Yoder and Missional Theology

John Howard Yoder, famed Anabaptist/Mennonite theologian and ethicist, on what is often today called “missional”:

Instead of asking, ‘What is God doing in the world?’ the church should ask, ‘How can we distinguish, in the midst of all the things that are going on in the world, where and how God is at work?’

From Royal Priesthood, an essay called “Christ, the Hope of the World,” p. 203.

He adds there a dimension that is sometimes missing in missional talk. Often enough the point is this “What is God doing in this place?” Once answered the person is to participate, cooperate, join in on what God is doing. But Yoder pushes against the notion that all is going on is what God is doing, and so he adds his characteristic emphasis on discernment, no doubt through the community (he often expresses it as binding and loosing), a discernment probing where God is active amidst all the activities of humans.

His cruciform theology leads him to see God at work in places many would ignore.