VULNERABLE MISSION

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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. 31
MISSIO DEI 4.1 (FEBRUARY 2013): 21–32 BIBLIOGRAPHY Bauer, Walter, Frederick W. Danker, William F. Arndt, and F. Wilbur Gingrich, eds. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. 3rd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001. Duffy, Stephen. The Dynamics of Grace: Perspectives in Theological Anthropology. New Theology Studies 3. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1993. Elliott, J. H. A Home for the Homeless: A Sociological Exegesis of 1 Peter, Its Situation and Strategy. Philadelphia, Fortress, 1981. Gehring, Roger. House Church and Mission: The Importance of Household Structures in Early Christianity. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2004. Hellerman, Joseph H. The Ancient Church as Family. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 2001. Hutson, Christopher. “Enough for What? Playacting Isaiah 53 in Luke 22:35–38.” Restoration Quarterly 55, no.1 (January 2013): 35–51. Jeremias, Joachim. New Testament Theology. New York: Scribners, 1971. Kenneson, Philip. “Visible Grace: The Church as God’s Embodied Presence.” In Grace Upon Grace: Essays in Honor of Thomas A. Langford, ed. Robert K. Johnston, L. Gregory Jones, and Jonathan R. Wilson, 169–79. Nashville: Abingdon, 1999. Lohfink, Gerhard. Jesus and Community: The Social Dimension of Christian Faith. Translated by John P. Galvin Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984. Sakenfeld, Katharine Doob, ed. New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. 5 vols. Nash- ville: Abingdon, 2006–2009. Sandnes, Karl Olav. A New Family: Conversion and Ecclesiology in the Early Church with Cross-Cultural Comparisons. Studien zur interkulturellen Geschichte des Christentums 91. Bern: Peter Lang, 1994. Snodgrass, Klyne. Ephesians. The NIV Application Commentary. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996. Stark, Rodney. Cities of God: The Real Story of How Christianity Became an Urban Movement and Conquered Rome. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2006. Ware, Timothy. The Orthodox Church: A Clear, Detailed Introduction to the Orthodox Church Written for the Non-Orthodox as Well as for Orthodox Chrisitans Who Wish to Know More about Their Own Tradition. New York: Penguin, 1993. Yoder, John Howard. Body Politics: Five Practices of the Christian Community before the Watching World. Nashville: Discipleship Resource, 1992. 32
Page 1 and 2: February 2013 VOLUME 4, ISSUE 1 VUL
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REFLECTIONS
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BOOK REVIEWS
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VULNERABLE MISSION

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