Paul Windsor on Mission

There's a substantial post on Paul Windsor's blog (the art of unpacking), called: mission: inspiration, concern, hope.

Paul takes up Harold Turner's three levels of mission and looks at them in turn, then follows these up with comments about the words in the heading. Here's a long quote from the first part of the post.

Level One focuses on the individual-personal, incorporating spoken evangelism with acts of compassionate service. Words and deeds by individuals.

Level Two focuses on the public-social world with communities as the centerpiece. The community we know as the church - the distinctive, alternative, and attractive people of God - building bridges and walking across them into the wider community. This is where home and workplace are honoured. This is where social and economic systems are challenged. This is where the Kingdom of God becomes visible.

Level Three focuses on the deeper-cultural world. If society is a tree, the concern here is for the roots. If society is a boat, the concern here is for the tide. Level Three recognises that it is the invisible which tends to be influential. It agrees with CS Lewis in asserting that "the critical ideas in society are not the ones being argued, but the ones being assumed." This is mission to worldview or, as Turner expressed it, this is "deep mission".

The whole post is worth a read...in fact, I've made a hardcopy for our office to chew over.