We shall begin our first class in Developing the Missional Church tomorrow (Erskine Theological Seminary, Columbia, SC on the campus of First Presbyterian Church of Columbia, SC). Our focus in this first module is entering into a Biblical-theological vision for the mission of God in the world. We shall, thus, review nine features of the “Grand Narrative” of the mission of God that is revealed to us in the Ancient Church. Specifically, we shall find our instruction from God’s Word in the prophet Jonah and the revival at Nineveh. Then, we shall seek out those nine identifying features of the Grand Narrative in the New Testament as we have a time of discussion and interaction. Before lunch break you will be given your “research questions.” These questions will require you to organize as a research group, investigate the question, supply a proposition and an argument, framing it all in a creative way that will be presented at the conclusion of the day. Tomorrow’s questions will deal with Miroslav Volf and strategies for proclaiming the Gospel in the public square, as well as an investigation into the Postmodernist, Michel Foucault (1926-1984), and his influence on contemporary thought.
I look forward to our inaugural class and being with you. Let us pray that our time together will, in some small way, be used of God to advance His Gospel in our generation so that we realize that vision of John Milton in Paradise Regained,
I who e’re while the happy Garden sung,
By one mans disobedience lost, now sing
Recover’d Paradise to all mankind,
By one mans firm obedience fully tri’d
Through all temptation, and the Tempter foil’d [ 5 ]
In all his wiles, defeated and repuls’t,
And Eden rais’din the wast Wilderness.
Milton, John. “Paradise Regain’d.” Paradise Regained at Dartmouth College. Accessed June 24, 2016. http://www.dartmouth.edu/~milton/reading_room/pr/book_1/text.shtml.
The public is invited.