I grew up in a number of Church of Christ congregations ranging from highly traditional (i.e., rural, patternist, and sectarian) to middle-of-the-road (i.e., urban, attractional, and kind-hearted but essentially traditional in form and thought). If, in younger years, I had been forced to say what Christian missions was, I would have said something about teaching the Bible so people could be saved from their sins in order to avoid the punishment of a God forced by his very nature to deal out retributive justice (Hell). Not that he wanted to; the nature of holiness forced his hand. God was basically saying, “Don’t make me pull this car over!” and missions was getting people the right knowledge (proclamation), which led to being legally off the hook (or off the cross, if you like)--through Baptism by immersion for the forgiveness of sins, of course. The mission of the church, then, was to effect verbally in the lives of individuals the imputed forensic justification available through the substitutionary death of Christ. Although there were other restorationist elements involved, this way my basic view of what God was after.

By virtue of my biblical studies I began to see more clearly what was at stake and to shed many old assumptions. Further experiences in short-term missions simultaneously opened my eyes to the inadequacy of a technical-salvation-from-sin-driven mission. I mention the generalized movement of my own thinking before launching into a brief description of my present understanding of mission, because although our stories are personal, they may be indicative of the whole community’s movement to something post-restorationist in terms of mission. Although my early belief was actually very evangelical in contour, there is plenty of discussion as to whether the SCM has been or is basically evangelical and thus implicitly whether post-restorationist also means post-evangelical in some sense (see Kevin VanHoozer, The Drama of Doctrine for a great discussion of “post-evangelical” theology).

As I see it now, it is necessary to start with the notion of missio Dei--that the mission is essentially and properly God’s. That God is doing something is the basic datum, and that the people of God are permitted and expected to participate is the corollary that emerges in the narrative of Scripture. What we perceive God to be doing, therefore, is determinative for our articulation of mission. One of the most insightful terms I have encountered in the conversation about mission is coined by Chris Wright in his Mission of God. It is “teleological monotheism,” which handily sums up a number of things at the core of mission. Most basically, mission is about a telos: a goal, purpose, or aim. Movement toward an end characterizes everything God does. He does not simply sustain to sustain, for example, but sustains purposefully. This is the Christian sense of reality that makes “missional” a hopeful framework for emerging God-talk. Also, the particularly Christian nature of mission is rooted in the narrative that assumes the only God, Yahweh of Israel, is the one working his agenda, calling and sending his people to bring it to fulfillment.

Like many, in the course of my theological formation it became evident that a latent Platonic dualism had shaped my assumptions about what God is doing, and having challenged that dualism, a whole new vista emerged that made much more sense experientially. If from a “biblical worldview” (how’s that for a metanarrative?!) it makes no sense to think in terms of salvation of the “soul” or “spirit” apart from the body, then God’s redemptive work must be understood holistically. What he is doing is saving the whole creation, including the whole person. God’s mission is holistic.

But there is more than one way to come at this, as I see it. On one hand, we may look at the ministry of Jesus as paradigmatic (“As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world” Jn 17.18) and thus understand the proclamation in word and deed (as well as the proleptic realization) of “the Kingdom of God” to be the definitive representation of God’s mission. On the other hand, a comprehensive biblical theology of salvation lays bare the variety of language (often metaphors) used to designate the multifaceted telos of God sometimes described blandly as salvation. This is seen in Paul alone, in fact, where ideas ranging from inclusion in the covenant people to forgiveness of guilt to relational reconciliation to resurrection into new creation are present, to name a few. Accordingly, as this realization has gained acceptance, a broad but representative phrase has become common currency in English: God is “setting things right.” Indeed, the Kingdom on earth as in the heavens is creation set right--the restoration of all things. This is truly biblical restoration; this is God’s mission.