a contextual missiology of the spirit - eTheses Repository ...

as ‘participation in the sending of the Son, in the missio Dei, with the inclusive
aim of establishing the lordship of Christ over the whole redeemed creation.’ 68
Due to the emergence of contextual theology there has been a modification and
expansion in the understanding of missio Dei. Nevertheless, as Pomerville
discusses in detail, it created a crisis in mission. Such a broad concept calls the
role of the church into question as church mission is trivialized and the primacy of
evangelism is eclipsed. He goes on to argue that ‘Pentecostals represent a source
for dispelling the confusion concerning the activity of God in the world of
mission,’ as they emphasize ‘God’s special mission, as mediated by the activity of
God the Holy Spirit through the agency of the church.’ 69 Therefore, a Pentecostal
pneumatological missiology can better serve the ‘pneumatological hiatus’ 70
created by the current mission crisis. While discussing mission as missio Dei,
Bosch notes that a wider understanding of mission can be expounded
pneumatologically rather than christologically. 71 Pneumatological missiology
understands that mission belongs to God the Holy Spirit. According to Lord, ‘it is
an experience of God the Holy Spirit that empowers and sends disciples out in
mission and pentecost is a prototype: a “baptism in the Spirit” that generates
mission.’ 72 If it is God’s mission, a pneumatological missiology means that it is
the mission of the Spirit of God. It is through experiences of the Spirit that God
68
Georg F. Vicedom, The Mission of God: An Introduction to a Theology of Mission, trans.
Gilbert A Thiele and Dennis Hilgendorf (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing, 1965), 5.
69
Pomerville, Third Force, 137-43.
70
Pomerville uses this term to explain that there is an underlying pneumatological hiatus in
conciliar theology. See Pomerville, Third Force, 141.
71
Bosch, Transforming Mission, 391. For more discussion, see pp.391-93.
72
Lord, Spirit-Shaped Mission, 37.
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