In developing a healthy missiology, I want to start where we typically start in local trainings, and that’s with trying to build some sort of understanding about God, about the Bible and the world around us. If we take the Bible specifically (and human experience a bit more broadly), we find ourselves caught up in the story of God. Specifically, we find ourselves caught up in the way that God is revealed in creation around us, the way God interacts with the world God created and ultimately, who God is at a somewhat fundamental level [1]. When considering the Bible specifically, we need to resist the urge to see it as our story specifically but rather a glimpse into who God is. This all matters because what we think about God matters so much. I can’t help but escape the words of A.W. Tozer here:
What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion, and man’s spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God. Worship is pure or base as the worshiper entertains high or low thoughts of God.For this reason the gravest question before the Church is always God Himself, and the most portentous fact about any man is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like.We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God. This is true not only of the individual Christian, but of the company of Christians that composes the Church. Always the most revealing thing about the Church is her idea of God. (From the opening of The Knowledge of the Holy)
Suffice it to say, if we get this wrong (our thoughts about God) our missiology, theology and practice will follow. The incorporation of colonialism, patriarchy, white supremacy and similar into our missiology and practice are just some examples of this in the world around us.
So lets look at God’s story in a bit more detail. What’s at the heart of it? I think a strong case can be made for God’s story being focused on God’s glory, and knowledge of it filling the earth like water fills the seas. Habbakuk 2:14, which I just quoted most of, is a fantastic vision verse for this.
So what is glory ? Steve Hawthorne describes it as “the relational beauty that every person’s heart yearns to behold and even to enter.” In Hebrew, it means weight or substance or brilliance or radiant beauty. These things, while descriptive and perhaps beautiful sentiments, don’t actually go far enough to tell us what it is. At least in practical settings if I give them as definitions, I am left with blank stares and questions. To be honest, I think this is because glory is quite an abstract concept.
The more time I have spent thinking on this, the more I think God’s glory is this brilliant, radiantly beautiful, tapestry woven into the span of history. Tapestries are large fabric wall hangings built by weaving different colored threads into different patterns and designs and I think this is what God is doing with God’s glory throughout history. The question, then, is: what are God’s threads that are woven into the tapestry of God’s glory?
Genesis 1 is the perfect place to start to build this tapestry woven throughout history. Genesis tells us the story of creation and we see crystal clear in it the first thread: The creativity of God visualized in creation. It’s the separating of the waters, speaking into darkness and creating light, its the establishment of the living things and all that we see. Said another way, it’s God’s creative work throughout history. The next thread we see in Genesis 1 develops from the first and is amazing to stop and consider: The image of God imprinted on every single person. We each carry something of God’s image with us everywhere we go and in everything we do. This enables us to, in some degree, actually become the drops of water filling the earth with God’s glory. It doesn’t stop here though. The next thread in this tapestry: The intimacy of God expressed in kingdom communities. We get echoes of it in the wider creation story of Genesis, with God seeing that it’s not good for the man to be alone and in God’s command to be fruitful. The importance of this thread is then established in the story of Israel and the establishment of the church. This then takes us squarely into the next thread in this tapestry: The movement of God working towards all of this throughout history. You could also calling this God’s sent and sending nature. We see it in Genesis 1 in the command not just to be fruitful but also to multiply. God’s mission-oriented nature is then well-established throughout the rest of God’s story.
Pulling it together then we have the glory of God, at least in part, as:
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The creativity of God visualized in creation.
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The image of God imprinted on every single person.
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The intimacy of God expressed in kingdom communities.
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The movement of God working towards all of this throughout history.
I like diagrams, and imagine things to look something like this:
The black straight line is the move of history from the garden of Genesis 1 to the city of revelation. These threads then weave around it forming a beautiful tapestry and patterns much grander than imagined here.
I want to add here, as culmination, that this is all ultimately for the establishment of a world reconciled to God, recognizing the worth and value of its creator, responding in worship. We start here in our missiology and build from that (which I will continue to attempt to do).
[1]: As a brief aside, I want to note that I am intentionally choosing not to use a pronoun in this post. As we consider healthy theological development, and reflection on what has been, the tendency to ascribe male pronouns to God has been one factor that has led to patriarchal theology that excludes women from their God-given callings. I will likely slip up and and say “he” periodically because that is what I have grown up with; what is important to note though is that both male and female are called, both male and female are created in God’s image and the feminine facet of God deserves just as much attention as the male facet.