What is the DNA of a Baptist, really?

We Kiwi Baptists love to say that “mission is in our DNA”.

A quick Google tells me that DNA is “the fundamental and distinctive characteristics or qualities of someone or something, especially when regarded as unchangeable”. We’re essentially saying that mission is an unchangeable part of who we are and what we do… so unchangeable and integral, in fact, that it interacts with and affects every other part of our lives. When we say mission is in our DNA, we are acknowledging that mission is part of God’s unified agenda outworking itself in our lives. But if that’s true, what is it in unity with?

In the life of most of our churches, mission and worship are treated as sep­a­rate and dis­crete activ­i­ties.  The mission com­mit­tee over­sees the former while the worship team takes care of the latter. The pos­si­bil­ity that mission and worship might, or indeed should, be con­nected in sig­nif­i­cant ways is seldom given serious thought. Yet Scrip­ture endorses that these two ‘activ­i­ties’ are pow­er­fully linked at the very core of who we are.

We want to inves­ti­gate then how our DNA (mission) con­nects with our chief end (worship). Let’s break it down together.
God’s unified agenda is cre­ative, redemp­tive, eccle­si­o­log­i­cal, mis­si­o­log­i­cal and escha­to­log­i­cal. We were;

• created for a purpose,
• we have been redeemed for a purpose,
• the church was brought into being and exists for a purpose,
• all of which is linked to God’s mission,
• which will come to full fruition in the escha­ton when all cre­ation is renewed.

And we also know that in the escha­ton, as described in Rev­e­la­tion 7:9, the redeemed will be from every nation, tribe, people and lan­guage, and will gather before the throne to join in wor­ship­ping and glo­ri­fy­ing God for ever. Worship is the fuel of mission, and it is also the ulti­mate goal. If we are pre­pared to say that as Bap­tists, mission is in our DNA, then we need to know and own afresh this pow­er­ful and inte­gral rela­tion­ship. To do this, we need to firstly under­stand exactly what the def­i­n­i­tions of worship and mission are.

MISSION

Accord­ing to Christo­pher Wright, “mission” (sin­gu­lar) is the over­ar­ch­ing concept that encom­passes “all that God is doing in his great purpose for the whole of cre­ation and all that he calls us to do in coop­er­a­tion with that purpose”.^[1] This begins with the mis­sional motif of the Abra­hamic Covenant (Genesis 12:1–3) and is expanded upon in the Great Com­mis­sion (Matt 28:16–20). Defin­ing God’s mission is prac­ti­cally impos­si­ble, but can best be under­stood through the stories of Scrip­ture. We con­sis­tently see the fin­ger­prints of God and what God is doing through­out the Old and New Tes­ta­ment – mission is “a major key that unlocks the whole grand nar­ra­tive of the canon of Scrip­ture”.^[2] 

In con­trast to this, “mis­sions” (plural) relates to “the mul­ti­tude of activ­i­ties that God’s people can engage in, by means of which they par­tic­i­pate in God’s mission”.^[3] Mis­sions is, there­fore, a small part of Mission; spe­cific tasks or steps assigned to a person or people as part of the Missio Dei. As Wright empha­sises, it is not so much the case that God has a mission for the church as that God has a church for his mission. As such, our ‘mis­sions’ operate in con­tin­u­a­tion of the Abra­hamic Covenant: to share God’s bless­ings with the nations (Gen 12:1–3) which invites them into a vital wor­ship­ping rela­tion­ship with the one true living God. To this extent every­thing that con­sists of “con­scious par­tic­i­pa­tion” in the mission of God is con­sid­ered to be “mis­sional”.^[5]

WORSHIP

Let’s explore how worship is under­stood by a variety of scholars.

One under­stand­ing of worship is “the way that people glorify God”^[6]. Hawthorne posits that true worship reflects “genuine rela­tional inter­ac­tion with God” that takes place “when people recog­nise who God is” and respond accord­ingly by “offer­ing face-to-face grat­i­tude and day-to-day alle­giance”.^[7] Hawthorne claims that through­out Scrip­ture, we see that God is reveal­ing Godself in order to draw obe­di­ent worship, or glory, from the nations. In this sense, says Hawthorne, “the Bible is truly The Story of His Glory”.^[8]

In The End for Which God Created the World,^[18] Jonathan Edwards asserted that through­out scrip­ture the ulti­mate purpose to which all of God’s actions were directed was his glory.* Not sur­pris­ingly, we see the same empha­sis in the min­istry of Jesus.  Jesus sought the glory of his Father in all he did (John 7:18);  Jesus told us to do good works so that God will receive glory (Matt 5:16);  Jesus warned that not seeking God’s glory makes faith impos­si­ble (John 5:44);  Jesus said that he answers prayer so that God will be glo­ri­fied (John 14:13);  Jesus endured his final hours of suf­fer­ing for God’s glory (John 12:27–28);  Jesus receives us into fel­low­ship for the glory of God (Rom 15:7);  Jesus fills us with the fruits of right­eous­ness for God’s glory (Phil 1:9, 13);  Jesus is coming again for the glory of God (2 Thess 1:9–10);  Jesus’ ulti­mate aim for us is that we see and enjoy his glory (John 17:24).  Of equal sig­nif­i­cance is the fact that the min­istry of the Holy Spirit is directed towards glo­ri­fy­ing the Son (John 16:14).^[19]

Arzola defines worship as “the act of glo­ri­fy­ing God” and sees this as the ulti­mate purpose of the church.^[9]  Like­wise, Grenz asserts that the church in all its expres­sions “exists ulti­mately for the sake of the glory of the triune God”.^[10] Echoing the sen­ti­ments of the first para­graph of the Shorter West­min­ster Cat­e­chism, Grudem main­tains that worship is “a direct expres­sion of the ulti­mate purpose for living – to glorify God and fully enjoy him forever”.^[11] Piper describes worship as right affec­tion toward God in the heart (Matt 15:8–9) that is rooted in right thoughts about God in the mind (John 4:23) and that results in right actions that glorify God (Matt 5:16).^[12] Piper insists that “worship is essen­tially an inner stir­ring of the heart to trea­sure God above all the trea­sures of the world”.^[13]

We want to suggest that worship is an inner­most spir­i­tual under­stand­ing and trea­sur­ing of the char­ac­ter of God and is intended to be an all-of-life phe­nom­e­non. Worship rep­re­sents the central calling of the church and as such it should give focus and direc­tion to the whole of life.^[14] Achiev­ing a true under­stand­ing of worship must be given top pri­or­ity in the life of the church.

Many con­tem­po­rary instances of worship have a focus on an indi­vid­u­al­is­tic salvific focus, where we think a shift to a more the­o­log­i­cally informed theo-centric empha­sis on God and God’s glory is required. We want to suggest that this shift requires a relink­ing of mission and worship, a link that becomes so unbreak­able it reflects the struc­ture of our DNA.

GOD’S UNIFIED AGENDA

Our primary goal, as indi­vid­u­als and as the church, is to worship and glorify God.

The focus of God’s rela­tion­ship with humans and the rest of his cre­ation (God’s cre­ation agenda) was intended to reflect the rela­tion­ship of mutual worship that existed within the Godhead prior to the cre­ation. Because of sin and its ampli­fi­ca­tion leading up to the scat­ter­ing of the nations at the Tower of Babel, a way was needed to bring humans back into the rela­tion­ship that God intended for them (God’s redemp­tive agenda). As a first step in imple­ment­ing this strat­egy God selected out one man, Abram soon to become Abraham, and entered into a covenan­tal rela­tion­ship with him. In return for receiv­ing God’s bless­ings, Abraham and his descen­dants (phys­i­cal and then spir­i­tual by faith) were to become a bless­ing to all the fam­i­lies or nations of the earth (God’s mis­si­o­log­i­cal agenda). In com­pli­ance with this calling Israel was to be a living witness to God’s name among the nations as a con­trast­ing people and thus act as a cen­tripetal force that would attract them into a redemp­tive rela­tion­ship with God.  At times, however, Israel failed to live up to the respon­si­bil­i­ties of this calling and as a result they were dis­persed into the nations to bear witness to God’s name in exile, reflect­ing a cen­trifu­gal mis­sional force. By the end of the events of the Old Tes­ta­ment record, Israel had fallen short of this calling on both counts and so Jesus came to estab­lish a church that would pick up and con­tinue Israel’s mission mandate of being a bless­ing to the nations and bring­ing them into a vital rela­tion­ship with God (God’s eccle­si­o­log­i­cal agenda).^[20] Fol­low­ing Jesus’ death, res­ur­rec­tion and ascen­sion, the Holy Spirit was sent to aid the church in this mis­si­o­log­i­cal task. The cul­mi­na­tion of the Missio Dei, of course, will take place in the escha­ton when every nation, tribe, people using every lan­guage will worship the Lamb in the ulti­mate ful­fil­ment of this goal (God’s escha­to­log­i­cal agenda).

Thus, to use Christo­pher Wright’s phras­ing, mission means “invit­ing all the peoples of the earth to hear the music of God’s future and dance to it today”.^[21]

MISSION & WORSHIP

All of this points to a mission of God (Missio Dei) that is to draw all nations into rela­tion­ship with God and ulti­mately prepare them for involve­ment in the glo­ri­fi­ca­tion of God (Gloria Dei).

We should no longer see mission and worship as sep­a­rate and dis­crete activ­i­ties, but as inter­linked and inte­gral ele­ments of God’s ulti­mate purpose: God’s glorification.
As Marva Dawn says, “God’s rev­e­la­tion… unmasks our illu­sions about our­selves. It exposes our pride, our indi­vid­u­al­ism, our self-cen­tred­ness — in short, our sin. But worship also offers for­give­ness, healing, trans­for­ma­tion, moti­va­tion, and courage to work in the world for God’s justice and peace — in short, sal­va­tion in its largest sense.”

As Arotahi, we believe that God always intended that worship and mission be woven together like strands of DNA. That worship is the fuel and goal of our mis­sional activ­ity and the two are inte­grally con­nected. They are woven together at the very core of who God created us to be.

The outer strands (back­bones) of the DNA are shown as linked and tied together by the hor­i­zon­tal (base pair) strands. These hor­i­zon­tal strands are aspects of God’s char­ac­ter; ele­ments of God that we glorify in worship, and which shape and become our ways in mission. We are drawn to worship by God’s justice, mercy, humil­ity, com­pas­sion, ten­der­ness, hos­pi­tal­ity — just as we are sent to be mis­sional with justice, mercy, humil­ity, com­pas­sion, ten­der­ness, hos­pi­tal­ity and more.

At our very core we are drawn into worship of God as we expe­ri­ence God’s char­ac­ter, being trans­formed and sent into inten­tion­ally living out the mis­sional ways of God in the world.

In a number of weeks at National Hui, Arotahi will express some­thing of our worship of God that acknowl­edges and lifts the char­ac­ter of God in our hearts so it can be expressed in our mission with God. Our DNA has been intri­cately created by God, and as we draw deeper into worship of our Creator, God will begin to reveal more clearly our hand–carved place in the Missio Dei.

By Alan Jamieson & Kelly Stubbs

A next step:
A con­tem­po­rary group of musi­cians who write worship songs express­ing the Imago Dei speak­ing to the great anguish and long­ings of our times are Common Hymnal. Songs like The Kingdom is Yours (humble per­se­ver­ance in living the beat­i­tudes), Rose Petals (Black lives matter), Refugee (Gods heart for refugees and dis­placed people), He has time (church’s silence to sexual abuse), and God is not abusive (Jesus way of com­pas­sion and kind­ness) show the woven­ness and power of worship and mission expressed in the imago .

^[1] WRIGHT, The Mission of God’s People, p25

^[2] WRIGHT, The Mission of God, p17

^[3] ibid, p25

^[4] ibid, p23

^[5] ibid, p26.  Mis­sional is an adjec­tive denot­ing “some­thing that is related to or char­ac­terised by mission, or has the qual­i­ties, attrib­utes or dynam­ics of mission” (WRIGHT, The Mission of God, p24).  Michael Goheen asserts that to describe the church as mis­sional means that it par­tic­i­pates in God’s mission;  that it con­tin­ues the mission of Old Tes­ta­ment Israel;  that it con­tin­ues the kingdom mission of Jesus;  and that it con­tin­ues the witness of the early church (GOHEEN, A Light To The Nations, p191).

^[6] HAWTHORNE, Steven C, The Story of His Glory, in WINTER, Ralph D and HAWTHORNE, Steven C [eds], Per­spec­tives on the World Chris­t­ian Move­ment: A Reader, (Pasadena: William Carey Library, 1999);  ARZOLA, Fer­nando Jr, Explor­ing Worship: Catholic, Evan­gel­i­cal and Ortho­dox Per­spec­tives, (Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2011);  GRENZ, Stanley J, The­ol­ogy for the Com­mu­nity of God, (Grand Rapids: Eerd­mans, 2000);  GRUDEM, Wayne, Sys­tem­atic The­ol­ogy: An Intro­duc­tion to Bib­li­cal The­ol­ogy, (Grand Rapids: Eerd­mans, 1994);  GOHEEN, Michael, A Light to the Nations;  and PIPER, John, Let the Nations be Glad, Grand Rapids: Baker Aca­d­e­mic, 2010, 3^rd edition)

^[7] HAWTHORNE, The Story of His Glory, p36

^[8] ibid, p34.  Accord­ing to Hawthorne, God desires worship for two main reasons:  firstly, he is delighted by the sincere love that comes to him in true worship; and sec­ondly, by drawing people into true worship, God in turn is able to fully bestow his love upon them (HAWTHORNE, The Story of His Glory, p36).

^[9] ARZOLA, Explor­ing Worship, p1

^[10] GRENZ, The­ol­ogy for the Com­mu­nity of God, pp487-488

^[11] GRUDEM, Sys­tem­atic The­ol­ogy, pp1003-1004

^[12] PIPER, Let the Nations be Glad, p231

^[13] ibid, p231

^[14] GOHEEN, A Light to the Nations, p202

^[15] ARZOLA, Explor­ing Worship, p82

^[16] While the com­po­nents parts of a dox­o­log­i­cal view of mis­sions can be found in the writ­ings of a number of writers, this is the first time to our knowl­edge that the term per se has been explic­itly used in a pub­lished context.  See PIPER, John, God’s Passion for His Glory: Living the Vision of Jonathan Edwards, (Wheaton: Cross­ways, 1998);  WRIGHT, Christo­pher, The Mission of God;  WRIGHT, Christo­pher, The Mission of God’s People;  HAWTHORNE, Steven C, The Story of His Glory;  PIPER, John, Let the Nations be Glad;  GOHEEN, Michael, A Light to the Nations;  and BRAATEN, Carl E, The Mission of the Gospel to the Nations, in Dialog, 30, 1991, p127, among others.

^[17] See PIPER, Let the Nations be Glad, p228

^[18] Pub­lished in its entirety in PIPER, God’s Passion for His Glory

^[19] This listing of scrip­tures is extracted from PIPER, Let the Nations be Glad, pp41-46

^[20] In similar terms, Paul described his own min­istry as bring­ing about “the obe­di­ence of faith among all the nations for his name’s sake” (Rom 1:5).  This is what Paul had in mind when he talked of “priest­ing the gospel” in order that his offer­ing of the nations might be pleas­ing to God (Rom 15:15–17).

^[21] WRIGHT, The Mission of God, p234

^[22] PIPER, Let the Nations be Glad;  BRAATEN, The Mission of the Gospel to the Nations;  HAWTHORNE, The Story of His Glory;  WRIGHT, The Mission of God;  WRIGHT, The Mission of God’s People;  GOHEEN, A Light to the Nations.

^[23] PIPER, Let the Nations be Glad, p15

^[24] HAWTHORNE, The Story of His Glory, pp46-47