Princeton’s Darrell Guder Calls for a Missional Reorientation

Darrell Guder, Dean of Academic Affairs and Henry Winters Luce Professor of Missional and Ecumenical Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, delivered the 2007 Payton Lectures May 2 and 3 on the topic “Walking Worthily: Missional Leadership after Christendom.”

Guder’s lectures centered on the concept that the Church needs to reclaim its missional heritage in order to fulfill its purpose as given by Christ. “Missional,” Guder explained, “is defined by the Church’s calling or sending for all the world, to all the world.” Guder maintained that during the long period of time when the Church represented a dominant power structure in the Western world, Christians gradually shifted their understanding of the Church from being an outwardly oriented gathering that launched mission to being an inwardly oriented gathering that maintained believers. In order to be effective in the world, Guder proposed that Christians recapture the outwardly oriented definition of the Church, which he presented as the Scriptural model. The mission of the Church, Guder said, is “not saving souls and collecting them into communities, but the formation of new witnessing communities.” The gathering of the Church, while still essential, is most valuable in terms of preparing its people to go out into the world and be active.

This recapturing of missional identity requires a new set of priorities for Christian leadership and for the training of Christian leaders, Guder claimed. These priorities include (1) emphasizing the power of the Word of God, including recognizing the New Testament mandate for the Church to be sent into the world; (2) understanding that leadership in spreading the gospel is relational and shared rather than hierarchical; and (3) recognizing the personal nature of each Christian’s call to share Christ in their daily life. Guder maintained that by embracing these priorities, the Church will both align itself more closely with the mission Jesus set for it, and offer a more relevant witness to the gospel in contemporary culture.

Guder, an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA), is widely recognized for his writing and teaching on the missional church, especially the theological implications of the paradigm shift to post-Christendom. He is author of The Continuing Conversion of the Church: Evangelization as the Heart of Ministry and editor of Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America.