Part of the problem, as we’ve mentioned before, is that many Christians do not distinguish between the church as organization and the church as organism (to use Bavinck’s terminology). We tend to think that “church” is basically plural for Christians. But the church as an institution with ordained officers and a ministry of word and sacrament is not equivalent to the individual church members who scatter each week and fulfill their various callings and vocations

Greg and I would like to respond to Ed Stetzer’s thoughtful review of our book. It will be helpful to read his review along with our response. More importantly, we encourage you to read the book for yourself and not assume you have the book pegged apart from reading it.

When we first began to write What Is the Mission of the Church? Making Sense of Social Justice, Shalom, and the Great Commission (WTS), we figured it would kick up some dust. This question of what the church is sent into the world to accomplish is not only enormously complex, but it is also deeply felt. People have strong emotions about it, and rightly so. We’ve already taken time to address the “nagging questions” posed by our friend Trevin Wax. We know that others have posted reviews of the book (sometimes multi-part, often critical). Unfortunately, we can’t respond to every critique that may arise.

We think it is important, however, to post a substantive response to Ed Stetzer’s lengthy review in the latest issue of Themelios. Neither of us knows Stetzer well (though we have met him), but we’ve both read his materials and heard him speak over the years. We rejoice that we are on the same team, proclaiming the same gospel, loving the same Church. He is one of the good guys. [Editor’s note: the original URL (link) referenced is no longer valid, so the link has been removed.]

Areas of Agreement
We sincerely appreciate Stetzer’s encouragement about the careful exegetical work we tried to do throughout the book. We understand that he doesn’t agree with all our conclusions. But it’s our conviction that a careful look at particular texts is one of the things most grievously missing in this conversation about mission. Much of the conversation seems to float above exegesis, focusing on themes and trajectories of Scripture rather than the details of the actual text. So we are glad that Stetzer is affirming our call for more of that kind of work.

We also are glad that Stetzer perceived our heart for establishing a better footing for the church’s life in the world. Both of us love the church deeply. Like Stetzer, we’ve given our lives to vocational ministry, and we are glad to be engaged with him in this work. There’s a lot at stake in this conversation, and it’s good when brothers in Christ can engage in serious discussion about serious issues.

As a quick side-note, we also appreciate Stetzer’s commendation of our chapter on the Gospel. In particular, Stetzer cites the wide-angle/zoom lens we advocate in this book, and applauds the “development” that framework represents from Greg’s What Is the Gospel?One minor quibble though: Greg actually published those ideas in the Together for the Gospel book from 2008 (published 2009), and before that in a series of blog posts at 9Marks—a good year-and-a-half before What Is the Gospel? was published. In fact, though What Is the Gospel? focuses on the zoom lens, if you read it with the fuller picture in mind, you’ll see all those ideas underlying that book, too. Stetzer implies that there has been some development or refinement or improvement in our explanation of the gospel—but in fact, we aren’t saying anything here that we haven’t already laid out.

Responses
Besides that, there are a few other things in Stetzer’s review to which we wanted to respond as well. At times we disagree with his arguments. On other points we agree entirely and are not sure why Stetzer seems to think we don’t. And then, most importantly, we also wonder if Stetzer hasn’t missed the main problem we’re aiming at in the book.

Love and Good Deeds and the Mission of the Church
Stetzer’s main criticism of What Is the Mission of the Church? is his contention that we “underplay” the importance of good works. He says that we “equate ‘making disciples’ with evangelism,” and that we “do not adequately acknowledge the role of love and good deeds in commending the gospel to unbelievers.” Then he makes a strong case that making disciples includes teaching everything Jesus commanded, that the life of disciples will issue in good deeds, and that good deeds extol and commend the gospel.
Conversations about whether something is “underplayed” or not emphasized enough—or acknowledged but not acknowledged adequately—are difficult conversations to have. The fact is, we agree with most everything Stetzer says about how good deeds function in the Christian life and in the commendation of the gospel, and we say so repeatedly in the book.

For example, Stetzer says that we “underplay” the role of what he calls “secondary ministries” that are not immediately didactic and explicitly gospel-revealing. But we have an entire section in Chapter 9 explaining how such mercy ministries can function to show God’s love to the community and how they function to further the church’s pursuit of its mission (see also our responses here and here to Trevin’s nagging questions). In another place he says that we don’t “adequately acknowledge” the role of love and good deeds in commending the gospel to unbelievers, but that’s only after saying that we “acknowledge” in a whole section of the book that doing good works will help us win a hearing for the gospel among unbelievers.

We’re not trying to be pedantic here. But it’s not clear to us what might be the difference between acknowledging something and adequately acknowledging it. The fact is, we agree with Stetzer that good works play a confirming and extoling role with reference to the gospel. When Jesus says that the world should see our good deeds and glorify our Father in heaven (Matt. 5:16), or when Peter says we should watch our conduct so that the world may see our good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation (1 Peter 2:12), we understand the weight of what they are saying, and nothing we say should be understood as trying to avoid or de-emphasize this important biblical teaching.

Part of the problem, as we’ve mentioned before, is that many Christians do not distinguish between the church as organization and the church as organism (to use Bavinck’s terminology). We tend to think that “church” is basically plural for Christians. But the church as an institution with ordained officers and a ministry of word and sacrament is not equivalent to the individual church members who scatter each week and fulfill their various callings and vocations. Christians may work for fair housing or for better public schools, just as non-Christians may work for the exact same things, but the Church bears the unique responsibility to preach Christ and him crucified. As Michael Horton points out in a recent blog we highly recommend: “If we can distinguish between the church as organization (place) and the church as organism (people), rather than setting them in opposition, then we can avoid the dangers both of ecclesial mission creep and of ignoring our worldly callings.”

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