I had though I knew what Paul meant in his instructions to husbands in Ephesians 5:25 when he tells them to love their wives like Christ loves the church, to lay down their lives. But as I read through The Nature of Love (thank you for that, it came at the perfect time!) I came to realize that I really didn’t know squat about the Ephesians passage, that my understanding was superficial.

It was then that I connected the instruction in Ephesians with Philippians 2:5-8. What a humbling passage this is. The God of the universe, the Creator of all that is, was, and will be gave up His rights as God in the ultimate act of love to come all the way to us. Risky? You bet! If God can humble himself like that and take that kind of risk, who am I not to?

Thomas,

That is a great blog entry. You are right on!! I may use some of your thoughts but if I do I will give you credit. My people would know I’m not that insightful anyway

Good post, Tom. Ever since I read John Sanders’ The God Who Risks I’m quite convinced about the truth of that statement. The interesting part of course is to wonder how far that concept actually goes, and to what extent God is responsible for creating a world with those incredible risks, that, as we have seen, include immense suffering. Apparently, He considered the risks worth taking.

The entire discussion in this area still haunts me.

God is on a mission for sure, but more importantly, God IS mission.

Great post and very helpful! 

I have been doing some work on the Missional Church, especially regarding the Gospel in our Culture Network (GOCN).  Interestingly one of the marks of a Missional church from an early book from GOCN, Treasure in Clay Jars, is one that is “Risk Taking as a Contrast Community” which makes this point exactly.  The reality is that it does take risk to love.  It also often means that many will not understand our decisions, will not agree or even fight against our decisions, but we must continue on this way of love.  It sounds a bit like holiness to me!

Thanks for the blog!

Peace, Brian

Tom,

This post has come at a very interesting time. I spent most of the day rewriting my chapter on “God’s trust.”  Much of what you say here could seamlessly be inserted into that chapter. When you say God is dependent and missional I say God partners and entrusts. Very harmonious notions.

It is really too bad that the term “co-dependent” has such negative connotations. What a powerful idea this is of our relationship with God and God’s with us.

I’d like to say “keep up the good posts” but can you save a few of the intriguing and insightful ideas for me? 

Curtis

I have invited a Mormon to read the Scripture before I preach this next Sunday. I may have taken a bigger risk than I should have based on the anger voiced so far. It seemed like a loving thing to do at the time, but I’m struggling today. The conversations I’ve had with this person has led me to fan the flame of faith rather than require an orthodoxy before inclusion. What do you think?

Bob,

I find myself often surprised by two contrasting experiences: 1) I’m surprised at how much I can agree with Mormon theology and 2) I’m surprised at how profoundly I sometimes disagree with Mormon theology.

I’m not sure I have much advice for your situation. But I do hope it can become a moment to push faithful Christians to reflect more deeply on our similarities and differences with others.  Perhaps such reflection—and engagement—can become a form of transformative love.

At least that’s my prayer.

I think I can speak for others who read this blog when I say we’d like to hear a report sometime on what you did and how things went…

Tom-
  Great topic and timely considering the advent of paradigm shifts in missiology.  I like your categories and find them helpful as they provide tools with which to understand the Divine mission.

The Missio Dei is a necessary topic and I was delighted to find that WTS would be dedicating the conference this coming year to the exposition of this theme across various disciplines.  An aspect of the missio dei that I find is often neglected, I suppose this is in part due to our hyper-evangelicalism as Nazarenes, is that this missio dei has already commenced, as your points above so aptly mention.  You highlight the “risk” of mission, of the mission of God to toward creation.  I fear that too many folks, body of believers, etc, feel that they have to contrive a mission and then get busy about ‘evangelizing’.  This approach misses the very biblical premise that God is already at work in the world.  God is already at mission to save the world and bring it to a place that is Christ shaped.  It is not our task to contrive the mission or to call up the publishing house and find a better way to expound the “Roman Road.”  It is simply our task to see, hear and notice where God is working in the world and join with God there.  God needs (is dependent) our participation, not our invention when it comes to mission. 
    The Book of Acts and the Jerusalem Council narrated therein is ample evidence of this.  The leaders of the Jerusalem Church, such as Peter, did not believe that God could be working among the goyim, the Gentiles.  Paul was there testifying that God was working there, among these people that heretofore we not part of Gods mission, and it was the Church’s task to join God there regardless of prior theological conceptions or limitations.  The council did succumb to Paul’s testimony (albeit with a few orthodox admonitions) and the remainder of the New Testament is a witness to what happens when the Church ceases dictating mission and decides it will join God in the risk God has already chiefly taken.  I find this incredibly liberating and helpful as we begin to renegotiate older paradigms of mission…and work toward more authentic ways to join with God in the freedom of creation as God is always already at work.

Intriguing post, Tom. There is a resonance between the kind of open theology that you espouse and African theology, of that I’m certain. I’m waiting to get Greg Boyd’s latest book, the one of Satan/demons, but having read his GOD AT WAR, I can see what direction he’s headed. Does open theology necessarily have to end up in that kind of cosmic “free for all”? As my son, John said to me- after taking the SNU class on open theology - he’s “not sure what to do with Boyd on all that.” Thoughts?

Tom, nicely done. As you know, I strongly affirm the missional kenosis you describe above. The increasingly urgent question for me is this: how do we do church differently if we’re convinced that you’re right?

I am working on a post for Patheos.com on the future of the church. It strikes me that the church does not need radically different beliefs—we don’t have to abandon the Trinity, for example, in order to speak to today’s world. But, clearly, we need to reconceive what it means to be church and how we practice differently as a result.

I’d like to see you do a blog series on how exactly kenotic Christians will begin to form new and vibrant kinds of churches.

—Philip

As I introduced the Mormon lady to read Scripture, there was applause from the crowd as well as much visiting with her afterwards. I was proud of the Jesus followers who welcomed someone with significantly different understandings than most of “us”. I’m glad I took the risk, and I hope our future dialog will draw her closer to Jesus

It seems if we take risk seriously we need a theology of failure. I don’t mean apparent failure that is eventually or in some unforeseen way providentially success. Often we don’t know what to say to the pastor of a small church where despite prayers, love, and faithful serice everything sours and goes wrong. Or the parent who loves his kids, does everything right, and yet watches his kids turn hateful, rebellious, and self destructive. Our usual explanations point to lessons learned, character built, the redemptive benefits of suffering, or the mystery of God’s sovereign wisdom. Real love means real risk and therefore real failures. I love singing “Victory in Jesus”, but the Church hasn’t given me the theology to sing sad songs by rivers of Babylon or Myrtle Point.