Missional Literature Review - Part 4 - Commonly Held Reasons for Change: The Argument from Personal Revival

Argument from Personal Revival
Comprising much less space in the literature than contextual change and institutional crisis, personal revival of faith is nonetheless a starting point that has led some authors, scholars, and practitioners to call for a missional transformation of the church. Part of the reason this starting point takes up less space in the literature is that it is much more difficult to identify and often cannot readily be separated from the other three arguments of context, crisis, and hermeneutic. It is in the literature being produced by practitioners that personal faith is most often a major starting point (see Chan, 2008; Halter & Smay, 2008; McNeal, 2009). Chan’s (2008) anecdotal beginning to his book on real Christian living, Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God, is a perfect example of this starting point:

We all know something is wrong.
At first I thought it was just me. Then I stood before twenty thousand
Christian college students and asked, “How many of you have read the New
Testament and wondered if we in the church are missing it?” When almost every
hand went up, I felt comforted. At least I’m not crazy. (p. 19)

Chan and the students to whom he spoke have what Junkin (1996) calls “restless, lonely, hungry hearts” (p. 309) that realize something different needs to take place in their faith and their churches. The realization of the need and the long for something different are the catalysts for the changes that take place in the practitioner’s life or ministry.

Three missional themes found in the literature seem to be rooted in the author’s personal revival of faith, whether scholar or practitioner or both. These themes are eschatological hope, sacrifice and suffering, and social justice. Ma (2009) claims Christians need to recapture a “universal theology of hope” (p. 189) that points the church and the world to the future reign of God and prepares them for its coming. Laing (2009) also calls for a renewal of the eschatological perspective of hope, claiming its implication will be “missionary obedience” (p. 20) among believers.

As the church looks toward the eschaton, it is to sacrifice itself and offer itself up for suffering that it might be used in the redemptive purposes of God (Turnipseed, 1998; Waters, 2009). Instead of sacrificing, Turnipseed (1998) says Christians have too long allowed the poor, marginalized, and weak to be suffer and calls the church to “refuse to tolerate the sacrifice of others” (p. 532) any longer. If this call is to be heeded, the third theme, social justice, will also be realized.

Both in the church and in the world, people are exhibiting signs of increasing altruism, desire for personal growth, and hunger for spiritual vitality (McNeal, 2009). This increase is placing pressure on the church from all sides to become more missional in its nature and in its ministry. If the trend in the literature holds true, this will be a major theme in the literature, church, and world for at least the next few decades.