Much work is being done these days to determine the shape of any future Canadian Lutheran Church. The committee on “Function and Form” is aptly named; for the function of the Church ought to give it the form that it takes. This article seeks to provide some input for this task; hopefully the start of much more input from other Christians in Canada

Janz, Marvin P.

English

Wilfrid Laurier University

ConsensusVolume 2 | Issue 2 Article 34-1-1976Mission: Model for a ChurchMarvin P. JanzFollow this and additional works at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensusThis Articles is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Consensus by anauthorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.Recommended CitationJanz, Marvin P. (1976) "Mission: Model for a Church," Consensus: Vol. 2 : Iss. 2 , Article 3.Available at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensus/vol2/iss2/3MISSION:MODEL FORA CHURCHMarvin P. JanzMuch work is being done these days to determine the shape of any futureCanadian Lutheran Church. The committee on “Function and Form” is aptlynamed; for the function of the Church ought to give it the form that it takes. Thisarticle seeks to provide some input for this task; hopefully the start of much moreinput from other Christians in Canada.ITS PURPOSE IS MISSIONThe idea of a mission-model as a model for a church-structure is not new tomost of us. In recent issues of Consensus, Herbert Zorn and Adrian Leske havemade much of this for any future organization that is formed in Canada. ^ Leskepoints out that “the New Testament gives no clear cut indication of one particularmodel which must be followed” and then goes on to state, ‘Two characteristicsstand out in Jesus" ministry and in the ministry to which he calls his followers.One is represented by the word “to send” {apostellein) and the other by the word“to serve” {diakoneiny?It would seem that right here we have as fine a model as we need. It is themodel of God’s gathered people, living out their life together by the dynamic ofgathering and scattering. Call it what you wish — intake, output, worship, witness,education, evangelism - these are the twin heart-beats of Christ’s Church. Youcan take anything and everything else away from the life of the Church, but not1. Herbert M. Zorn, "The Mission of the Church and Its Unity", Consensus (Vol. 1, No. 3, July, 1975),17-22. Adrian M. Leske, "New Testament Directions For Future Ministry", Consensus (Vol. 1, No. 1,Jan., 1975), 3-8.2. Ibid., pp. 3,4.17i8 Consensusthese two functions. Indeed, perhaps we ought to take everything else away! Thismission-model needs to be taken seriously in any shaping of a Canadian LutheranChurch.It has been said that much of what is wrong in the Church these days is that itis trying to be everything and ends up being nothing, serving everyone and servingno one. 2 Indeed there seems to be a plethora of things that the Church is doing,nationally and locally. The question is how much of its activity reflects what it issupposed to do.The question really is one of responsibility: what does God have in mind for HisChurch? God’s unfinished task is to win the world (Cf. II Corinthians 5:11-21). Hedoes not need a way to redeem it. That task has been done in His Son, JesusChrist. Jesus Christ is the way. But God still needs to win people. The Gospel isGod out winning and wooing (Cf. Luke 15; Romans 1:16, 17). It is the good newsthat God did not do what He had a right to do; that God loves sinners and wantsto have fellowship with them. It is the tender message which invites thewandering prodigal to come back home where he belongs - with His Father andwith his brothers.Those who have become God’s friends again, who have been reconciled to God,immediately become the carriers and agents of that reconciliation. What makesthe Church so unique and necessary is not that its people are forgiven. All humanbeings have been (Cf. II Corinthians 5:19, 15). The Church is made up of peoplewho have accepted this forgiveness. God intends to use them to bring Hisacceptance to others. This is the reason for the Church. Thus the Church ismission because it exists for the sake of the world! It does not exist for itself!That is why it should neither separate itself from the world so it cannot speak toit nor so identify itself with the world that it cannot challenge it. It is to penetrate,to rub itself in the stuff of life (salt), to permeate it (yeast), to illume and enlighten(light). That is mission. And that is why it is as mission that the Church must beevaluated.Having a “mission board” or an “evangelism committee” is not the answer. Infact, it may be part of the problem. Mission is not just one aspect of the Church oran “emphasis” in its program. Mission is its basic structure and design. If there issomething that does not contribute to mission it has no place there. If there issomething that ought to be done in mission, its business is to do so. The model ismission. The Church exists only because there are unredeemed, unreconciledpeople in the world — people for whom Christ died and rose again and for whomHe will come again.ITS STRATEGY IS MISSIONWhat this means is that we need to develop a strategy for any future churchform where the emphasis is not so much Canadian as it is mission. The strategy3. Gibson Winter, "The Suburban Captivity of the Churches". (New York: The Macmillan Company, C.1962), pp. 153ff.Mission: Model for a Church 19for mission has to do with people; specifically, the people gathered together inwhat we know as the local congregation.Contrary to what we have been hearing for over a decade, the localcongregation is not dead and done with, outmoded and irrelevant. Althoughmuch about the present form of the congregation is in drastic need of change, thelocal congregation (warts and all) is still the strategy for mission. This meansmore than new programmes. Mission is about people -- God’s people, people whoare gathered together, congregated at a particular place. And more people areministered to in the local congregation than in any other setting. It is still the onlysociological group that is able to be consistently brought together. Moreover, it isalready staffed with pastor and people, persons and place, faith and life. Moreimportant: the people who live around it expect it to be God’s service (thoughthey may wonder if it has anything to do with them). One simply cannot write-offthe local congregation.If there is a problem with the local congregation it is not that it lacks potential.Rather, it has lost its sense of mission. In many cases it has become an islandunto itself, devoted and dedicated to satisfying its own “religious” needs, a“religious ghetto” living for its own survival in a nasty, hostile world. Thisself-serving tendancy is satanically anti-mission. Jesus’ warning needs nocommentary at this point: “. . . whoever would save his life will lose it, whoeverloses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 16:25).To say that mission is the strategy of the Church means something much morethan just getting people to come to Church or to join the Church. Behind thisconcept of “mission” is the assumption, of course, that this will take care of allproblems. Nor is it a matter of a lot of hard work and everyone pitching in to builda big, influential Church-of-what’s-happening-now! The strategy is mission: Towitness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ so that persons will believe in Jesus Christand be in on God’s mission to the world, too! Much of what we call “missionwork” or “evangelism” is really not witnessing to unbelievers. It is gettingchurched-people to stop being unchurched-people. This is not to say that theconversion of church members is not a part of mission. It is saying that mission ismore than that.Realistically a mission strategy must be a lay strategy - a people-to-peoplething. For laymen (as distinct from clergy but not as inferior persons with inferiorpositions) are still the bridge over which the Gospel of Jesus Christ must passfrom sanctuary to society. The reason is simple. The laity live at the cutting edgeof the world - far more than the clergy. This is not said to bring the pastor down apeg. The pastor has a function that God has assigned to him and that is to be anequipper of God’s people “for the work of the ministry” (Cf. Ephesians 4:12-16).Ministry involves pastor and people; but it is the laymen who is the cutting edge!“It is through its lay membership that the Church enters into real and dailycontact with the workaday world and shares in its problems and aspirations. It isin the life and work of the lay membership that the church must manifest in theworld its regenerative and redemptive power.” 4The strategy of mission is one in which the people of God gather to scatter. It is4. Theodore Matson, "Edge of the Edge". (New York: Friendship Press, C. 1962), p. 139.20 Consensusthe diakonein-apostellein, the serving-sending ministry of Jesus about whichLeske speaks.^The cutting-edge is out there in the world. That is where the church ought tobe. But so often the church is formed in a way that makes it a sacred island in thebad, evil, secular world. The danger is that a national and local “church” createsa world apart from the world. The church ought to be a bee-hive in reverse with alot of going in and coming out; but the going in is to be strengthened to go out intothe world and be the cutting-edge. It often seems that the local church is runninga commuter service, shuttling people back and forth all right - but to get themout of the world rather than equip them for mission life in it. If mission is thestrategy of a new Canadian Lutheran Church it must be organized so thatlay-people are allowed and trained to be very much in the world in mission forChrist their Lord. We all know what Martin Luther had to say on that subject.Any approach that really gets down to the equipping of the saints for the workof ministry - mission - in the world will bring terrific (and sometimes terrifying)challenges. It will immediately demand that we lead God’s people to a point ofcommitment in which Jesus Christ becomes not just their own personalpossession but a possession they will share in their life, their love and theirspeech! The challenge to the pastors and the leaders of any new CanadianLutheran entity will be to create new methods of instruction, equipping andtraining and also new levels of Christian commitment, support and fellowship.That will involve no little agony and holy tension. For it will often mean acomplete upheaval in the conventional life-style and structure of the local congre-gation. With the blessings of the Lord of the Church, perhaps more and more lay-people will be allowed to be missionaries rather than clients or members(members - as in “club”).ITS STRUCTURE IS MISSIONIt should be made clear that there is nothing wrong with “institution”,“establishment” or “the system” perse, as many assert. After all, structures makepossible the constructive organization of our activities. Rather than focus onsystem, establishment or institution, the concern should be how to createcommunity.Some say that modern demands and pressures on people and the very rapidchange in our life-style make community all but impossible — even in the localcongregation. This may be so. But it does not explain why many see their“membership” in the local congregation as little more than coming when theyfeel they have needs to be taken care of and doing something for others only ifthey feel like it? In response, some have tried to create community by trying to“be all things to all men” with a full programme of social life, sports,entertainment, Bible hour, recreation, and things to do for all ages! But in this5. Leske, p. 4.Mission: Model for a Church 21kind of “traditional churchianity”, the local pastor spends much of his timeleading parochial organizations in non-religious local interests.Attempts have been made to get back into the New Testament form ofcommunity: Some have been successful; some not.*^ But the New Testament doesnot speak of community in institutional terms. It uses human analogies (Cf. ICorinthians 12). Paul calls the church “the Body of Christ!” Community ends upbeing mission, too, for in its very life together the church witnessed to its mission.The “church” was not an ornament. The character and life that marked it made aclear distinction between Christians and non-Christians. It made each person amissionary of Christ in a secular world.Perhaps one of the finest descriptions of community that is structured formission is given by George Webber.^ He looks to Philippians 3:20(“Conversation” in the KJV is a bad attempt to translate to politeuma:citizenship) and pictures the Church in terms of a colony. The point of reference isthe Roman colony which, he says, had three dimensions to it. The first dimensionwas the vertical one -- to Rome, to the fatherland, for supplies, guidance,resources, and colonists. The second dimension was circular — each colonist verymuch aware that he needed the other person for support, encouragement, love,help. The third dimension was the real reason they were a colony. This was thehorizontal one: they were in this foreign land to win the people for the king, theemperor.It is not hard to make the application to the church, the “colony of heaven”which St. Paul analogizes. The vertical dimension is our connection with ourKing: Word and Sacrament, the “Means of Grace” as we Lutherans call them.The circular dimension is our service {dialonia) to each other, our edification ofeach other in the faith and life of Christ. The horizontal dimension is witness{apostellein), the going-out to the world to win the world for the King of Kings. Allthree of these dimensions make up the mission community or structure in whichmembers actually are kept alive br Word and Sacrament and interact on eachother to strengthen the faith and go into the world for Christ, claiming what is Hisalready, what has been purchased by His blood.This is not idle dreaming. It is really the crux of the matter. If neither national orlocal “church” is structured for mission we should not be surprised if God’s“colony of heaven” becomes nothing more than another “club” which people joinbut which has little or nothing to do with God’s purpose or strategy for the world.How very sad it would be if we just repeat the same old forms based on the samefunctions, transferring a bone fide copy of the “Made in USA” Church to the6. For information see; Abbe Michonneau, "Revolution in a City Parish"; Ernest Southcott, The ParishComes Alive"; and Wallace E. Fisher, "From Tradition To Mission". There are many more but thesecould well serve as an introduction.7. George Webber, "God's Colony in Man's World". (New York: Abingdon Press, 1960), pp. 43ff.22 ConsensusCanadian scene without asking some questions anew. We have a chance to be apart of something new -- not perfect — New! Let’s take it! ®. . and no one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; for the patchtears away from the garment, and a worse tear is made. Neither is new wine putinto old wineskins; if it is, these skins burst, and the wine is spilled, and the skinsdestroyed; but new wine is put into fresh wineskins and so both are preserved.”(Matthew 9:16, 17)We need new wineskins!8. Be sure to re-read the "Theses on The Mission of the Church", Consensus (Vol. 1,No. 1,Jan., 1975),24. They are welt done and need to be studied along with the "Mission Affirmations" which cameout of the Detroit Convention of The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod in 1965.DISTINGUISHED EDUCATION IN ATWO-CAMPUS PROGRAM• 1 500 Royal Street • University of ReginaRegina, Sask. Regina, Sask.• Grades 8- 1 2 • Undergraduate Programs• Residence Accommodationin Arts & Sciencefor 1 30 • 216 Room Co-Ed ResidenceDEDICATED TO ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE

Mission: Model for a Church

Scholars Commons

Consensus
Volume 2 | Issue 2 Article 3
4-1-1976
Mission: Model for a Church
Marvin P. Janz
Follow this and additional works at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensus
This Articles is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Consensus by an
authorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.
Recommended Citation
Janz, Marvin P. (1976) "Mission: Model for a Church," Consensus: Vol. 2 : Iss. 2 , Article 3.
Available at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensus/vol2/iss2/3
MISSION:
MODEL FOR
A CHURCH
Marvin P. Janz
Much work is being done these days to determine the shape of any future
Canadian Lutheran Church. The committee on “Function and Form” is aptly
named; for the function of the Church ought to give it the form that it takes. This
article seeks to provide some input for this task; hopefully the start of much more
input from other Christians in Canada.
ITS PURPOSE IS MISSION
The idea of a mission-model as a model for a church-structure is not new to
most of us. In recent issues of Consensus, Herbert Zorn and Adrian Leske have
made much of this for any future organization that is formed in Canada. ^ Leske
points out that “the New Testament gives no clear cut indication of one particular
model which must be followed” and then goes on to state, ‘Two characteristics
stand out in Jesus" ministry and in the ministry to which he calls his followers.
One is represented by the word “to send” {apostellein) and the other by the word
“to serve” {diakoneiny
?
It would seem that right here we have as fine a model as we need. It is the
model of God’s gathered people, living out their life together by the dynamic of
gathering and scattering. Call it what you wish — intake, output, worship, witness,
education, evangelism - these are the twin heart-beats of Christ’s Church. You
can take anything and everything else away from the life of the Church, but not
1. Herbert M. Zorn, "The Mission of the Church and Its Unity", Consensus (Vol. 1, No. 3, July, 1975),
17-22. Adrian M. Leske, "New Testament Directions For Future Ministry", Consensus (Vol. 1, No. 1,
Jan., 1975), 3-8.
2. Ibid., pp. 3,4.
17
i8 Consensus
these two functions. Indeed, perhaps we ought to take everything else away! This
mission-model needs to be taken seriously in any shaping of a Canadian Lutheran
Church.
It has been said that much of what is wrong in the Church these days is that it
is trying to be everything and ends up being nothing, serving everyone and serving
no one. 2 Indeed there seems to be a plethora of things that the Church is doing,
nationally and locally. The question is how much of its activity reflects what it is
supposed to do.
The question really is one of responsibility: what does God have in mind for His
Church? God’s unfinished task is to win the world (Cf. II Corinthians 5:11-21). He
does not need a way to redeem it. That task has been done in His Son, Jesus
Christ. Jesus Christ is the way. But God still needs to win people. The Gospel is
God out winning and wooing (Cf. Luke 15; Romans 1:16, 17). It is the good news
that God did not do what He had a right to do; that God loves sinners and wants
to have fellowship with them. It is the tender message which invites the
wandering prodigal to come back home where he belongs - with His Father and
with his brothers.
Those who have become God’s friends again, who have been reconciled to God,
immediately become the carriers and agents of that reconciliation. What makes
the Church so unique and necessary is not that its people are forgiven. All human
beings have been (Cf. II Corinthians 5:19, 15). The Church is made up of people
who have accepted this forgiveness. God intends to use them to bring His
acceptance to others. This is the reason for the Church. Thus the Church is
mission because it exists for the sake of the world! It does not exist for itself!
That is why it should neither separate itself from the world so it cannot speak to
it nor so identify itself with the world that it cannot challenge it. It is to penetrate,
to rub itself in the stuff of life (salt), to permeate it (yeast), to illume and enlighten
(light). That is mission. And that is why it is as mission that the Church must be
evaluated.
Having a “mission board” or an “evangelism committee” is not the answer. In
fact, it may be part of the problem. Mission is not just one aspect of the Church or
an “emphasis” in its program. Mission is its basic structure and design. If there is
something that does not contribute to mission it has no place there. If there is
something that ought to be done in mission, its business is to do so. The model is
mission. The Church exists only because there are unredeemed, unreconciled
people in the world — people for whom Christ died and rose again and for whom
He will come again.
ITS STRATEGY IS MISSION
What this means is that we need to develop a strategy for any future church
form where the emphasis is not so much Canadian as it is mission. The strategy
3. Gibson Winter, "The Suburban Captivity of the Churches". (New York: The Macmillan Company, C.
1962), pp. 153ff.
Mission: Model for a Church 19
for mission has to do with people; specifically, the people gathered together in
what we know as the local congregation.
Contrary to what we have been hearing for over a decade, the local
congregation is not dead and done with, outmoded and irrelevant. Although
much about the present form of the congregation is in drastic need of change, the
local congregation (warts and all) is still the strategy for mission. This means
more than new programmes. Mission is about people -- God’s people, people who
are gathered together, congregated at a particular place. And more people are
ministered to in the local congregation than in any other setting. It is still the only
sociological group that is able to be consistently brought together. Moreover, it is
already staffed with pastor and people, persons and place, faith and life. More
important: the people who live around it expect it to be God’s service (though
they may wonder if it has anything to do with them). One simply cannot write-off
the local congregation.
If there is a problem with the local congregation it is not that it lacks potential.
Rather, it has lost its sense of mission. In many cases it has become an island
unto itself, devoted and dedicated to satisfying its own “religious” needs, a
“religious ghetto” living for its own survival in a nasty, hostile world. This
self-serving tendancy is satanically anti-mission. Jesus’ warning needs no
commentary at this point: “. . . whoever would save his life will lose it, whoever
loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 16:25).
To say that mission is the strategy of the Church means something much more
than just getting people to come to Church or to join the Church. Behind this
concept of “mission” is the assumption, of course, that this will take care of all
problems. Nor is it a matter of a lot of hard work and everyone pitching in to build
a big, influential Church-of-what’s-happening-now! The strategy is mission: To
witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ so that persons will believe in Jesus Christ
and be in on God’s mission to the world, too! Much of what we call “mission
work” or “evangelism” is really not witnessing to unbelievers. It is getting
churched-people to stop being unchurched-people. This is not to say that the
conversion of church members is not a part of mission. It is saying that mission is
more than that.
Realistically a mission strategy must be a lay strategy - a people-to-people
thing. For laymen (as distinct from clergy but not as inferior persons with inferior
positions) are still the bridge over which the Gospel of Jesus Christ must pass
from sanctuary to society. The reason is simple. The laity live at the cutting edge
of the world - far more than the clergy. This is not said to bring the pastor down a
peg. The pastor has a function that God has assigned to him and that is to be an
equipper of God’s people “for the work of the ministry” (Cf. Ephesians 4:12-16).
Ministry involves pastor and people; but it is the laymen who is the cutting edge!
“It is through its lay membership that the Church enters into real and daily
contact with the workaday world and shares in its problems and aspirations. It is
in the life and work of the lay membership that the church must manifest in the
world its regenerative and redemptive power.” 4
The strategy of mission is one in which the people of God gather to scatter. It is
4. Theodore Matson, "Edge of the Edge". (New York: Friendship Press, C. 1962), p. 139.
20 Consensus
the diakonein-apostellein, the serving-sending ministry of Jesus about which
Leske speaks.^
The cutting-edge is out there in the world. That is where the church ought to
be. But so often the church is formed in a way that makes it a sacred island in the
bad, evil, secular world. The danger is that a national and local “church” creates
a world apart from the world. The church ought to be a bee-hive in reverse with a
lot of going in and coming out; but the going in is to be strengthened to go out into
the world and be the cutting-edge. It often seems that the local church is running
a commuter service, shuttling people back and forth all right - but to get them
out of the world rather than equip them for mission life in it. If mission is the
strategy of a new Canadian Lutheran Church it must be organized so that
lay-people are allowed and trained to be very much in the world in mission for
Christ their Lord. We all know what Martin Luther had to say on that subject.
Any approach that really gets down to the equipping of the saints for the work
of ministry - mission - in the world will bring terrific (and sometimes terrifying)
challenges. It will immediately demand that we lead God’s people to a point of
commitment in which Jesus Christ becomes not just their own personal
possession but a possession they will share in their life, their love and their
speech! The challenge to the pastors and the leaders of any new Canadian
Lutheran entity will be to create new methods of instruction, equipping and
training and also new levels of Christian commitment, support and fellowship.
That will involve no little agony and holy tension. For it will often mean a
complete upheaval in the conventional life-style and structure of the local congre-
gation. With the blessings of the Lord of the Church, perhaps more and more lay-
people will be allowed to be missionaries rather than clients or members
(members - as in “club”).
ITS STRUCTURE IS MISSION
It should be made clear that there is nothing wrong with “institution”,
“establishment” or “the system” perse, as many assert. After all, structures make
possible the constructive organization of our activities. Rather than focus on
system, establishment or institution, the concern should be how to create
community.
Some say that modern demands and pressures on people and the very rapid
change in our life-style make community all but impossible — even in the local
congregation. This may be so. But it does not explain why many see their
“membership” in the local congregation as little more than coming when they
feel they have needs to be taken care of and doing something for others only if
they feel like it? In response, some have tried to create community by trying to
“be all things to all men” with a full programme of social life, sports,
entertainment, Bible hour, recreation, and things to do for all ages! But in this
5. Leske, p. 4.
Mission: Model for a Church 21
kind of “traditional churchianity”, the local pastor spends much of his time
leading parochial organizations in non-religious local interests.
Attempts have been made to get back into the New Testament form of
community: Some have been successful; some not.*^ But the New Testament does
not speak of community in institutional terms. It uses human analogies (Cf. I
Corinthians 12). Paul calls the church “the Body of Christ!” Community ends up
being mission, too, for in its very life together the church witnessed to its mission.
The “church” was not an ornament. The character and life that marked it made a
clear distinction between Christians and non-Christians. It made each person a
missionary of Christ in a secular world.
Perhaps one of the finest descriptions of community that is structured for
mission is given by George Webber.^ He looks to Philippians 3:20
(“Conversation” in the KJV is a bad attempt to translate to politeuma:
citizenship) and pictures the Church in terms of a colony. The point of reference is
the Roman colony which, he says, had three dimensions to it. The first dimension
was the vertical one -- to Rome, to the fatherland, for supplies, guidance,
resources, and colonists. The second dimension was circular — each colonist very
much aware that he needed the other person for support, encouragement, love,
help. The third dimension was the real reason they were a colony. This was the
horizontal one: they were in this foreign land to win the people for the king, the
emperor.
It is not hard to make the application to the church, the “colony of heaven”
which St. Paul analogizes. The vertical dimension is our connection with our
King: Word and Sacrament, the “Means of Grace” as we Lutherans call them.
The circular dimension is our service {dialonia) to each other, our edification of
each other in the faith and life of Christ. The horizontal dimension is witness
{apostellein), the going-out to the world to win the world for the King of Kings. All
three of these dimensions make up the mission community or structure in which
members actually are kept alive br Word and Sacrament and interact on each
other to strengthen the faith and go into the world for Christ, claiming what is His
already, what has been purchased by His blood.
This is not idle dreaming. It is really the crux of the matter. If neither national or
local “church” is structured for mission we should not be surprised if God’s
“colony of heaven” becomes nothing more than another “club” which people join
but which has little or nothing to do with God’s purpose or strategy for the world.
How very sad it would be if we just repeat the same old forms based on the same
functions, transferring a bone fide copy of the “Made in USA” Church to the
6. For information see; Abbe Michonneau, "Revolution in a City Parish"; Ernest Southcott, The Parish
Comes Alive"; and Wallace E. Fisher, "From Tradition To Mission". There are many more but these
could well serve as an introduction.
7. George Webber, "God's Colony in Man's World". (New York: Abingdon Press, 1960), pp. 43ff.
22 Consensus
Canadian scene without asking some questions anew. We have a chance to be a
part of something new -- not perfect — New! Let’s take it! ®
. . and no one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; for the patch
tears away from the garment, and a worse tear is made. Neither is new wine put
into old wineskins; if it is, these skins burst, and the wine is spilled, and the skins
destroyed; but new wine is put into fresh wineskins and so both are preserved.”
(Matthew 9:16, 17)
We need new wineskins!
8. Be sure to re-read the "Theses on The Mission of the Church", Consensus (Vol. 1
,
No. 1
,
Jan., 1975),
24. They are welt done and need to be studied along with the "Mission Affirmations" which came
out of the Detroit Convention of The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod in 1965.
DISTINGUISHED EDUCATION IN A
TWO-CAMPUS PROGRAM
• 1 500 Royal Street • University of Regina
Regina, Sask. Regina, Sask.
• Grades 8- 1 2 • Undergraduate Programs
• Residence Accommodation
in Arts & Science
for 1 30 • 216 Room Co-Ed Residence
DEDICATED TO ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE


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