Cornerstone Curriculum, Official Certification Edition - Mentor's Guide

M E N T O R N O T E S / 1 6 9

Foundations for Christian Mission The Vision and Biblical Foundation for Christian Mission Welcome to the Mentor’s Guide for Lesson 1, Foundations for Christian Mission: The Vision and Biblical Foundation for Christian Mission . The overall focus of this lesson will be to trace the idea of the story of the divine romance and the war of the spheres as two major motifs of the Scriptures which give a full and helpful sense to our understanding of mission. The overall concept of this lesson is that mission can never be reduced to a kind of evangelism, a method of urban ministry, or a set of services to meet the needs of others. Mission includes these and other varieties of witness and good works, but mission is essentially an extension of the divine drama, romance, war, and promise. We are arguing that true missiology begins with the Scriptures’ story of God and his people, God and his creation, and from this secure vantage point, then begins to shape, impact, and direct our missional activities and burdens. Mission that begins with human effort is simply not biblical, in any real sense. In order for mission to be inspired by the Lord it must begin with the Lord’s purpose, heart, and working, that redemptive action that culminates in the person and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. Anything less is not true mission at all. In a real sense, to understand mission (or any other major field of theology and missiology) is to learn the inspired writers’ use of image, metaphor, symbol, and story. Through the inspired use of the imagination, the biblical authors made known to us the plan and purpose of God. Our ability to follow their thinking and rationale will not be possible if we ignore the power of the Christian (and biblically informed) use of the imagination. C. Seerveld makes this point clear: A biblically Christian conception of imagination will distinguish imagining from perceptual error, from imaging and from being an oracle of truth. Imaginative human activity is quite distinct from sensing or thinking but is also a bona fide activity interrelated with all human functioning. Imagining is a gift of God with which humans make believe things. With imagining ability one pretends and acts ‘as if ’ this is that (e.g. God is a rock, Isa. 17.10; Christ is a bridegroom, Matt. 25.1-13). Human imagination is the source of metaphorical knowledge and the playfulness so important to anyone’s style of life. Imagination is meant to be an elementary, important, residual moment in everything God’s

L E S S O N 1

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U r b a n M i s s i o n