No Room for an Apostolic Imagination?

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For decades, an outcry from some church leaders has been: “Those missionaries are only concerned about evangelism! They do not care about maturity and healthy churches. Too much talk about movements.”

They are thinking and acting like evangelists without a concern for sanctification.

Get converts, they say, and leave the rest to the Spirit.

I would agree there is a problem where such beliefs and practices may be found.

There are people who desire to “get ‘em saved” and move on to the next person.

There is no place for squishy ecclesiology in the Kingdom.

But what about church leaders who approach the unengaged and unreached with a pastoral imagination and pastoral methods of ministry?

Could it be they approach the unregenerate, and fields without foundations (Rom 15:20), with a methodology more conducive to areas where the church is established?

They have their critics, too.

They are thinking and acting like pastors and repeating variations on paternalism.

Get mature believers, they say, be more hands-on.

I would agree there is a problem where such beliefs and practices may be found.

There are people who hinder the rapid dissemination of the gospel in the name of “church health.”

However, there is no place for little gospel sowing in the Kingdom.

But an apostolic imagination should guide our theologies, strategies, and methods. Such embraces the first century view that both evangelism (1 Cor 9:16) and presenting everyone mature in Christ (Col 1:18) are divinely wed in the Kingdom economy. Movement and maturity (2 Thes 3:1) harmoniously exist. This is an imagination where new believers carry the gospel farther and faster than church planters (1 Thes 1:8) AND imitate their spiritual parents and the Lord (1 Thes 1:6).

But what if our imaginations will not allow for an apostolic imagination?

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Interested in learning more about the apostolic imagination? Several videos may be found at my YT channel or in my book Apostolic Imagination: Recovering a Biblical Vision for the Church’s Mission Today.