Can The Church Fail?

A little while ago I posted a little about Helen Montgomery. {Read Here} I thought I would post a few more thoughts i had from reading the book I quoted. Helen’s book was a great resources. It provides a great overview of God’s Missio Dei in the world. She does a great job of recognizing important points in the scriptures and bringing them to our attention. Her thesis seems to be: The Bible, in both Old and New Testaments, is the primary textbook through which we can view and apply God’s missionary work in the whole world, through the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

In the book First we see the Bible as communicating the message of God to all people so that they might apply it to their own lives. Then Montgomery takes us on a whirlwind tour of the OT looking at ways in which we can view the missionary work of God in it. Out of these passages a theme of God’s calling people out to bless others. Thirdly she make it clear that Jesus revealed God as both transcendent and eminent. Jesus himself lived out the Missio Dei in his own context, then sends his followers into the World. She looks at how early church can be seen as a textbook on how to do missions, and highlights the ultimate hope of the Gospel to reach the world. I agreed with almost all of what Helen said but as the thesis developed throughout these two chapters, one question stuck out like a sliver in my mind. and I would like to explore that question a bit today.

Can the Church Fail?

There was one point in which she seems to compare the the church to Greece, Israel, and Rome. She seems to suggest that if the church doesn’t get their act together it will someday be removed from God’s missionary plans. If the Bible is God’s textbook could “the course” be taught outside of the context of the Church? To me these too things seem inexorably linked, but Montgomery seems to see it as just one expression of God’s plans among many.

It’s clear through the scriptures, as well as through the experiences of missionaries throughout the world, that God is working in cultures everywhere leading them in a variety of ways to God’s own self. Some have argued that this shows that the church is just one way, among many, to lead people into the life of God.

This is a category error.

The church is not one method in a sea of options to find God, but rather, the institution that was given to us by God in order to join us into his life through the Person of Jesus Christ.

To relegate the church to the same status as a nation or empire runs the risk of relegating Christ to the status of a temporal means to God instead of eternally begotten true light through who the earth finds it’s being, for it is the CHURCH that is his body on earth.

Montgomery takes us step by step through the Biblical story of God’s missionary work. She brings us to the culmination in Christ and the establishment of the Church.

Why then does she ask, “Will the Church fail?”

It seems to me she has a rather low view of the Church. Any thoughts?