Church for Every Context. Michael Moynagh
to God . . .’ (Newbigin, 1953, p. 25).
The history of this movement has defined the church as we know it today, but nonetheless it remains a strange story. Neither the continuities nor the discontinuities should surprise us given what we have already observed about contextual churches in the New Testament. It was there that novelty and innovation mixed with traditional ways of doing things in a process that propelled the church for centuries to come. The unevenness of historical records does not allow us to recognize every aspect of the subsequent church expansion, but looking for missional, contextual, formational and ecclesial features makes the past come alive, as we shall see.
History may not be very good at telling us what to do, but it can stimulate thinking about new possibilities. It is tempting to read the past in order to justify the present or to mould the past into our own perspectives. To avoid this, the chapter will stress both familiarity and strangeness in the long history of new contextual communities. Given that the church is missionary at its heart, it is possible for modern Christians to see a family resemblance in the historic body of Christ, even as it sometimes confounds our expectations. We may then recognize ‘a whole immeasurable exchange of gifts, known and unknown’ by which we carry on the mission to which we have been called’ (Williams, 2005, pp. 25–7).
Recall from the last chapter that in the Book of Acts the mission to Antioch presented the early church with an unprecedented opportunity. The general contours of a new Christian community emerged as the apostles began to acquaint large numbers of non-Jewish people with the gospel. Meanwhile, the Jerusalem church provided leadership drawn from its rich heritage and venerable location. Together, the Jerusalem and Antioch communities comprised a ‘mixed economy’, existing and new churches in relationship with each other, with Antioch taking the lead in establishing a new mission frontier. The community of believers in Antioch, emerging among the Gentiles, was necessarily contextual and, as a result, the first church founders learned how to do things differently.
This is where our history of new Christian communities will begin. Naturally, we would like to know more about the first mission outpost of the church. How did it reach out? How did it settle into its new surroundings? How did it form people in the image of Christ and make disciples? And how did it imagine itself to be the body of Christ despite its emergent status?
Real presence in Antioch
We can learn a great deal about the new Antioch church from an ancient document known as the Didache – or ‘The Teaching of the Apostles’ – originating, some think, around the years ad 50–70. One of the remarkable actions of these Jewish Christians was intentionally to welcome Gentiles to table fellowship in a house-church setting. This was unheard of in the Mediterranean world, where food and meal-sharing were used to draw strict lines of separation not only between Jews and non-Jews, but between the various class and ethnic divisions in Graeco-Roman society. For Jews, especially, a meal with a Gentile would have been a contaminating experience!
Instead, the Antiochene Christians overcame their fears and prejudices in order to provide hospitality to the strangers in their midst. While ensuring that the food they ate had no connections with idolatry, they sat at table with individuals who had never been circumcised and ‘with the people who are righteous and humbled’ (Didache 3.9).1 Once the Jerusalem Council gave its authorization, they did what Jesus had often done himself. Quite scandalously, he had associated with some of the most marginal and, yes, sinful of people, going so far as to actually dine with them, whether in their homes or in banquet halls.
The Antiochenes knew that sharing a domestic meal with their Gentile neighbours was a personal way of expressing what life was like in the kingdom of God. For their part, the guests would have experienced a family-like atmosphere, with new brothers and sisters in a loving, caring fellowship – perhaps compensating for the loss of family that some had suffered as a result of their conversion from pagan religions.
The Didache shows us what it was like to enter into this new way of life. It began with instruction and mentoring in preparation for baptism. That may come as a surprise if we imagine instruction in the modern sense of classroom lectures or book study. Rather this was a time of learning through participation in the daily and weekly patterns of house church life. The apprenticeship terminology of a master-trainer (such as the use of didaskein as the verb form for training), the second-person singular address (such as ‘my child’) and the overall sequence of formative events indicate that an intimate context of one-to-one mentoring preceded wider fellowship in Agape meals. In these varied contexts, deep spiritual bonds developed as the newcomers became more fully acquainted with the community (Milavec, 2003, pp. 48–9).
It was often the case in the early house church that the Eucharist was celebrated within the context of the Agape meals. We might imagine what it would have been like to have reached the point where the newly baptized were invited to partake of the consecrated bread and wine – with the ‘real presence’ of the Lord modelled in the fellowship of believers. This was a radically new way to practise the presence of God; nothing quite like this had ever been recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures.2
It was an act of hospitality that communicated who Jesus was and what his mission was about at many different levels. There was a sense of gradual initiation in the life of the Didache community – a progression of stages and events that led each person into ever deeper and more meaningful experiences of life with God and God’s people.3 One would learn, fairly quickly, that this life was a matter of continued growth in radically new directions, especially in love and trust toward God and neighbour, and in understanding what life was about and where it was headed according to the mission of God. At each point, basic human needs were addressed – the need to eat and drink, most obviously, but also the need for friendship and community.
Here an individual learned the importance of serving others, especially in the preparation of meals and other aspects of hospitality. Each meal that was shared would have been a major communal undertaking, requiring leadership and coordination by deacons/deaconesses. Resources would have to be gathered from members throughout the church membership (not just from the wealthy patrons) and put to the best use.
The community also had to practise family love, doing what families do at meal time in a domestic setting. Among the instructions given to each member of the community was that they would ‘not turn away from anyone in need but share everything . . . holding back nothing as just your individual property’ (Didache 4.8). To enter into the atmosphere of this family would have been a profound experience of sharing, acceptance, and participation.
There was also a sense of God’s unfolding mission here – what some might call a realized eschatology – a sense of what life is like in God’s kingdom: the gathering of such a mixed assembly, especially at a common table, defied social norms and overcame shameful status, signalling a new way of being together not unlike that anticipated in the eternal banquet with Jesus. In this way, the Didache says, ‘may your church be gathered together into your kingdom from the very ends of the earth’ (9.4).
How had this vibrant community come about? What enabled the early Christians to adjust so quickly to a new culture, a new people? Perhaps the scattered quotations from the prophets that we see in the Book of Acts – the first history book of the church – provide a clue. The newly born church in Antioch was convinced that it was part of an age-old story that was now being fulfilled in a rather strange and marvellous way. It may have heard about the apostle Peter’s startling declaration on Solomon’s Porch: ‘You are the descendants of the prophets and of the covenant that God gave to your ancestors, saying to Abraham, “And in your descendants all the families of the earth shall be blessed”’ (Acts 3.25).4
Knowing the