fact that our bedroom was unhelpfully warm, my wife and I decided to buy a fan for our room, and also to keep a window open despite my weird ideas that some small flying thing will fly in and get me. However, two nights ago, we went back to normal Irish summer weather, wet and cold. Rather than cast covers and turn on the fan, we grasped at the duvet to preserve warmth. I was reading when the ‘moment’ happened, well, fimishing my reading. I flicked off my head torch which I use to read and keep the light low, and turned over to set my book beside the bed. On turning I proceeded to pull the covers with me, and completely deprive my wife of her carefully stored heat, which then woke her up. Even after almost 21 years of marriage, that may still not be enough time to store up grace for plunging your spouse into the cold when she’s just drifted off to sleep!

As we settled and I turned back over, I had an idea pop into my head. Why is it this always happens when I’m just about to sleep! I thought about that blanket analogy of limitation meaning that something is often uncovered. Pulled up to the chin, and your feet are uncovered and cold. Pushed to our feet and your shoulders might get a chill. Maybe I’m overthinking this (reply in the comments!) but I began to think of this in regards to developing health in church. Pulling the covers to one side or the other creates cold, or heat, covered or uncovered.

Church life and culture can feel a little like that.

Something gets exposed, and we react. A church becomes doctrinally vague, so we pull the blanket toward theology. Another feels chaotic or under-formed, so we pull toward ecclesiology. Another has become settled and inward-looking, so we pull toward mission. None of those reactions is necessarily wrong. Still, the way we respond can create its own problems. We start treating theology, ecclesiology, and missiology as though they are competing claims on a limited resource. We talk as though the choice is between doctrinal faithfulness, church health, and outward responsibility and movement. One church becomes known for it’s doctrinal forthrightness, another for serving its community, another for effective mission. Over time, those emphases settle into identities and ‘tribes.’ The blanket keeps moving, but some part of the body is still cold. Now, I do not think the main question here is which of the three deserves more coverage. Our churches will always need to give particular attention to particular things at particular times. But underneath those circumstantial and contectual needs sits a larger question: how do we keep these things close enough together that they correct, warm, and strengthen each other?

I’m going to be very simplistic here with these next explainers.

Getting Our Terms Right

Theology tells us who God is and what He has done.

Ecclesiology asks what kind of people the Gospel creates.

Missiology asks how that people bears witness in the world.

Over the past 20 years, I’ve been part of networks, agencies and denominations that seem to lean towards one or two of these. It’s crazy because I have to straddle a few different groups to get good thinking and practice in each area. That’s probably why in Ireland there are 500 churches and 600 networks. It’s because everyone has their niche in these areas – but maybe that’s the problem! If we separate them, each one becomes weaker. So I am not arguing for less theology. If anything, I am arguing for theology that goes further down and further out. The problem isn’t that our blankets are taking up too much space, the problem is that it’s stopping short of the church’s life and witness. We’ve all seen this over the last 20 years, haven’t we? There is a way of being so theologically serious that becomes less human and less congregational. We can defend the doctrines of grace in black and white terms and struggle to show grace in a room full of people trying to walk in the ways of Christ. We can affirm the missionary heart of God by quoting every verse we know while having no serious expectation that our own congregation should send, sacrifice, or plant churches. When theology is detached from ecclesiology and mission it is a dead church.

It just hasn’t lay down yet.

Understanding What The Church Is (and Is Not)

The same can happen with ecclesiology. I have sat in quite a few church planting assessments over the years, and also spoken to aspiring pastors and planters, and have been a little concerned at the lack of understanding of what the very thing is they are trying to plant or pastor. Many of us have had to learn, sometimes through painful church experience, that the church is not a weekly event with a bit of preaching attached and a few tunes played by a worship band. The church is the people of God, the body of Christ. Once that settles into our thinking, a whole set of questions becomes unavoidable. Who then belongs to the church? Who leads, and how are those leaders recognised? What does membership mean beyond a list of names in a spreadsheet? How are people cared for? How do we train future elders without simply finding competent men who can speak in public?

I wonder how much of this is being taught in seminaries and ministry training courses. If we turn ministry training into an ability to preach and teach a Bible study, then should we not expect churches filled with untapped potential and limited missional living. This in turn creates a weak ecclesiology which leaves people exposed. It creates churches that depend too heavily on a single personality, preacher, momentum, or inherited habits or models. It allows serious matters to be improvised in the moment, usually when everyone is already confused. So ecclesiology matters. A lot.

But it can also become too self-regarding. I think that this is harder to notice because the language used sounds adequately responsible. We even have a list of buzzwords to spew out. I love the work of 9Marks, but those have been stuck on church websites with very little understanding of how they work in practice, in various contexts. We speak of health, sustainability, leadership, membership, safeguarding, culture, systems, and care (I could go on!) Our churches do need structures. They need order. They need a trellis sturdy enough to bear the weight of the vine. Yet a church can spend years improving its internal life without ever becoming more available for the sake of others. The church is still not sending. It is not praying with any seriousness for towns and areas without Gospel witness. It is not training people with an eye toward future planting. A church healthy enough to keep everyone it has, but not healthy enough to send anyone it loves, may be less mature than it thinks. I used to get frustrated with Bible colleges on this point until I met with my dissertation supervisor who said they can only train who the local church sends to them. Maybe the problem then is upstream from the people we often blame.

Knowing That We Are Sent

That brings us to mission, though in reality, mission is often the place we arrive last in these conversations. As pastors and church leaders we live each week with a relentless schedule of production. There is always a sermon that needs prepared, and things to get done. None of us as pastors have to invent burdens, they are already there by Monday morning (or even Sunday night!) Because of that, the lostness around us can become a vague thing. Even in Ireland we can become numb to the phrase “unreached towns” as though we are dealing with empty spaces on a map rather than real life people.

I want to talk specifically in terms of where I am in Ireland, but it can be applied, I imagine, wherever you are too. As churches, we need to think more carefully, and be a little bit more intentionally burdened perhaps. There are places across this island with deep Christian history and very little living evangelical witness. There are communities where people have no ordinary access to a healthy local church where the Scriptures are preached, the Gospel is lived out, and disciples are made. The history of Christianity in Ireland does not mean people have heard Christ clearly.

That reality should disturb us at the sheer extent of the need, but disturbance alone is not enough for mission. It can easily become guilt or simple a way to talk strategy. It makes a good prayer point and fundraising tool. However, mission has to be shaped by the Gospel and by the church. Without theology, mission loses its centre. Without ecclesiology, mission does not know what it is trying to establish. It may create activity, events, and networks, but the New Testament aim is not merely more Christian activity in more places. It is the formation of churches, local congregations that worship, confess, baptise, submit to qualified leaders, care for members, make disciples, endure hardship, and in time, become capable of sending others.

This is why I increasingly think the common question about church planting is too small. We ask, “Where will we find more church planters?” We do need to ask that. We need men who are called, tested, trained, and willing to go. Ireland does not need vague enthusiasm masquerading as a call to plant. We also cannot rely on importing ‘outsiders’ in the same way due to VISA regulation changes. But the deeper question is, “Where will we find churches that can plant churches?” A planter can begin a work, but churches plant churches in a much richer sense. Churches notice impulses, gifts and character before a network ever assesses them. Churches train character in ordinary ways that truly form people. Churches pray for places long before anyone moves there. Churches send people they would rather keep. Churches give money that could have been used at home. Churches help a fragile work become something more than an extension of one man’s personality.

If we only look for exceptional individuals, church planting will remain fragile. And if we’re honest, that’s how many church plants (and many churches in Ireland) feel. If we cultivate churches that can send, church planting becomes part of, an albeit risky, ordinary faithfulness. That kind of church needs theological depth, ecclesiological health, and missionary imagination. It must know what it is passing on, what sort of community it is reproducing, and why Christ is worthy of witness in places where there is little.

I used to reach quickly for the language of balance here, the both/and that we can always put forward, but I think the better instinct is closeness. Keep theology close enough to mission that doctrine cannot become only a Statement of Faith on a website . Keep mission close enough to ecclesiology that church activity cannot masquerade as church. Keep ecclesiology close enough to theology that order does not become a label or tribe we cling to. Closeness will create pressure and friction, of course. It should. If we think of church planting of losing and giving up, then our language might display our values. This is where many of our theories begin to wobble. Church planting is easy to affirm until it becomes subtraction. Sending sounds beautiful until the people being sent are the ones who do a lot of Sunday serving. Sacrifice sounds biblical until we name the people we are sending and we realise that we’ll miss their faces around the place. A church can say it believes in mission while arranging its life so that nothing costly ever has to happen.

Our blanket will always be short. No single church can cover every need. No single pastor can carry the burden of a town, never mind a nation. But frantic tugging will not help us. So we draw the body closer. We let doctrine become congregational life. We let congregational life become witness. We ensure witness stays tethered to the Gospel. We refuse to choose between truth, church, and mission as though Christ gives himself to us in pieces.

The churches we need will probably not look impressive at first glance. They may be small. They may meet in living rooms. They may have limited money, tired leaders, out of tune singing, and not great coffee. But if they are warm with the Gospel, serious about the church, and living among to the places around them, they may become fruitful in ways that surprise us.

The blanket will still be short, but we might find warmth gathering these things a little closer together!