This is Part Three of a series of posts where I offer some thoughts on discipleship and mission using David Fitch’s framework of Seven Practices for the Church on Mission (IVF, 2018). This pocket version of his 2016 book Faithful Presence: Seven Disciplines, has provoked questions and responses I felt worth sharing. Fitch, a theological teacher and pastor in Chicago, notes that Jesus gave his disciples practices for opening themselves to his risen presence in our lives. “Presence is the way God works,” he says.
In response God’s people are called to “be present to his presence”, by which Fitch means to discern it and cooperate with it, living out the restored relationships of the Kingdom. God is faithfully present in our lives, and our response is to be faithfully present to him in the world.
The first and second of the seven missional practices were Table, and Reconciliation. The third chapter is about Proclaiming the Gospel, and here Fitch has a wide view of preaching as a conduit for people to experience Jesus’ presence in the world. Recovering this practice, he says, will enable us to regularly proclaim the gospel into each other’s lives. That gospel is at odds with the worldviews of contemporary culture, where values like vocational success, economic wealth, beautiful bodies, and even the performance of our children provide our identity. When these things do not work out for us, we desperately need the good news that Jesus is Lord. This is what Paul describes as "God’s powerful plan to rescue everyone who trusts him" (Rom 1: 16 Msg). Hearing this gospel, trusting in it and responding to it can enable us to live in a new reality, where faith is formed, our imagination is shaped, and our daily life is consecrated to God.
As Jesus confronted some of the people damaging our world, they executed him on a cross. But because he was raised, that cross became the turning point of history. In the Christian view, Jesus was God the Son. This means that when Jesus died on the cross, it was God himself absorbing the pain and violence of our evil rather than demanding retribution. As we turn away from sin and look to what happened in Jesus, we discover we can live with God in a relationship of love and intimacy which over time transforms us from self-centered lives to people reflecting the image of God.
This explanation utilises James Choung’s Big Story model which was developed for communicating with the unchurched. The gospel is the announcement that God has made the world right in Jesus Christ, who died for our sins, then rose to defeat sin’s effects including death itself. In Christ, old things have passed away and the new creation has begun (2 Cor 5: 17). That means the gospel is bigger than the individual salvation described in models like the Bridge. Personal forgiveness, healing and hope are certainly part of the gospel, but the Big Story announces a whole new society based around the presence of Jesus.
Writing about Christendom habits that keep congregations stuck, Fitch recalls how in the fourth century proclamation was formalised and professionalised to keep control of heresy. The gospel was now taught in the homily on Sunday mornings, and not so much in homes and neighbourhoods. It lost its power, he suggests, to shape a new world, because expository teaching alone cannot “fund the imagination” (Brueggemann) or resource mission. Fitch explains that Proclaiming/Preaching is a different kind of speech act than Teaching. In preaching, information is not conveyed nor is moral advice given; rather, its announcement of a new world is descriptive, like painting a picture. Proclaiming reveals an alternative account of reality, a world under Kingdom rule, and invites people to recognise and participate in it. And it elicits a response, such as that seen in in Acts 2 37, where people were cut to the heart, and asked “what shall we do?” Preaching enables us to encounter God’s faithful presence, and conversion is the result. Only then comes the Teaching role that makes sense of this new world and its meaning. God’s presence can transform our daily life, if we submit to his rule and participate in his community. The Big Story paradigm portrays this as world-changing.
How can I change the world? Jesus’ call to “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men” was a metaphor that to us can seem ill-fitting, but it has a broader sense than what it meant to the fisher disciples. A recent blog notes that Jesus wasn't establishing a job description for all future Christians. He didn't call Matthew the tax collector to be a fisher of men. Simon and Andrew (and James and John) came from a long line of fishing people, but Jesus saw in them the potential to become world-changers. Rather than theologizing - 'Follow me, and I'll use you to bring about God's reign here on earth, ' - he talked about what they knew and painted a picture of what God can do through them, a net filled with people. Dallas Willard wrote: 'Discipleship is the process of becoming who Jesus would be if he were you.' That’s good news that compels us to respond.
How does this play out in the three circles Fitch has introduced?
1. In the intimate circle of believers, proclamation means unfurling the Big Story every week so our minds are opened to God’s possibilities. We are invited to participate in the world where God is at work. And so we need to proclaim and to hear what God is doing in and among us. It must be contextual; the preacher must be aware of where the listener is coming from. And it must offer a chance to respond: Fitch’s congregation uses “sentence responses of confession, affirmation, praise, or a step of faith/obedience” (p 51).
2. Proclamation of the gospel must also happen in the dotted circle of neighbourhood. As we notice Christ’s presence, our good news cries out to be articulated. Fitch recalls that at his Friday table, “we sit round sharing our lives, exposing our sufferings and our joys, and a moment comes that begs for the gospel” to be announced or reiterated. There is no one set starting point; it’s contextual, like sharing a recipe or a fishing secret. Amidst strife, broken relationships, anxiety, guilt and shame, we realise we need the gospel. As Christ's faithful presence becomes a reality, onlookers catch a glimpse of the kingdom.
3. In the context of the half circle, Fitch recalls Luke 10 and the 72 missionaries who are to go into the villages and simply be present with people. They go into homes, as guests, without power, submitting themselves to the tikanga of the place. This presence precedes proclamation. It involves listening long enough for space to open up for proclaiming gospel in words that make sense. Fitch warns, however, about proclamation that devolves into social-justice rallies or self-improvement Ted talks. When we try to usher in the new world ourselves, we have separated proclaiming from presence, with others and with Christ.
We must recover the practice of presence in three circles and learn to proclaim the gospel into each other’s lives.
Consider: Discipleship is the process of “becoming who Jesus would be if he were you.' Write or draw a few prayer sentences about how this might play out in your life today.
For my sake and the gospel's, Go
And tell redemption's story.
His heralds answer, Be it so
And Thine, Lord, all the glory.
They preach His birth, His life, His cross,
The love of His atonement
For whom they count the world but loss
His Easter, His enthronement.
©Edward Bickersteth.
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