Abstract
Our mission’s paradigm must change! So argues J.D. Payne in Apostolic Imagination. The church has lost clarity in mission because she has veered off the path of apostolic church-planting into pastoral mode disciple-making. The solution is a return to the apostolic imagination, the motivating vision that dominated New Testament church planters.
Payne argues that such a correction will be impeded by several factors, including our missiological lexicon warped by modernity. Liberal and neo-orthodox theology and social-justice theories have influenced our theology and missiology to the point that missions is now a wide, meandering estuary instead of the powerfully flowing river it once was. To further complicate matters, well-meaning churches have drifted into a pastoral mindset that envisions all of the church’s mission in pastoral terms. Therefore, missionaries are essentially pastors who plant churches away from their home culture.
Apostolic Imagination is well-written. Payne first establishes the problem and a biblical foundation for apostolic (missionary) identity and function. Then, he describes the way forward. Payne leads the reader through aspects of missionary terminology—including an especially helpful section on identity—priority, function, location, strategy, and the place of Western legacy churches. The powerful effect of “pastoral hegemony” (p.37) waves its way through his case. Sending churches often expect their missionaries to plant churches much like theirs at home and for the missionary to function as a pastor, leading the local body and disciplining the new believers. This, warns Payne, is not how the apostles did it. The apostolic way was gospel witness, teaching the new believers to obey, planting churches, developing local elders, providing care—usually by letters and through emissaries—and missions partnership (pp.138-140).
At the heart of it lies identity and function. Are the two identities (pastor and missionary) and functions (pastoral and apostolic) so different? Payne says, “Yes!” and he makes a compelling argument that should be read and considered carefully by every missionary, every missionary-sending church, and every institution of missionary preparation.