Pilgrims and Priests

Stefan Paas

Description

What does “missional” mean for small Christian communities in a deeply secular society? Leading missiologist Stefan Paas asks what missional spirituality could possibly mean for today’s local church. This fully revised new international edition will make this an important introduction to contemporary thinking on mission and the church.

Informations

• Publié par: Hymns Ancient & Modern
• Date de parution: 30 novembre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780334058793
• Langue: English

Extrait

© Stefan Paas 2019
Published in 2019 by SCM Press
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The Author has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the Author of this Work
S cripture quotations are from New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication data
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library
978-0-334-05877-9
Typeset by Manila Typesetting Company
Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd

Contents
Preface
Introduction
1 Mission in a Secular Nation
1.1 A Contested Idea
1.2 What Do We Mean by ‘Mission’?
1.3 In Search of an Intercultural Missiology
1.4 Evangelism as the Heart of Mission
1.5 The Receptivity of Christianity
1.6 Summary and Conclusion
2 An Always Elusive Majority
2.1 The Church as a Hospital and a Restaurant
2.2 An Ancient Pattern
2.3 Christendom as a Missionary Ideal
2.4 The Creation of a Christian Culture
2.5 Foolish and Weak
2.6 Summary and Conclusion
3 From Folk Church to Conquest
3.1 Folk Church
3.2 Countercultural Church
3.3 Church Growth Theory
3.4 Church as a Transforming Power in the World
3.5 Church Inside Out
3.6 Church as a Powerhouse
3.7 Towards Mission in the West
3.8 Summary and Conclusion
4 Uprooted and Dispersed
4.1 Exile
4.2 Trauma
4.3 Explanations and Interpretations
4.4 A Witnessing Faith
4.5 How to Keep Identity
4.6 Mission During the Exile?
4.7 Missiological Reflections
4.8 Summary and Conclusion
5 Scattered and Sent
5.1 Diaspora and Mission
5.2 Strangers in 1 Peter
5.3 The Church as a ‘Royal Priesthood’
5.4 Summary and Conclusion
6 All Together and Each One in Person
6.1 ‘Priesthood’ and ‘Priests’
6.2 Experiencing God in Community
6.3 Salvation and the Church
6.4 Mission and Community
6.5 Summary and Conclusion
7 The Priestly Church
7.1 Minority
7.2 Biblically Structured and Ecumenically Sensitive
7.3 Community
7.4 Mission
7.5 Doxology
7.6 Summary and Conclusion
Bibliography
Index of Scripture References
Index of Names

Preface
In 2014 I presented my inaugural lecture at the Theological University Kampen, the Netherlands. While preparing it I had noticed how the manuscript, surprisingly, began to expand to rather fearsome proportions. Intuitions and thoughts that had been sown during my teenage years and early career, and that had apparently ripened during my years in Amsterdam, began to surface at last, exceeding by far the limits of a 30-minute lecture. The usual response of an academic to such unexpected abundance of ideas is to write a book, and that I have done.
After finishing it I discovered that the book had also become the answer to a question reviewers had asked about my other books, such as Church Planting in the Secular West (2016), namely ‘What is your ecclesiology?’ Better theologians than me wondered how I could write about matters like evangelism, 1 the initiation of converts into the Church, 2 or about planting new churches in secular soil, 3 without ever having systematically addressed the Big Question itself. 4 It may be typical of my theological methodology that I tend to work bottom-up, inductively, starting from concrete missional and other practical challenges and working myself up towards the more systematic questions of what Church and mission are about. Also, as a missiologist I find myself unable to write about any theological question separate from concrete challenges and isolated from particular contexts. Anyway, this is the book that, at this stage of my thinking, is my best shot at something that could be called a nuclear missional ecclesiology. It leaves much to be worked out later (hopefully by others), and it is highly contextual – but for that I do not apologize. I hope, though, that it will inspire others to work out a more in-depth approach of what it means to be a missional Christian community in a post-Christian society – or in other societies, for that matter. After all, the best way to learn contextual theology is to see how it is done in contexts other than your own.
The original version of this book was written in Dutch. 5 Much to my delight the book was reviewed very positively, and between October 2015 and July 2018 it has been reprinted no less than eight times. Even more surprising (and touching, I may add) was its wide ecumenical reception. Upon publication of the book I was invited to give lectures by virtually every denomination in the Netherlands: Roman Catholic or Protestant, Reformed or Baptist, liberal or evangelical. Apparently, the reality described in this book appeals to many Christians of very different stripes. That the large sections of biblical theology it contains have found a sympathetic ear among so many different churches, encourages me a great deal. I only hope that this will also be the case in other countries, especially those of the secularizing West.
For this English edition the book has been adapted to an international audience by removing and adding examples. Some sections have been completely rewritten, while others have been slightly expanded. Literature references have been updated, and some discussions have been improved. It has always been my intention that this book would be a helpful tool for students of missiology and for pastors and other Christians who face the challenges of a post-Christian culture. Therefore, I have found it necessary for the book to contain chapters that introduce readers to current missiological views of Western culture, and to questions of theology and spirituality that affect Christian mission in a secular age.
In different stages of writing I have been greatly helped by friends and colleagues who have read the manuscript and commented on it. They are in alphabetical order: Koert van Bekkum (Professor of Old Testament Studies, Evangelical Theological Faculty, Heverlee, and Associate Professor of Old Testament Studies, Theological University Kampen); Eddy van der Borght (Professor of Systematic Theology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam); Joost van der Does de Willebois (retired attorney); Pieter Gorissen (missionary worker in Groningen, the Netherlands); Rob van Houwelingen (Professor of New Testament Studies, Theological University Kampen); Martin de Jong (police officer, pastor, staff worker at City to City Europe); Gerrit Noort (Professor of Missiology, Theological University Kampen, director of Netherlands Mission Council); Gert-Jan Roest (evangelist, theologian in residence at Protestant Church in the Netherlands, and lecturer in missiology, Theological University Kampen); Daniël de Rooij (pastor of the Protestant Church in Zwartebroek, the Netherlands); Hans Schaeffer (Professor of Practical Theology, Theological University Kampen); Sake Stoppels (Professor of Church Development, Christian University for Applied Sciences, Ede); Paul Visser (pastor of the Protestant Church in Amsterdam); and Rikko Voorberg (pastor in Amsterdam).
Stefan Paas
Professor of Missiology and Intercultural Theology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Professor of Missiology, Theological University Kampen
Research Associate of the Department of Religion Studies, Faculty of Theology, University of Pretoria
Notes
1 Paas, Jezus als Heer in een plat land. See also several chapters in Noort, Sharing Good News.
2 Paas, De werkers van het laatste uur.
3 Paas, Church Planting in the Secular West.
4 My closest attempt were some chapters in my Vrede stichten, but as this was a work of political theology it went largely unnoticed by missionary practitioners.
5 Paas, Vreemdelingen en priesters.

Introduction
All my life I have been involved in ‘missionary work’. 1 It started in my childhood. I remember that my father took me with him to a nearby village, when I had just entered primary school, to hand out evangelizing pamphlets. In the summer, when we stayed on a camping site, and after playing soccer, I sometimes had long conversations with other children about the Bible and faith. These things happened spontaneously; I loved being part of them. As a student I did children’s ministry, I witnessed on the streets, and with fellow students I joined in door-to-door actions to tell people about Jesus. Later I organized exploration courses for those interested in Christianity, I worked as a mission consultant for my denomination, promoted new methods of evangelism like the Emmaus Course, conducted seeker services, and moved to Amsterdam with my family to help with planting a new church. I wrote several books on being a missionary church and on evangelism. And now I teach missiology at two universities. Apparently, this is a deep-seated thing for me.
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