vineyard usa missiological assumptions

As the Vineyard movement in the United States has grown in its cross-cultural activity around the world, our missiology has developed as well. The following is the current expression of our key missiological assumptions rooted in our commitment to joining with God in His mission through the efforts of local churches.


Missio Dei
Missio Dei is the Latin term for the “sending of God” and refers to the work of God in the world. The mission of the church is inaugurated and sustained by the Missio Dei. We join with the activity of God in the world. This is the foundation of our missions activity around the world.

Contextualization
Contextualization is the process of making the Gospel and the church understandable, accessible, and relevant to another culture. This requires the delineation between the core, or kernel, that is essential and must be protected and the external form or husk which can be changed in different settings. We are committed to the contextualization of Vineyard values in each culture in which we work. This means that Vineyard churches must look different in different places while still maintaining our core values. We are committed to maintaining the tension between the Gospel and each culture including our own.

Cooperative International Structures
The development of “Theaters of Operation” was a strategy adapted by Bob Fulton in an effort to structure the Vineyard internationally. The idea was that each AVC would be assigned its own group of nations or “theater” in which they would work cross-culturally and also provide oversight to any others from the Vineyard working there. The AVC-USA was assigned Latin America and the AVC-Canada was given Asia as its theater (later some parts of Asia were assigned to the new AVC- New Zealand). This structure evolved into Community of Nations in 2002. In 2005 all structure beyond the individual AVCs was removed with everyone free to work everywhere and each AVC being responsible for the oversight of the efforts of its own churches. We are committed to working cooperatively with other churches and AVCs while still encouraging our churches to focus on following the leading of the Holy Spirit.

Dependency
Dependency exists when churches in another culture are not able to function on their own without assistance. The most common form of dependency is financial. While we recognize that some level of dependency is likely during the pioneering stage of church planting, we are committed to avoiding long-term dependency among our churches.

Development of Missions at God’s Pace
The concept of the spontaneous expansion of the church was initially articulated by Roland Allen. Allen was an Anglican missionary to China in the early 20th century. Frustrated by the overbearing structure of the missions work he observed in China, he argued for a renewed focus on the Holy Spirit, and for the necessity of removing organizational restraints and an overemphasis on professional clergy. These changes, he argued, would result in the church expanding spontaneously. This was a prominent concept in the early days of missions in the Vineyard. The idea seemed to be that if we would just get out of the way, then everything would expand on its own. We believe in the critical role of the Holy Spirit in missions and do not want to interfere in the rapid growth of the church where that is happening. Our situation is different than that experienced by Allen as we are not limited by a stifling structure. We are committed to building churches and developing leaders at whatever pace that God is moving and to releasing leaders and movements expeditiously but not prematurely.

Local Church Based Missions (LCBM)
We understand the local church to be pivotal to God’s plan for world evangelization and that this responsibility cannot be relegated to others. LCBM does not preclude the sending of missionaries, nor working with missions agencies where that is appropriate. The critical issue is that initiative, responsibility, and vision reside primarily with the local church and that each church’s efforts should be focused and strategic. We are committed to working cooperatively with other churches and partnerships.

Long-term Missionaries
God sending people from one culture to another to share the Gospel has been a part of His strategy from the beginning. We believe that God continues to call people to give their lives to incarnate the Gospel in another culture. Long-term missionaries are often critical in pioneering situations. We are committed to sending increasing numbers of quality people to live and minister in other cultures where the context determines that such a strategy is useful. The local church is the primary sender of missionaries and the primary place for identifying and developing new missionaries.

Mission Agencies
The advent of mission agencies is a relatively recent development within Christianity, developing as they did over the last two centuries. We are not opposed to working with mission agencies but are committed to the local church bearing the primary responsibility for directly participating in the Missio Dei by responding to the Holy Spirit’s call. We want to work with mission agencies where they support and add to the work of the local church.

Multiple Foci for Missions
Historically the early proponents of the Church Growth Movement embraced a focus on the “harvest,” calling for the church to direct its attention and resources on those areas where God was most visibly moving. Phil Strout brought needed balance for the Vineyard when he argued for the recognition of the validity of working in three spheres: unreached (e.g. the countries within the 10/40 window), lightly churched/evangelized (e.g. much of Europe) and harvest areas (e.g. portions of Latin America). In recent years we have seen a growing number of US Vineyard churches working among the unreached and we anticipate their number will continue to expand especially working within the 10/40 window.

Partnerships
Partnerships are groups of US churches who join their strengths to work in a nation or people group. Partnerships allow churches of all sizes to be meaningfully and effectively engaged in ministering cross-culturally. Churches working together are able to do what none of them could do alone. Partnerships are a key, but not the sole, strategy in our missions effort.

Short Term Missions
The sending of mission teams has been a very popular phenomenon in the last decade, as numerous churches have sent groups of Christians to other countries for short periods of time. In these other cultures, they have engaged in evangelistic efforts as well as training and ministry with the poor and needy. The sending of such teams can be a useful effort depending on the context but this is not the only legitimate strategy for sending people.

Team Leadership as a Preferred Style
In the early days of the Vineyard our primary our cross-cultural strategy was to identify “the guy.” We were expected to primarily function like “Barnabas” looking for a “Paul.” When “Paul” was found, the work was to be turned over to him and our work was accomplished. Today our focus is on developing multiple churches, watching a leadership team develop from among the pastors and then assisting them to identify a leader. We are committed to the expeditious release of indigenous leadership with proven calling and maturity.

Wholistic Mission
We understand that church planting is the primary aim of Vineyard’s mission vision. We are committed to the planting of churches that express the continuing ministry of Jesus in all its forms (evangelism, healing, reconciliation, ministry with the poor, economic development and the pursuit of social justice). All of these are vital parts of the Missio Dei and should be reflected in our missions efforts.