mission."
was a movement in the church acknowledging that ministry cannot be considered
truly Christian, let alone evangelical, unless it is rooted in orthodox theology. The
specific theological points made in that declaration included "a trinitarian faith; the
full deity and full humanity of Jesus Christ, including the exclusivity of Christ as
the way to God; the Bible as the only infallible rule of faith and practice for the
church; the gospel as the good news of salvation by grace alone; and a
commitment to the "Great Commission."
renewal, or reformation, that must occur if ministry is to be evangelical, must
work its way out in the church.
How the Methodology of Ministry Should Proceed
Oden offers direction in this task of planting the roots of ministry in the soil of
theology, by calling attention to the way in which the methodology of ministry
should proceed. He notes that since what we call pastoral theology is indeed
theology, it should proceed by the same method as any well-formed theology.
That means "utilizing the well-known...sources for understanding God's self-
disclosure in history: Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience," and, he
asserts, those sources all find their substance in the first, namely Scripture.
His point underscores, for us, two observations. First, central to our concern for
boundaries in evangelical ministry is the reality that we are too easily tempted to
derive our methodologies from sources other than those Oden has outlined. And
second, since the task of ministry and its methods is indeed rooted in Scripture,
there is reason to take seriously the growing fear that the evangelical church is in
some danger of losing the Bible at its heart. We will take note of these
observations as we move along.
Theological Contours of Evangelical Ministry: Defining Boundaries
Certainly every doctrine affects ministry. While remembering the necessity to
submit all of our ministry to all of the truth of Scripture, I'm going to focus on three
primary doctrines which must shape the contours of evangelical ministry. We've
identified these three, given the time limits, inasmuch as they provide a critical
background against which we can examine some of the contemporary concerns
about evangelical ministry. These three contours are Christology, bibliology, and
ecclesiology. In my part of the country there is a great interest in the extreme
sport of rock climbing. I've often watched in amazement those intrepid souls who
scale sheer faces of vertical rock. As they tenuously cling to that rock face, their
lives depend on secure ropes attached to steel implements known as pitons,
which are driven into the rock. We will consider these primary doctrines as
pitons which secure our ministry to the rock.