The Church of Jesus Christ has lived and ministered in a variety of contexts since its birth in the first century. Each era of time has its own challenges and opportunities. People in all times and contexts have in common that they are born in sin and separated from God. And therefore all are in need of the salvation accomplished by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. However, each time has aspects that are particular to it such as: What is real? (their worldview); What is true? (their beliefs); What is good? (their values); What is done? (their behavior). We need to ask, “What are the implications of these realities for the Church’s ministry of the gospel in evangelizing, establishing, edifying and equipping?”

The pre-Christian Western world from Christ to Constantine (312 AD) is characterized as a time when Christians were in the minority and were counter to the prevailing culture. The Church did not have the favor of the state. In fact, Christianity was illegal. People were biblically illiterate. The culture was not informed or shaped by the Bible in any way. The believers were persecuted and some gave their lives as martyrs. The society was morally corrupt with no universally accepted absolutes. It was a time of religious pluralism and philosophical relativism. What were the implications of this context for the Church’s ministry of the gospel in evangelizing, establishing, edifying and equipping the people of this culture? The Church needed to proclaim the message of the gospel and articulate the unchanging truth of the scripture in the language of the people. It could not assume a familiarity with the Bible or a biblical worldview.

Communicating with a postmodern mind

Constantine’s reign as emperor of the Roman Empire began the transition that resulted in the Western world that we have come to know as Christendom. Brian Stone defines Christendom as “a framework for construing the relationship between church and state in which the two are fused together for the sake of governance in such a way that Christianity becomes a project of the state or an appendage to the state, subject to its violent ends” (Evangelism after Christendom, Grand Rapids, MI; Brazos Press, 2007. p.118). The Church enjoyed the favor and support of the state. Christianity was now legal and became the official religion in the late fourth century. Clergy were given special breaks and churches could now hold property. Stone states that “the Constantinian story is the story of the Church’s forgetting its journey and making itself at home in the world” (Ibid. p.116). This was also a time of accommodation for the Church resulting in the loss of the biblical narrative.

The Church of the Lutheran Brethren came into being in a Christendom world. As an awakening movement we evangelized people who, for the most part, had a basic knowledge of the Bible but lacked personal faith in Jesus Christ. Our ministry context was by and large that of nominalism. This had significant implications for the Church’s ministry of the gospel. A basic familiarity with the language and message of the Bible was assumed.

We are now seeing the decline of Christendom and this means that the Church will live and minister in a context much more like that of pre-Christendom than that of Christendom. Stone concludes that “the Church that once was at the center of Western Civilization and could presume for itself a privileged voice has increasingly found that center unraveling and itself in a sort of diaspora at the margins, though in a decentered and fragmented civilization, one might question the adequacy of the language of ‘center’ and ‘margins’ altogether” (Ibid. p.10). This means that our ministry context is and will be quite different from the time when our Church came in being in 1900. We can no longer assume the same things to be true about our ministry context as were true in 1900 or even in the 1960s. The biblical narrative is not the narrative that is shaping our world.

The forces of post-modernity are at work where knowledge is considered to be perspectival and meaning is constructed by the self. The culture is marked by moral and philosophical relativism and religious pluralism – believing that all beliefs are equally true and redemptive. In this context the Church faces the temptation to seek to preserve the Christendom world rather than engage in God’s mission of evangelism through the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

There is also evidence that the biblical narrative is no longer the shaping influence of the people of the Church. David R. Nienhuis who teaches at Seattle Pacific University reports of his students that, even though around 95 percent are Christians and half of them attend nondenominational evangelical churches, “only 32 percent were able to sequence four important events from the New Testament (Jesus was baptized; Peter denies Jesus; the Spirit descends at Pentecost; and John had a vision on the island of Patmos) in spite of the fact that a full 86 percent of them identified the Bible as their primary source for knowledge about God and Faith” (January/February 2010, “Modern Reformation.” p.11).

This seems to indicate that perhaps assumptions are being made in the ministry areas of establishing and edifying that no longer are true due to shifts in the culture. What are the implications of this new context for our ministry of the gospel in evangelizing, establishing, edifying and equipping? Evangelizing happens as the Church goes into the market place speaking the good news of who Jesus Christ is and what he has done through his living, dying, and rising for us. “Every day, in the temple and from house to house, they [the apostles] did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ” (Acts 5:42, ESV). “Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word” (Acts 8:4, ESV). “They returned to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel to many villages of the Samaritans” (Acts 8:25, ESV). Paul “reasoned in the synagogue… and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there” ... “preaching Jesus and the resurrection” (Acts 17:17-18, ESV).

Having been evangelized those who believe need to be established. “So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls. And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts 2:41-42, ESV). Paul speaks of being rooted. “Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving” (Colossians 2:6-7, ESV; see also Ephesians 3:17). The Church, in the pre-Constantinian and following ages, used what was called catechesis to root new believers in Christ. This can be instructive for the Church today.

Along with being rooted, the believers are to be edified, that is built up, growing in every way into Christ so that they are no longer “children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes” (Ephesians 4:12-16, ESV). As believers are “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone,” they will no longer be “strangers and aliens,” but “fellow citizens with the saints  and members of the household of God” (Ephesians 2:19-22, ESV).

The believers are prepared for living in the world and for serving the Lord in loving the neighbor by being equipped through the ministry of the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers (Ephesians 4:11-16).

The 21st century Church will be best prepared for living in the post-Christian world and for participating in God’s mission by returning to the scriptures and then going into all the world proclaiming the message of Jesus Christ and by living out this gospel in love to our neighbor.

The opening seminar during the CLB Convention in June 2010 by Dr. Eugene Boe.

Dr. Eugene Boe, Ph.D is Professor of Systematic and Historical Theology at Lutheran Brethren Seminary, Fergus Falls, MN.