Notes from Todd Heistand:
The context of mission is the Trinity. The Father sends the Son and the Father and Son send the Spirit. F, S & HS send the church.
Congregations are sent rather than go. Go churches are detached from community and retreat when finished. Sent churches are in the world and part of its history. John 17.
Contextualisation is necessary.
Suburbia.
It is a post-war phenomenon of seeking a place of safety and security. The struggles are not about survival, but about other things: image, relationships.
Individualism and escapism leads to consumerism since in suburbia family units are not self sustaining.
Christian Response
Four areas:
Reject individualism
The gospel has been reduced to individual salvation.
Fishing is not done with a rod but with a net. The latter is communal.
Deconstruct comfort
Safety and comfort were not features of NT witness! Seeking these quashes risk-taking and therefore witness. Debt is a good indicator of a comfort mentality.
Confront Consumerism
Consumerism works against the gospel.
Consumerism is related to the acceptance of Darwinism and a materialist worldview.
This may have been unwittingly adopted by many Christians.
Christians are often not very distinctive in terms of debt and consumerism.
Pursue Justice
Suburbia makes it easy to ignore poverty and injustice.
What Now?
Be “loving disrupters of the sinful status quo rather than comfortable clubs of conformity”.
