VULNERABLE MISSION

ECONOMY OF GRACE
missionaries must be prepared to receive the hospitality of those people, entering their
context with the vulnerable gifts of dependency and some degree of linguistic/cultural
competence.
Secondly, as the persons of peace understand and receive the gospel, they have, as a
matter of course, the stewardship of sharing the good news and calling forth the graces
of those within their own extended circle of influence. A new family of Jesus forms. In
this phase, concerns for linguistic and cultural competence are diminished, since this
competence within the household may normally be safely assumed. Similarly, questions
of economic disparity are mitigated by first-hand knowledge of the parties involved and
the growing philadelphia of the forming family.
Thirdly, as this nascent economy of grace begins to demonstrate the fruit of divine life
within their household, the news naturally spreads among their extended relational networks.
Here again, because the economy of grace has formed within the local culture
with local servant leadership, the message is inherently well contextualized.
While this outline is clearly an idealized description, it nevertheless recapitulates a message
and process that can be traced from the mission of Jesus through the pre-Easter
mission of the apostles and on through the expanding mission of the church in its early
centuries.
Against this backdrop, Vulnerable Mission clearly has an important, even vital role in the
ongoing task of bringing the gospel to unreached peoples. At the same time that role
must be seen as one dimension of the broader mission enterprise, which for the earliest
Christians was the outworking of the multifaceted wisdom of God in and through the
church. Apart from a clear self-understanding by the missionaries of their role as stewards
in the story of divine initiative, the graces of Vulnerable Mission may well lose their
value in service of the kingdom. Missionaries come in vulnerability and in strength; in
human weakness and divine power. In other words, the practices of Vulnerable Mission
find their great usefulness in the service of God’s in-breaking economy of grace, in the
formation of vibrant families of Jesus that display the multifaceted wisdom of God.
When that economy of grace is released in a new pocket of people through the faithful
stewardship of missionaries, we draw closer to God’s ultimate purpose in Jesus Christ.
That process, the early Christians believed, will see the consummation of God’s delight
when those of “every kinship, tongue, tribe, and people” gather for celebration with the
eternal family.
Dr. Kent Smith has taught in the Graduate School of Theology at Abilene Christian University since 1991. His teaching
and research focus has been in the area of spiritual nurture systems, especially as they relate to new expressions of
church. He directs ACU’s graduate internship in missional leadership and the Missionary Residency for North America
(MRNA) and has been a trainer for international mission teams over 20 years with ACU’s Halbert Institute for Missons.
Kent can be contacted at smithpk@acu.edu.
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