May 13, 2025 by Angie Ward
The Whole Church for the Whole World

"We are all participants in God’s redemptive mission, wherever we find ourselves. The church is—again, we are—a missional people."

Reintegrating Identity, Unity, and Agility for Mission

By any measure, Christianity around the world is undergoing a dramatic transformation.

We can all probably recite the salient facts: Christian participation in the West is in decline, while the church is expanding in the global South and East. In western countries, trust in institutions in general and in religious leaders in particular are at all-time lows. The world is becoming increasingly and alarmingly polarized politically, and unequal economically.

In other words, there has perhaps never been more cause for concern—or a greater need for the hope and power of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Since the days of the early church, believers have joined forces to take that gospel to “Jersualem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Originally, these efforts took shape as “movements” such as Paul’s missionary bands, or loosely structured groups of Christians meeting the needs in front of them.

But over the course of two millennia, these forces became more and more organized—and ultimately institutionalized—in structure. From the centralization of Church authority from the third century onward, through the rise of denominations and the formation of hundreds of “voluntary societies” in British and American society during the First and Second Great Awakenings, to the mid-1900s surge in Christian nonprofits and the late-twentieth-century rise of megachurches, the common modus operundi (MO) to meet needs both locally and around the globe has been to form formal organizations.

While the work and impact of these organizations throughout history is indeed noble and noteworthy and cannot be discounted, I believe that our proclivity toward institutions—what I call a “structural” view of the church—has actually embedded some unintended but significant hindrances to our full flourishing and ministry. Specifically, the way we’ve been doing things has taken us away from our identity, unity, and agility as the body of Christ. If we are to meet the needs all around us and fulfill God’s desire for his church, we need to examine and reclaim all three.

Our proclivity toward institutions has actually embedded some unintended but significant hindrances to our full flourishing and ministry. It has taken us away from our identity, unity, and agility as the body of Christ. Share on X

Identity

I was born and baptized into the church. I grew up in the church. I have attended, served in, and led all sorts of expressions of church over decades of life and ministry. And yet for most of that time, I had no idea what the church is; that is, who it is, and what it’s supposed to be and do in God’s design. I soon realized that this is all too common among ministry leaders.

I say “it,” but in reality the church is a we: a living, active body. It’s not just a building we visit, an event we attend, or a group of people we hang out with. It is who we are: a collective identity. Church, and our belonging in it, is a state of being, not just a behavior. You and I are the church.

And the church has always been a people who are sent on mission: a mission to “serve, heal, and reconcile a divided, wounded humanity,” as renowned South African missiologist David Bosch has stated. This is a mission of all-encompassing redemption, rooted in the very nature of God as seen throughout scripture.

This ‘sentness’ is not limited to special Christians, or to particular organizations, or to certain parts of the world. We are all participants in God’s redemptive mission, wherever we find ourselves. The church is—again, we are—a missional people. And yet too often we have ignored or even abandoned this identity and responsibility.

Unity

While leaders of churches and Christian nonprofits (sometimes known as the “parachurch” sector) talk about being on the same team, most organizations function as what a fellow leader refers to tongue-in-cheek as individual “centers of excellence”—that is, silos. We’re not necessarily hostile toward one another, but we’re not working together, either.

Sometimes the lack of unity and collaboration is unintentional; after all, there are so many needs to be met, and we just get busy with the work to be done. Or our primary responsibility is to ensure the growth or success (or sometimes just the continued existence) of our organization. We may not have a clear sense of our identity as the church.

But often, the reality is that we operate in competition with one another—not in the sense that we’re trying to defeat everyone else, but in that we are vying for the same resources of people, time, money, loyalty, and market share. It can be seen between churches and nonprofits; between churches; between leaders; between nonprofits in the same sectors; and even within organizations. When we do talk about cooperation, we often talk about getting others to cooperate with us.

As Eugene Kim has said, we have “dismembered” the body of Christ into divisions: between church and parachurch, between denominations, even between segregated ministries within the local congregation. But if we are to be obedient to fulfilling Christ’s mission, we are going to have to work together as the body of Christ.

We are all participants in God’s redemptive mission, wherever we find ourselves. The church is—again, we are—a missional people. And yet too often we have ignored or even abandoned this identity and responsibility. Share on X

Agility

The early church was a movement. God’s people responded quickly and agilely to the spiritual and material needs both in local contexts and around the known world. The early church began to set up governance structures, but all of God’s people still had a role to play in the overall “sentness” on God’s mission. Within a few centuries, however, the formalization of clerical roles relegated many everyday believers to the sidelines. In addition, the “mobile” ministry of apostles, prophets, and evangelists began to fade in importance to the settled work of shepherds and teachers.

The rise of these paradigms and structures, which became increasingly more entrenched over the next two millennia, also increasingly restricted and constricted the movemental nature of the church. Even when new missional movements have arisen to provide greater flexibility, many have eventually taken on the encumbrances of organizational structures, which can become rigid over time.

Yet the dominant model throughout most of Christian history has viewed institutions as the primary means of ministry. While institutions can be powerful mechanisms for culture change and kingdom ministry, they can also serve as anchors: great at providing stability, but a hindrance when speed and agility are needed.

The Solution: A Functional Perspective

I believe that we need to move from our institutional, structural model of ministry to a functional framework, restoring the apostolic nature of the body of Christ for kingdom ministry as part of the missio Dei.

The structural model can be viewed as a collection of cylinders which represent all types of organizations, from a local congregation to a radio ministry to a global missions organization. Some of these organizations have bridges between one another, but there are still clear walls defined by theology or missional purpose.

Within and between these cylinders are individual Christians. Some reside in one cylinder, but many are not rooted anywhere, or they just wander from cylinder to cylinder. What is clear is that the cylinders or structures are the central and defining feature of this model.

A functional framework, by contrast, can be imagined as nodes on a network that covers the globe. This is the world of missional extensions in which the nodes represent individuals, local congregations, local nonprofits, organizations whose work reaches to the end of the world, and even Christian-owned businesses. In this model:

1. Every entity is aware of its role in God’s greater mission;
2. Every entity is connected to one another via the network; and
3. Every individual is connected to a local congregation.

The term “missional” reminds us of our ultimate purpose, while the word “extensions” reminds us that we are representatives of Christ and agents of God’s mission wherever we are. The interconnectedness represents a missional ecosystem. In a true ecosystem, a change in one part of the system impacts all of the other parts. Because of this, each missional extension works toward the full flourishing of the entire system.

This model also presents an even playing field for kingdom ministry. There is not one “center” or locus of control or power in the network. Believers around the globe impact their own Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, to their ends of the earth.

A missional extensions paradigm recognizes our identity as the many members of the body of Christ; it fosters unity as we recognize our shared mission even though we each have different roles to play; and it brings agility as resources can flow all along the network, and each extension, which individual or corporate, has particular areas of emphasis. As members of Christ’s body, let us commit toward working together for a renewed apostolic church, the whole church for the whole world.