Talk Outline to Private group (Salesians of Don Bosco, Cambodia); Bosch's Transforming Missions with Catholic perspectives commonalities

1. “Transforming Mission”: Lessons Learned
Reference: Bosch, David. Transforming Mission:Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission. American Society of Missiology Series.
Paperback edition – 2011
Paradigms of Mission
1. The Beginnings: New Testament from the Apostles to Paul & Early Church
2. Eastern Church (Greek) – provided “faith over reason” theology: dogma, doxology and
liturgy worldwide- witness through worship (Jn 3:16)
3. Roman Catholic Church (from Medieval to Modern) – Augustine “City of God” personal
salvation; heretics punished (Lk 14:23)
4. Protestant Reformation – cuius regio eius religio principle; conflicting views on “Great
Commission” (Mt.28:16-20)
5. Post Modern – creative tension (already but not yet)
‘The church is essentially missionary’ means ‘Mission is essentially ecclesial.’
o Vatican II: Lumen Gentium (1964)
o Ad Gentes (1965)
o Gaudium et Spes (1965)
o Evangelii Nuntiandi (1975)
o Redemptoris Missio (1990)
o Evangelii Gaudium (2013)
Emerging EcumenicalMissionaryParadigm
(Chapter 12: Post Modern – present)
1. Missionas Missio Dei
Mission is basically grounded in the mystery of the Blessed Trinity, in its processions and
missions, in God whose whole being is self-communication and self-giving. Mission is rather an
integral part of the eternal plan of God for the world. Mission is, therefore, first of all Missio Dei,
and so we are justified in calling mission God's very own work.
2. Missionas Mediating Salvation- Mission as Quest for Justice and Liberation
Mission is concerned with salvation. God wishes to free men from guilt and make them share in
his life. This means that when individuals turn away from sin and turn to God, these individuals
also enter into the family of God, the people of God. Since God's creative and saving will
cannot be separated, salvation is an integral salvation:it is both shalom and invitation to
participate in God's life. Just as the love of God embraces the whole man, so mission is always
concerned with the whole man. Promotio humana and the striving for justice and peace in the
world are not identical with mission but they are an integral part of it.
3. Missionas Common Witness - Mission as Church-with-Others
Mission is concerned with community. God created man for community and wills that the
scattered children of God become the people of God. Regardless of how Church is defined,
Christianity is not purely a matter of individuals who go their own way independently of one
another and, without the protection and support of the community, reach God. When
the Second Vatican Council speaks of Church it means first and foremost the community of the
faithful and its function for the salvation of the world. Bosch calls this event as: “rediscovery of
the local church.”
4. Missionas “God’s turning to the world”

2. There is no abstract mission that is simply superimposed on the world. Mission does not take
place in a vacuum. Mission is encounter between God and world, between the divine and the
human. Mission is a process of integration and realizes itself incarnationally. It is quite clear that
this cannot happen without tension and struggle. But neither are nature (or culture) and Gospel
irreconcilable opposites. The world originated in God and it is he who gave us the Gospel and who
wishes to sanctify the world.
For centuries the world outside the church was perceived as hostile. Bosch quotes Vatican II’s
Gaudium et Spes and calls it the breakthrough of Catholicism in respect of the relationship
between the church and the world. “The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men
of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the
griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ.”
5. Missionas Evangelism
Mission is mainly concerned with those who have not yet heard the Gospel, with those who are
still outside the visible people of God. Thus the expression reaching out is appropriate but not
only in a geographical sense.
Those who perform a herald's service, those who proclaim the news about God made man, those
who cooperate in the work of gathering the scattered children of God, are missionaries. Mission
does not mean crossing the seas but doing missionary work. Mission is a theological, not a
geographical concept.
6. Missionas Theology – Inculturation and Contextualization
From the Universal: Missio ad Gentes to the Asian: Missio Inter Gentes
The Asian Bishops recognise that cultural diversity and religious pluralism lie at the heart of
what it means to be Asian. To be truly Asian and at home in the Asian milieu, the Asian local
churches are called to embrace this cultural diversity and religious pluralism, not to get rid of it
but "celebrated and promoted". The traditional image of mission as sending out may not be
practical, not only because it is so closely linked to a purely institutional-hierarchical model of
church, but also that it suggests that mission is a one-way activity, takes no account of the prior
presence and activity of God in the world.
Rather than proclaiming to (ad) the nations in the hopes of getting them to abandon their religions
in favour of the Christian Gospel, the Asian Bishops have chosen a mission paradigm that seeks to
immerse the local churches (inter) in the diverse and pluralistic Asian Sitz-im-Leben, sharing life
in solidarity with the Asian peoples and serving life, as Jesus had done.
Conclusion Insight:
Mission is missio Dei, it seeks to subsume into itself the missiones ecclesiae (missionary
programs of the church). It is not the church which undertakes mission; it is the missio Dei which
constitutes the church. Missionis the good news of God’s love, incarnated in the witness of a
community, for the sake of the world.
(My Salesian reading: Mission is to be the sign and bearers of God’s love, by witnessing as a
community, for the sake of the world of the young.)

3. **************
http://gravasco.blogspot.com/2000/11/missions-my-reflection.html
Missions: my Reflection Saturday, November 04, 2000
Years back, I applied for the missions. I remember the Counselor for Missions asking me: "What
is missions? Why do you want to go to the missions?"
At first, I was stupefied to have been asked what I thought to be a very elementary question for my
age and experience. I felt like responding: "I've been ten years in the ministry and not a rookie... I
suppose I know what I am doing... how many pages of write up would you like me to do on this?
Didn’t you know that I have a perfect score for my Missiology course in my theology years"
That was then! If you ask me today - I still would not be able to answer.
For some “Mission” would mean bringing Christ to the unevangelized. But I'm kind of
embarrassed by this thought- after what my friends told me back home:
"When you enter a house, always remember that God had been there long before you- And
he will still be there long after you've gone away."
For some others, Missions is witnessing - But how do you witness to others who misinterpret your
brand of witnessing as lack of radicality?
For me, Missions is a search for what God would want me to do in a particular time and
place amidst a particular group of people. Missions will always be my continuous search for its
very meaning and essence. It is a way of travelling rather than a station I arrive at. It is this process
of searching that makes me discover many things along the way. It is this that can keep my heart
open.