SPIRIT EMPOWERED MISSION:
Aligning the Church’s Mission with the Mission
of Jesus
By Arturo G. Azurdia III
Christian Focus. 240 pages. £9.99
ISBN 978 1 781 917 749
The author takes us in detail through the opening two chapters of Acts. What a great meal is set before us!
Starting slowly, I admit that the first couple of chapters took a bit of extra chewing where he describes churches which lose sight of their main mission. But as he got into the meat of the book, I began salivating. He handles the text thoroughly, evenly, brilliantly and practically. By so doing he thus faithfully reproduces the great emphases of the human, and the Divine, author. So here we find our Lord and Saviour exalted to the right hand of the Father, and sending the promised Holy Spirit. And here we see the Trinity ‘at work’ bringing to fruition in missional endeavour all that has been achieved by the sacrifice of the cross. Because he works from the biblical text, he doesn’t separate what it doesn’t; namely the work of the Son and the work of the Spirit, and the Spirit and his Word – as sometimes done in contemporary treatments of this subject.
Thrust out into mission
If Luke’s Gospel draws us into the central redemptive events which took place in Jerusalem, Acts shows the newly restored ‘Israel’ being thrust out in mission/proclamation to bring good news to the whole world in fulfilment of all that was anticipated.
He exhibits great theological sensitivity, dealing with lots of complex issues wisely. Gems abound about the ministry of the Spirit, the centrality of the mis-sional and proclamation impulse in church life, the nature of true conversion, and the importance of all believers being involved in speaking the good news to the lost. As the journey came to an end in Acts 2, I was exhilarated with what the Spirit of Christ does!
Churches which are Spirit-filled will demonstrate that ‘the community persistently learns, the community selflessly shares, the community joyfully eats, and the community intentionally prays… [and] The community divinely prospers.’(p.229) Lest you gloomily compare that with the actual Christians and church you know, he quotes Bonhoeffer’s terrific point: ‘Every human wish-dream that is injected into the Christian community is a hindrance to genuine community and must be banished if genuine community is to survive. He who loves his dream of community more than the [actual] Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter…’ (p.206)
Read with persistence and then inwardly digested, this will prove of huge nourishment to you and to your church. It should give you renewed energy to join in all the Spirit is still doing today.
