The Mission of a Disciple Community

The Theological Wisdom That Strides into the Church and the World

Thank God for His grace! In these last two years, He has been molding us to lead our beloved Seminary to be a place where teachers and students are constantly learning His wisdom and a community firmly rooted in theological wisdom.

A seminary that embodies theological wisdom must be inter-disciplinary. Theological wisdom must not only include insights gained from biblical studies, history, and theology but must also draw from ethics, religious education, worship, church music and the practice of missions. In fact, theological wisdom is practical theology that enables the disciple community to stride boldly into today’s church and the ever changing world.

Furthermore, a seminary intending to deepen its theological wisdom must be a disciple community in which its members practice cordial hospitality and live out faith, hope, and love. A disciple community which generously offers hospitality and becomes known for its faith, hope, and love will also be set apart to do Christian missions. In fact, theological wisdom must go beyond practical theology to stride into today’s church and the world, facing their challenges to serve in these challenging arenas.

In this issue of the Newsletter, let us consider the direction of missions in which HKBTS’s theological education is going to take.

Mission in the Old Testament

From biblical studies, we can see that our God is one who continues to call men and women, entrusting them with His mission. The one called by God will shoulder a bounden duty — the bounden duty that must always involve risk-taking. All those God calls to proclaim the Good News, the Gospel, must be ready to take risks as they proclaim God’s message to the world.

Preaching the good news, preaching the Gospel, began when God called Abraham and commissioned him to go to a new place. The Bible recognizes the commissioning of Abraham as a crucial moment for the beginning of mission. God calls Abraham to “go” into a world where new possibilities can unfold. Genesis 12: 4 records, “Abram left, as the Lord had told him. And Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five when he set out from Haran.” Such a commissioning reminds us of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, the Flood and the Tower of Babel. In the stories those who resisted God’s will were cursed. Even as God gave Abraham orders to “go to a new land,” and God promised to make him “a great nation,” “make your name great,” and “you will be a blessing.” Most importantly, Abraham was told, “All peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” (Ge 12: 3) Owing to God’s call to Abraham, not only his descendants but the entire world would no longer be cursed but instead be granted grace and blessings.

In the same way, God called Moses through the flames of a burning bush (Ex 3: 1-6). The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey ….” (Ex 3: 7-9) God sent Moses to Pharaoh and gave Moses the mission to bring the Israelites out of Egypt (Ex 3: 10). This arduous task was to become Moses’ great mission. Since Yahweh called him on this mission, Moses could count on God’s support. It was God’s will to challenge Pharaoh’s dictatorial authority, yet His plan could only be fulfilled through the participation and risk-taking courage of Moses. Therefore, God sent Moses to confront a powerful political and economic structure –– to confront a power which opposed humanity and one based on a dehumanizing political and economic structure.

Mission in the New Testament

In the New Testament, Jesus Christ called His disciples to a great mission (Mt 4: 19-20). They were called to leave their home town, their work and even their family responsibilities and to take up their cross and follow Him. Their mission was to make disciples of all nations. Their commission was composed of three elements: to go, to baptize and to teach (Mt 28: 19-20).

The mission discourse in Matthew 10: 5-15 deliberately links Jesus Christ’s own mission with that of his disciples. Here we see that Christ calls men to be “disciples,” whom He has chosen to “follow Him” as they set out on a new journey, a road of submission and the way leading to the cross. Christ Jesus goes on to command His twelve disciples, “As you go, preach this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven is near’ (Mt 10: 7). He gave them a concrete command: “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons” (Mt 10: 8) Those sick and dying, those having leprosy and those possessed by demons were all held in some kind of captivity. Captivity is any condition in which people are “dehumanized,” whether it be the result of physical, political or religious power. The disciples’ mission involves confronting any such dehumanized power. Therefore, mission consists of “making disciples”; making disciples equals mission and mission is to preach the gospel of the kingdom of heaven and to confront dehumanized power in all its forms.

The Contemporary Significance of Mission

The Christian mission is one that God issues from the Old Testament to the New Testament. To fulfill the Christian mission is not only to reach the world’s “unreached peoples” (foreign missions) and evangelize them but also to go to every corner of the world to proclaim the power of Christ Jesus. We are especially obligated to go to places where God’s intentions for creation are being violated. We are to preach and deliver the message of Jesus Christ’s alternative power, testifying to the will of God as experienced in the creation.

Such commissioning for mission is contradictory to the purposes of the unredeemed world. It is truly necessary for us to ask the question: What is, after all, the significance of the Christian mission in our contemporary lives?

In our contemporary lives, we see the growing expansion of powerful nations resulting from globalization, the hegemony of the transnational corporations and their exploitation of small, weak nations. We have all experienced the trans-cultural arrogance in the name of globalization and witnessed how some powerful cultures rule over weaker ones. We have seen some ethnic communities in conflict and at loggerheads with one another while the hatred of certain ethnic communities smashes or even annihilates parts of the human community.

In contemporary Hong Kong, we see how consumerism distorts life’s meaning, giving people an illusion of a world free from pain, emotional stress and trouble. Consumerism assumes a person can find security and happiness through excessive consumption. Advertisements promote many products, boasting that they offer happiness by projecting images of smiling faces with not a hint of worry. In such a world, people are promised freedom from pain, fear, poverty and all such negative things.

The free market economy encourages excessive consumerism while covering up unreasonable profit and corporate monopolies. This is because political power rests firmly in the hands of the super-wealthy and mega-corporations. The symbiotic relationship between politics and economics brings about further inequality and injustice. Those with excessive power use their power and influence to grab even more wealth and power.

The above represents a social system, an economic system and a political system established by dehumanized power. Unfortunately, these dehumanized social systems, economic and political powers consolidate their evil power by taking advantage of the legal system and then expect the public to respect without question a rule of law which has been compromised.

In so far as we can discern such dehumanized power which acts contrary to God’s will in creation, we can understand the main context about Christian missions and come to understand its inherent meaning. To go on a mission is to do what God has entrusted us to do to help people out of difficult situations and deliver them from all that enslaves them. This involves both the unreached people and those already converted by restoring them to the vivacious life intended in God’s creation. Therefore, to do evangelism in missions consists of multi-dimensional purposes. For example, we try to give a gentle warning to those “powerful” trans-national political-economic systems to care for the “small and weak” nationals. Moreover, in a world of diverse cultures, we teach people of different cultures to live together creatively as together we strive to build a peaceful society. Furthermore, as we struggle to discern God’s presence and power in a diversified but inharmonious world, we dare to take part in the transformation, deliverance and redemption initiated by God. In the course of history, God handed over His mission to Abraham, to Moses, especially to Jesus Christ, and now to us. Jesus Christ continues to call on his disciple community to preach the gospel so that all neighbors in our world will come under the reign of God’s kingdom.

The Disciple Community That Receives the Christian Mission

Here and now, HKBTS is a disciple community and we see clearly the will of God: God calls and sends us out to proclaim His will in this present age. It is His purpose that all the world’s people will be set free so that they can enter into God’s peaceable kingdom. Therefore, our disciple community must move with full confidence to experience God’s presence fully in the world and share God’s mission to the world. In the mean time, we also see that our mission to the world is to announce God’s reign with the full conviction that God can lead men forward into the future with hope and purpose. We, as a disciple community, must be filled with love, knowing full well that our present world, though glutted with sin, can indeed be transformed by God’s love. God loves this world. We must always remember that His love transcends human love as He demonstrated so clearly when He chose to offer the world His only Son. Finally, we must continually be renewed and filled with hope, as we anticipate the coming of His Kingdom. We must determine to resist the temptation to be disheartened in the face of a dismal world.

In an effort to deepen our disciple community’s mission, the Seminary has launched our Mission Dynamics Center. The launching of this Center marks the beginning of our concrete effort to deepen our disciple community’s mission. In the future when other research centers are established, may they too continue to broaden and deepen the Seminary’s mission. I earnestly pray that God will continue leading us to fulfill our mission. May we soar high on His wings of faith, hope, and love as we do our part in transforming this present age.

Dec 2011