Neither can we lose sight of the fact that the ministry of the church "lives out of
Scripture." It is the "authoritative text for shaping both its understanding and its
practice of ministry."
authority and power, which is grounded in the Gospel of Christ revealed in
Scripture, will soon be lost."
contemporary authors. We should be encouraged that at the heart of this
"reinvention" is a fresh sense of mission, the apostolic kind of mission for our
time that places the church just where it should be, where Christ assumed it
would be---engaging a world that needs the gospel. We should be grateful to the
megachurch movement, whatever its future, for the role it has played in restoring
this missional perspective. Yet, in it all, the reinvented church will sustain its
evangelical integrity only as it is grows out of a biblical and Christological doctrine
of the church.
Neglected Territory?
Finally, in considering evangelicalism's boundaries in ministry, it is important to
ask if there is territory we have neglected. Are we at some points failing to be
fully evangelical in ministry by default? Wherever needs exist that have basic
theological implications, with spiritual consequences for people's lives, and where
answers can come only from understanding and applying Scriptural truth,
ministry is needed.
We could include here such areas as bioethics, environmental stewardship,
social justice, and of course others. Each of these represents concerns the
evangelical church is largely unequipped for in pastoral terms. We are aware
that many fine evangelical minds are at work in these arenas, but this has yet to
work its way into fully-formed pastoral ministry to the church. There isn't time to
develop this, except to briefly examine the first as an example, to see its
inescapably pastoral implications.
Stanley Hauerwas noted in 1986 an accelerating concern for medical ethics,
accounting for it in terms of the increased technological power of modern
medicine. Our ability to do what was once unimaginable has given rise to
concerns that we are not able to manage this power responsibly.
For Hauerwas medical ethics itself is a theological issue, and it is an issue which
evangelicals must more seriously address. Our technological developments, he
argues, merely reflect prior moral presuppositions about human life and how we
should care for and preserve it. Campbell reinforces this argument in suggesting
that "the answers to the conventional bioethics questions of 'who should decide?'
or 'what should we do?'...push back to fundamental issues that require an
account of the purpose of human life and destiny."