It is a sobering reality that God the Spirit uses the church in mission and not the other way around. The church does not wield God the Spirit as its tool, to do with as it pleases. The church takes its mission plans directly from the Spirit (Acts 13). The church must be humbled by this knowing that we are not necessary for God to advance his mission. God has always been able to turn rocks into sons, graft wild olive branches into the natural, and return to the natural root as he pleases.
However, the normative pattern in the New Testament and in church history is that God uses the church to house, resource, and advance God’s mission. The New Testament authors assume that the family of God is participating in and carrying out the “Missio Ekklesia.” Dave and Autumn discuss the importance of an ecclesial theology of mission and two principles, the incarnational principle and the pilgrim principle, by which it must be carried out.
