Track 4: THEOLOGY, ECCLESIOLOGY & MISSIOLOGY: The Church’s Missional
Reflection & Practice (Saturday morning)
The Mission-Language of the African American Baptist Church
Jamila Rauf Jackson (Doctoral student, St. Thomas University)
Abstract: This paper explores three South Florida African American Baptist Mega Churches in
light of their missional engagements. The three churches are engaged in distinct mission projects
in selected parts of Haiti. The three case studies display the different dialects of missions as it
pertains to the different methodologies and methods used in the churches. This is followed by a
discussion that correlates consistencies and themes in the data gathered, which depicts the
missional language of the African American Baptist Mega Churches. The mission-language of
the African American Baptist Church at large is influenced by distinct elements such as call and
response, social justice concerns, simultaneous concerns for individual and corporate salvation,
solidarity with the poor, and narratives from a rich history of brutal slavery and liberation. These
elements shape the mission-language or practice of African American Baptist Mega Churches in
South Florida. Not only do the elements shape the general style or language regarding missional
engagement, but it also offers critical insights to missional engagement across cultures and
denominations. African American Baptist Churches offer powerful approaches to short term
missions that will benefit missiological research and scholarship as well as church practice and
social transformation.
How Missional Language Gave Birth to an Emerging Missional Ecclesiology: A Case Study
of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa
Nelus Niemandt (Faculty of Theology, University of Pretoria)
Abstract: In this paper, the emerging missional ecclesiology of a denomination in South Africa,
the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC), will be explored. The point of departure is that language is a
powerful medium that constructs meaning in a given culture and context. The relation between
the emerging missional ecclesiology and missional language will be established in two
movements. The one movement will focus on the “language of church structures” and explore
polity decisions of synodical structures of the DRC. Official decisions, policy documents, and
vision statements represent a reflection on the dominant language - and thus imagination - of the
synods. This allows research into the role of these decisions in the creation of a new “language”.
The second movement will focus on the minister (pastor) as theologian and preacher, cultivating
the missional language and dream in such a way that the congregation buys into it and that it
becomes part and parcel of the identity and ministry of the congregation. This will build on
research done in a number of congregations that went through a process of missional
transformation.
Transmissional, Remissional, Omissional, Dismissional? Open Questions in Missional
Theology
Jonathan Seitz (Mission Co-Worker, Presbyterian Church USA / Taiwan Seminary)
Abstract: Missional Theology has developed and grown at a rapid clip alongside major changes
in mission. Initially, it grew from the types of concerns articulated by Newbigin and others, but it
has now entered the popular English ecclesiastical lexicon. Some major proponents of missional
theology (Guder) saw the term as reflecting the importation of a German distinction between
“missionary” and “sending.” Despite a fairly focused early development for the missional project,
even key advocates now see the project’s success as coming at the expense of its initial critique.
Open questions for missional theology are coherence and translatability. This essay sketches
possible directions for the development of missional theology. Chinese terms for mission
(xuanjiao, chuangjiao, shiming) are used as a foil to discuss the challenges in translating or using
languages of mission. Reflecting the conference theme, the paper seeks to treat missional
theology as a popular but troubled “language of mission.”
Pub Congregations, Coffee House Communities, Tall-Steeple Churches and Sacred Space:
The Missional Church Movement and Architecture
Allan Effa (Taylor Seminary)
Abstract: Popular missional church literature portrays the institutional church as a stale and
mostly unattractive entity focused on maintaining its programs and buildings and increasingly
unable to reach a secular society. Rather than reform or re-boot church in its present structure,
new missional communities need to be established in places where unchurched people are
comfortable gathering. This paper examines some of these assumptions in conversation with
some of the critics of the missional church literature. It calls for a renewed ecclesiology that
takes into account the rich historical heritage of the church and the role aesthetics and rituals play
in the formation of authentic missional communities.