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The Missio Dei Embodied in Local 
Community Ministry in Scotland

Rev. Dr. Steve Taylor
Principal, Knox Centre for Ministry and Leadership 
Senior Lecturer, Department of Theology, Flinders University 
principal@knoxcentre.ac.nz

Rev. Dr. Mark Johnston
Pastoral Studies Tutor, Department of Theology and Religious Studies, University 
of Glasgow; formerly Ministry Formation Coordinator, Knox Centre for Ministry 
and Leadership;  
formerly Associate Minister NCD, Church of Scotland 
mark.johnston.2@glasgow.ac.uk

Abstract

This paper examines missio Dei in a local community context, 
interpreting the Blue Horizon Youth Charity, Aberdeen, Scotland, 
in light of a missiology of listening, diagnosing, and discerning. 
John 5:9 is read in conversation with Terese Okure to clarify an 



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abiding in mission. Luke 10:1–11 is read in conversation with Alan 
Roxburgh to develop a contextual particularity in the naming of 
God’s activity in the world. A local missional ecclesiology is devel-
oped with the missio Dei understood as practices of neighborhood 
listening, diagnosing local narratives, and discerning God and the 
gospel. The result is a theology of local community ministry as 
action-reflection on what the Father is doing by paying attention 
to vulnerable voices, particularly of youth in the community and 
so partnering with non-church actors in ways inclusive and gospel 
affirming. Missiology is returned to the local church as the missio 
Dei is embodied in the practices of local community mission.

Introduction

An examination of missiology in the West requires an inter-
rogation of local church ministry praxis. Historic understanding 
of mission suggest that mission occurs at distance, “over there,” in 
exotic locations. Certain individuals, uniquely called and gifted are 
sent. Local church involvement is reduced to activities like prayer, 
financial giving and sending care packages (complete with used 
tea bags!). When mission is entwined with colonization, attitudes 
of racial superiority suggest missionaries are givers to “native” 
peoples. These historic attitudes risk distorting how the contem-
porary church might inhabit local mission. In reality, the practice 
of mission in the West today needs to begin with the conversion of 
attitudes within the local church.

In theory, the missio Dei provides conceptual frames to en-
able these conversions. God is understood as a missionary God at 
work in the world. Mission is viewed as having a concrete form, 
as neither program nor abstraction but as living history, “the ac-
tive knowledge of Jesus Christ [being and becoming] established 
in the world” (Flett 2010, 293). However, the shape of local church 
participation remains problematic, both in theory and practice. 
Some applications of missio Dei have sought to exclude the church, 
considering that God can articulate Godself without the need for 
missionary activity (Bosch 1991, 392). At other times, missio Dei 



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language has been accused of being abstract and generalized, an 
intellectual preoccupation of the “seminary” class. 

This paper seeks to ground the missio Dei in the local context 
of community ministry and teaching of ministry agents, both lay 
and ordinands. The birthing of a local community context, the 
Blue Horizon Youth Charity in Aberdeen, Scotland, is examined. 
In seeking to rightly locate the local church in relation to the mis-
sio Dei, we apply three frames—neighborhood listening, diagnos-
ing local narratives and discerning God, and the gospel—to a case 
study of the development of a local community ministry. The re-
sult is tools and practices, interpreted missiologically, for the local 
church. 

Missio Dei  Introduced

Our paper works with the assumption that the missio Dei is axi-
omatic for missional ecclesiology. Missio Dei understands God as 
a missionary God at work in the world. Missio Dei is considered 
one of the most essential theological (re-)discoveries of the twen-
tieth century. Emerging in the post-war traumas of Europe, missio 
Dei has found “widespread acceptance in East and West among 
most churches and international networks” (Kim 2007, 52). Aris-
ing from the International Missionary Conference in Willingen, 
Germany, mission was affirmed as sourced and located not with 
the church, but with God.

Missio Dei has been examined in relation to Western society, 
in particular through the missional church conversation. A starting 
point was the challenges presented by missionary Leslie Newbigin, 
returning to England, who diagnosed a post-Christian society.1 
Missio Dei reshapes the trajectories of churches within western 
European culture (Guder 1998, 4). Mission is God’s good news 
for the world. As a result of God’s initiative, the church becomes 
a missionary church in its own Western societies, the cultures in 
which it finds itself. Western church theologies and structures are 

1. In particular, Newbigin 1995.



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revealed as shaped by the legacy of Christendom. The church is 
challenged to see itself as an instrument and witness to the gospel, 
not the endpoint of the gospel. Hence the church is not static, pro-
vincial, or bureaucratic. Instead, through the intentional cultiva-
tion of ecclesial practices, a community of people is called forth 
to participate in the new creation (Guder 1998, 152–53). These 
practices are listed as baptism, breaking bread, reconciliation, dis-
cernment, and hospitality. The result is not “one mission theology, 
but many, with all these theologies serving to equip the saints in 
all their cultural settings for the common missionary vocation” 
(Guder 2015, 43). 

At the same time, missio Dei has undergone critique. Some 
scholars note how missio Dei emerged from minds formed by 
Western worldviews and who were engaged with mission as en-
acted during colonial expansion (Kim 2007, 52). For Rodriguez 
(2018, 33), these authors worked within Enlightenment critiques 
of revealed religion and perpetuated “a modernist foundational-
ist epistemology.” Carmen Rae Lansdowne laments the capture of 
missio Dei by worldviews and theological perspectives of Ameri-
can and European theologians. However, rather than dismiss mis-
sio Dei, she argues from an indigenous perspective that missio Dei 
needs to be understood as “grounded in right action—towards the 
earth, towards each other, towards our histories, stories, cultures 
and values” (Lansdowne 2016, 220). For Wieland, this is a “valu-
able corrective” (Wieland 2020, 104) and invites further research 
not into theology and polity but into analysis of actions and prac-
tices as enacted among local churches. 

A focus on actions and practices generates a set of tensions. 
First, a tension of agency: If missio Dei understands God as mis-
sionary, then what does it mean to locate mission primarily in God 
rather than in local church activity. This has particular tensions 
in the West, where local churches often face decline and embrace 
mission as a program to raise attendance. Second, a tension of 
revelation: If missio Dei locates mission not in the church’s activity 
but the being and nature of God, then how might mission exist 
as spiritual practices? Can Christian ways of being in the world 



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embody patterns of listening and discerning God’s acting and 
revealing? Third, a tension of particularity: What does it mean 
to talk of missio Dei not in generalized principles, but local con-
texts, in ways that assert that God is active in particular times and 
places? Can the assertion that God is active be not only a universal 
affirmation but a local embodiment? Tensions can be generative. 
This paper embraces these tensions, examining tools and practices 
of listening, diagnosing, and discerning in the local. 

Our interest is in one particular stream, Scottish Presbyterian 
mission theology, historically exported to Aotearoa, now seeking 
expression in an interplay between contemporary Scotland and 
Aotearoa New Zealand. This stream has historically demonstrated 
many of these tensions, shaped by the Scottish Enlightenment and 
values of rational, intellectual and civilizing activity.

Listening, Diagnosing, and Discerning

In seeking to understand what it might mean to embody God’s 
mission locally, we find two Biblical texts instructive. In this sec-
tion, we read John 5:19 in conversation with a missiologist from 
the majority world (Teresa Okure). We then read Luke 10:1–11 
in conversation with a missiologist from the Western world (Alan 
Roxburgh).2 

Teresa Okure argues that mission has historically tended to 
focus on commission. The result is “a complacency on the part of 
first-world Christians, a complacency that has led in many cases to 
the loss of faith itself among Christians in this first world” (2003, 
314). This becomes a challenge to local churches in the West, who 
need to understand their local communities in relation to mis-
siological practices. Okure examines John’s Gospel, arguing that 
mission is primarily about abiding not sending. For Okure (1988, 
140), John 4:34 is a central verse, significant for the entire Gospel. 

2. Sadly, the literature on missional hermeneutics is dominated by white 
male voices (Dewerse and Hine 2020). In response to this significant weak-
ness, we have structured our literature review as a dialogue with an African 
female and a white male.



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The Father is the “the owner and initiator of the mission” (1988, 
142), actively present in the unfolding of the mission. Jesus abides 
in this Divine mission, participating in the Father’s active pres-
ence. This is a profoundly relational and participatory understand-
ing of mission, centered in God, the Trinity as “the real laborers at 
work in the missionary enterprise” (Okure 1988, 286). The church 
abides as a participant: “If Jesus himself is sent, is dependent, and 
does not own the mission, then neither do the disciples” (Okure 
1988, 143). Human agency is necessary but as a derivative agency 
resulting from abiding in God. This suggests that every local 
church can participate in God’s mission, able to abide by listen-
ing for what God is initiating and discerning what the Father is 
completing through human participation.3

Mission as abiding is evident not only in Jesus’ encounter 
with the Samaritan woman in John 4 but also in Mary’s post-
Resurrection encounter with Jesus. Jesus uses the Greek word 
zetien (intense search) to question Mary in John 20:15. It is the 
same word used for the search of the two disciples for Jesus in 
John 1:38 and how God seeks humanity in John 4:23–24. Okure 
considers this Divine search for relationships as the “evangelistic 
sense in the gospel” (2003, 316). For Okure, the “my Father and 
your Father, my God and your God” formulation of John 20:17 
fulfils John 1:12–13, in which children find themselves in parental 
relationships (2003, 318). Mission is an intense seeking to abide 
like a child in Christ, who is like a child abiding in God. For Okure, 
Mary is the first apostle, entrusted with a unique message about 
the significance of Jesus’ resurrection—“their common parent-
hood in and brotherhood/sisterhood in Christ” (2003, 321). This 

3. More recently, Michael Gorman (2018) has engaged with Teresa Okure, 
drawing on her monograph (2003) multiple times. Gorman affirms her ar-
gument that “the true missionary is Jesus, and the disciples are instruments 
for effecting that mission” (Gorman 2018, 186). Like us, although in a more 
limited way, Gorman turns to embodiment, engaging with specific local com-
munities (191–99) as “part of the process of participating in, discerning, and 
further participating in the missio Dei” (189). We believe we are extending 
Gorman, by focusing in depth on one particular community in order to enact 
missional hermeneutics of embrace and self-involvement.



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helps us locate practices of listening, diagnosing, and discerning 
as part of the intense search to abide in what God is completing 
through us in our local communities. Further, given the “my Fa-
ther and your Father, my God and your God” formulation, these 
missional practices configure all disciples as children abiding in 
God. This provides a way to understand how the relationship be-
tween ordained and lay leadership can be understood in mission 
as a common brotherhood/sisterhood in Christ. Missional prac-
tices that enable the formation of leaders and the participation of 
the whole people of God as abiding listeners in local community 
mission are needed. 

We draw on these insights from Okure as we read John 5:19. 
God is the primary agent, and the Son can only do what the Father 
does. This requires a set of practices to cultivate attention. Where is 
the Father actively abiding, where is Jesus uniquely participating, 
where is the Spirit breathing peace? Mission is listening, diagnos-
ing, and discerning. Being is work, a participating in God’s activity.

Turning from John to Luke, from Teresa Okure to Alan Rox-
burgh, in Luke 10:1–11, Jesus sends the disciples. Listening and 
discernment in local “towns and villages” are essential to mission, 
evident as the disciples witness acts of healing and, in response, 
name the particularity of the Kingdom. In Reaching a New Gen-
eration, Alan Roxburgh examined contextualization in Western 
cultures. Roxburgh defined contextualization as understanding 
“the particularity of specific contexts so that the gospel might be 
addressed into the situation” (1993, 68). Hence Roxburgh reflected 
on his local ministry, pastoring a growing church and witnessing 
the launch of a health-food store (the Carrot Common in down-
town Toronto). “The contextualizing congregation must learn to 
“listen” and “see” where God is at work in the midst of secularism, 
pluralism and technological transformation . . . a dynamic interac-
tion in which both sides are changed through dialogue” (Roxburgh 
1993, 69). Four theological moves are present. First, Divine agency 
(“God is at work”). Second, a gaze directed toward culture (“secu-
larism, pluralism and technological transformation”). Third, the 



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conversion of the church (“dynamic interaction”). Fourth, listen-
ing with perseverance and commitment.

Contextualization cannot be used as simply another of 
the latest trends in evangelism, to be warn like a coat and 
discarded when the next trend arrives. It is an ongoing 
process, a spiraling dialogue requiring a commitment to 
change and constant rereading of Scripture. Congrega-
tions willing to risk such a life will be at the forefront of 
mission in the midst of our culture. (Roxburgh 1993, 73)

For Roxburgh (1993, 70), context can include the broad, macro-
context, for example, “the secularized pluralism of modernity.” It 
can also include specific contexts, for example the Carrot Com-
mon. Roxburgh diagrams “An Evangelism that Listens” (1993, 
72), listening to the popularity of this health-food cooperative, 
discerning a gospel in dialogue with ecology, community, and 
the experiential. This diagram appears again in Roxburgh’s In-
troducing the Missional Church. Jesus is presented as a contextual 
theologian, located in neighborhood stories (Roxburgh and Boren 
2009, 94–95). Again, there is listening that attends to the value 
and meanings that underlie the neighborhood’s surface activities 
(Roxburgh and Boren 2009, 89–90). This is shaped by a theology 
of missio Dei (Roxburgh and Boren 2009, 91–100), asking what is 
God up to in this neighborhood? 

For Roxburgh (2011, 147), Luke 10:1–12 is a “critical” text for 
this listening in mission and understanding what God is up to in 
the world. Missional practices emerge. These include the locating 
of conversations not in the church but in the neighborhood (En-
tering houses), at the table of others (Eating and drinking what is 
placed before us), and in personal human dialogue (The Church in 
the public square). It comes through speaking peace and announc-
ing the Kingdom of God (2011, 133–62). 

This suggests that every local church is participating in the 
mission of God, seeking to abide by listening for what God is initi-
ating and discerning where the Father is inviting us to participate 
in the completing work of the new creation.



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Our research considers what this might look like in a lo-
cal Scottish housing estate. It seeks to clarify missio Dei  in the 
development of a local community ministry by applying three 
frames—neighborhood listening, diagnosing local narratives, and 
discerning God and the gospel.

• Neighborhood listening—Are we intentionally present and 
listening in the neighborhood, what is going on here, what 
are we noticing? The reference is to Luke 10:7, in particular, 
go into every town and place, remain, eat.

• Diagnosing local narratives—What is going on behind what 
we notice and see and hear happening here? The reference is 
to Luke 10:5, 8, in particular what kind of town and home is 
this, what is going on in the people here?

• Discerning God and the gospel—Where is God coming 
through? What is Good News for this place and time? The 
reference is to Luke 10:9, in particular, where is the Kingdom 
coming near, what healing is needed here?

Listening, Diagnosing, and Discerning in 
Local Ministry Formation

To be consistent with Okure’s abiding and Roxburgh’s localizing, 
we seek to ground missio Dei in local community ministry and 
the teaching of ministry agents, including ordinands and congre-
gational members. This emerged from our location, as faculty at 
Knox Centre for Ministry and Leadership, which exists to deepen 
ministry and grow leadership in the Presbyterian Church of 
Aotearoa New Zealand. Together we co-taught Mission in Com-
munities, a paper intended to prepare ordinands for leading local 
churches in mission. We need ways to engage missio Dei not in 
the abstract but the local. Our Faculty roles required us to de-
velop grassroots resources that took the local church context seri-
ously. It also expected us to help ordinands understand how the 
relationship between ordained and non-ordained leadership was 



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outworked in mission, as the participation of the whole people of 
God in local community mission. Both of us have been involved 
in missional church planting, Mark in Scotland, and Steve in Aote-
aroa New Zealand. 

Blue Horizon: Listening, Diagnosing, and Discerning Local

Our teaching began with local, drawing on the birthing of the Blue 
Horizon Youth Charity in Aberdeen, Scotland, as a grassroots 
mission experience. In 2003, Mark began work with a Church of 
Scotland church plant in Cove, Aberdeen. One of his tasks was to 
engage with the locality and consider ways the new nascent church 
community might respond to the Spirit’s leading in the ordinary 
and everyday circumstances of these neighborhoods. What would 
be “good news” for this particular part of the city, and how might 
this be heard and known?

The local story of the birthing of the Blue Hori-
zon  Youth  Charity involved developing ongoing relationships 
with schools, community workers, residents’ associations, and 
local police. Partnering with a neighboring established parish 
and minister with deeply embedded relationships in the area cata-
lyzed a listening and diagnostic process. Together Mark and his 
colleague spent months listening to local residents, school teach-
ers, local business and industry, interviewing council and police 
workers, and relating to teenagers in the street and local parks. 
At the same time, they were both living as local residents in their 
respective neighborhoods. They listened intently and wondered as 
they walked the streets each day, bumped into parents, talked with 
people in their front gardens, met community leaders, and con-
ducted school chaplaincy roles. A shared high school catchment 
across the church plant area and the neighboring parish spoke to a 
common thread as stories emerged. Teenage issues and anti-social 
behavior troubled the community and had done for some time. 
Schools, parents, and residents felt helpless to turn the situation 
around. Hard drugs, gang fights, pre-teen drinking, self-harm be-
haviors, and desperate responses raised alarm bells.



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A group of people invested in diagnosing these learnings 
began to talk about what they were hearing. Some suggested 
similar solutions to those of some residents and community lead-
ers. Tighten policing, get the worst teenagers off the street, and 
bring back the church youth group. Open up a church hall and 
run games. However, Mark and his colleague could see these ap-
proaches would attend to outcomes and visible behaviours, rather 
than prior causes. 

Amidst the stories being heard, something else emerged. 
This involved discerning the unraveling social fabric in families as 
men served offshore on oil rigs for months on end. Their extended 
absences disrupted households. Parents and schools lost belief in 
young people’s potential and struggled with a lack of social support 
and overwhelming behavioral issues. At the same time, listening to 
young people suggested they felt abandoned, treated as pariahs, 
ignored, or criminalized and propelled out of sight.

This caused a pause. Mark and those listening drew an ice-
berg. This helped them name stories and issues above and below 
the waterline. Another drawing, of a bridge over a river, allowed 
a naming of the “debris” flowing beneath, but then a reflection 
on what was upstream, what might be breaking apart or washing 
away. This brought to mind the estranged and frustrated young 
people, and what they were saying, how they had become objects, 
defined as problems, and not fitting into their community. 

The result was a realization that there was more than one 
set of stories in this community. Mission required listening to all 
the stories and seeking to discern more in-depth perspectives. So 
began Blue Horizon focusing on teenage potential and coaching 
parents. Mark and his colleague never got to run a “youth group” 
as such. There was too much else happening. 

Embedded in this story of mission practice are important 
insights regarding missio Dei in the local church. Hence this case 
study from Scotland has been utilized in seeking to form local 
church leaders in mission in Aotearoa. We now turn to explore 
this, paying attention to mission practices evident in the Scotland 
case study, in light of Okure’s abiding and Roxburgh’s localizing.



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“Listening in Mission”

“Listening in Mission” began as part of an existing course taught 
at KCML to Presbyterian ordinands. The class was titled Mission 
in Communities and invited participants to work on missio Dei in 
their local context. This included the use of video conferencing to 
enable participants to think about mission, not in the context of a 
classroom, but in their local contexts. 

The online course was then made available to the broader 
church. Participants, usually ordained clergy, were given tools, 
equipped with readings and invited to invite others in their local 
church community to go on a journey with them of listening and 
discerning for the Spirit of God in their neighborhoods. Leaders 
met (online) for five sessions with the KCML Faculty to experi-
ence the tools. During this time, local leaders gathered their own 
group (face-to-face) to listen and discern locally. The five KCML 
led sessions encouraged action, facilitated reflection, and offered 
just-in-time learning as local leaders shared stories and discussed 
missiologically with peers.

One of the five sessions focused on integrating the learning in 
a concrete local context. The Blue Horizon project provided use-
ful because it was grounded in real life, yet removed in geography 
and time. In preparation, participants were asked to bring to this 
session colored highlighters, of three different colors. A one-page 
description of the Blue Horizon initiative was provided (similar 
to what is outlined in the previous section). Participants asked 
clarifying questions and then critically reflected on the case study, 
using the three highlighter colors to consider the three frames of 
neighborhood listening, diagnosing local narratives and discern-
ing God and the gospel. 

Neighborhood listening is evident in an activating presence 
that sought immersive relationships of curiosity and proximity. 
These behaviours were evident in several places in the Blue Ho-
rizon case study. Mark and his colleague “met with many com-
munity leaders” in the first six months of establishing the project. 
They bump “into parents outside the church gate” and talk “with 



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people in their front gardens.” These activities locate listening be-
yond the church, made possible through their deliberate actions of 
connecting with local schools and walking the streets of the com-
munity. Alongside the randomness of walking, there was deliber-
ate listening in the meeting with the community leaders (residents 
association, school teachers, local business, community groups, 
police, and council workers). Listening was also evident, as Mark 
and others “listened to young people.” This breadth of listening 
resulted in the realization of the value of hearing “something else.” 

Listening is followed by diagnosing. This is a process requir-
ing the participation of lay and ordained, evident as “a group of 
people began to talk about what we were hearing.” Words like 
“common thread” suggest the search for synthesis. Diagnosing is 
enhanced by the visual metaphors of icebergs and bridges. These 
make visible the stories and issues “below the waterline” and 
“upstream.” Listening and diagnosing a community risk being a 
mirror, reflecting what those listening want to hear. In this case 
study, existing perceptions are challenged through the use of visual 
metaphors and the engaging of diverse voices, particularly “the es-
tranged and frustrated young people.” 

Discerning God and the gospel is evident in the formation of 
Blue Horizon, focused “on teenage potential and coaching parents.” 
This is the most challenging part of the process, both to enact as a 
local church in mission and to teach in ways that form the whole 
people of God around abiding and localizing. First, it involved the 
laying aside of preconceptions. As the case study notes, “We never 
got to run a youth group as such. There was too much else happen-
ing.” Solutions that stay on the surface and resemble something 
already familiar—in this case, “youth group and the church hall 
opened up for youth activities again”—can hamper the diagnosing 
and discerning. Second, it required, following Roxburgh, a localiz-
ing of the gospel. As the missio Dei moves into the particularity of 
the neighborhood, what is the unique work that the Son is seeing 
the Father doing? 

To develop the missional practice of discerning God and the 
gospel, we have focused on the dynamics in Luke 10:1–11 around 



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the naming of the Kingdom near. We provide a set of “Jesus action” 
cards. A range of actions by Jesus in the Gospels is distilled and 
presented in the form of a deck of cards. For example

• Jesus is the compassionate, good shepherd who seeks and em-
braces the lost, least and the last (Matt 9:5–38; Luke 15:1–7; 
John 10:11–16; Ezek 34:11–31)

• Jesus refuses to achieve ends through wielding worldly au-
thority, power and might (Mark 14:60–65; 15:29–32; Luke 
4:1–13)

• Jesus loves enemies, resists revenge, and the cycle of violence 
(Matt 5:8–48; 26:51–56; Luke 23:32–43) 

• Jesus creates a new reconciling, healing and diverse commu-
nity (Luke 5:27–32; 6:12–16)

• Jesus meets needs from God’s abundance, rather than our 
story of scarcity (Matt 14:13–21)

• Jesus exposes evil and exploitation (Matt 12:33–37; Luke 
19:45–48)

• Jesus gives life in all its fullness (John 10:10; 20:31)

• Jesus challenges and redefines one’s neighbor (Matt 5:43–48; 
Luke 10:25–37).4

People are invited to assign cards alongside what has been diag-
nosed. Invariably, new possibilities are triggered. What random 
act of kindness might embody Jesus’ abundance in this commu-
nity? What is the evil that needs to be resisted, not by violence but 
through love of enemy? The diagnosing of God and the gospel in 
the particularity of the local invites a new imagination. 

Note what is happening, both in local leadership and in abid-
ing and localizing missiology. Concerning leadership, the skills re-
quired include taking time (many months), multiple conversations 
(community leaders, parents, residents), ensuring diverse voices 
(particularly young people), the skilled use of visual metaphors 
(icebergs and bridges), and particularity (this time and place). 

4. For a complete set of twenty-six actions, contact the authors. 



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An imagination which prioritizes the activity of God is cultivated. 
God is not brought to a local neighborhood. Rather, God’s future 
is being imagined within a particular time and place. 

Concerning missiology, the actions of diagnosing and dis-
cerning are located in the local and amongst the whole people 
of God. Leaders are theologically educated for mission, learning 
through the “Jesus action” cards how to discern God and gospel. 
The result is a local contextualization (diagnosing as per Rox-
burgh), located in abiding (listening and discerning as per Okure). 
This all occurs in the context of the local church, not the seminary 
classroom. 

Interpreting Blue Horizon: Discerning Local Shape to Christ 
Patterned Action

The Blue Horizon case study is illustrative, both for ministry 
participants and for this paper. Discerning the Kingdom of God 
as near and the local shape of Christ patterned action is clarified 
through two “Jesus actions.” One is Jesus, the compassionate, good 
shepherd who seeks and embraces the lost and least. Another is 
Jesus who gives life in all its fullness

These Jesus’ actions were discerned in conversation with re-
flections on youth development by Rowan Williams (pers. comm). 
“What concerns me most is the feeling that for teenagers, there 
is a pressure to live in a rather small world. The world of the next 
exam, the next party, the next what-ever: and keeping the horizon 
open, the whole big world in front of people is quite a challenge.” 
Given these insights about the fragmenting of intergenerational 
relationships between teenagers, their parents and a local commu-
nity, the actions of Jesus as the good shepherd, seeking the well-
being of this local community (John 10:11–16) are good news. 
God’s action in being a shepherd who seeks out those feeling lost 
provide a “horizon” and an invitation to life to the full beyond 
“the next what-ever.” Hence Blue Horizon articulated values that 
connected the diagnosing of (youth) culture with local Christ 



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patterned actions.5 Four values are particularly relevant, those of 
seeing worth, building confidence, expanding horizons and real-
izing potential. If Jesus sought all people, then young people had 
worth and needed to be listened to. Given the shepherd cared, so 
extra care needed to be invested in those who might lack the initial 
confidence to speak. As Jesus sought the lost and least, so every 
young person had potential to be more than “the next whatever.” 
If Christ offered life to the full, then young people should not be 
reduced the confines of the social horizons of their upbringing but 
instead invited to experience expanding horizons. 

The connecting of local diagnosis and discerning Christ pat-
terned actions was evident in the way Blue Horizon, as a registered 
British charity, was established. It had five aims. The first was that 
Christian beliefs shape what is done and said.6 It was impor-
tant from the outset that the local mission leaders and churches 
owned the process they were invested in and acknowledged their 
Christian imagination and motivations. At the same time, Blue 
Horizon sought to locate itself beyond church-centric and bu-
reaucratic solutions to social issues and instead innovate through 
a mix of community, commercial, and church investment. This 
meant articulating the distinctive ethos of Blue Horizon and how 
Christian beliefs informed the actions and words of the project in 
secular spaces. In other words, how this community ministry was 
faith-based. 

Community ministry was empowered by discerning the mis-
sio Dei in this specific local context. These aspirational statements, 
shaped by the “Jesus actions,” were embodied in Blue Horizon’s 
distinct beliefs and values. The beliefs included the worth of self-
honesty, transformation, and hope. The values included; naming 
Christ’s model of compassion and acting consistently with the val-
ues and practices of Christian faith—hospitality, sacrificial service, 

5. Based on Blue Horizon documents, which outline the ethos, beliefs, 
values, and practices. These are available from the authors. 

6. The other four are that adolescent young people are not a problem to be 
solved but persons with the potential to be released; a focus on prevention; that 
volunteers matter and the strategic worth of partnership with other agencies 
and groups.



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91

unconditional regard, perseverance, forgiveness and reconcilia-
tion, social justice, and life-affirming moral standards. Difficult re-
alities could be approached through the power of Christian faith. 
Church involvement contributed to the social capital of communi-
ties. Relationships and resources could be shared in common for 
the flourishing of the wider community. 

This gave voice to the reality, as agents of mission, that what-
ever responses Blue Horizon developed would involve God’s good 
news for this particular community. Hence the Kingdom of God 
was coming near, grounded in the particularity of Good news. In 
Luke 10:9, the sick are healed. Only then is the Kingdom of God 
named in proclamation. We interpret these healings as specific, 
unique to the towns and particular homes which the seventy-two 
entered. Hence the proclamation of the Kingdom of God is a re-
sponse to the particularity of every healing. Hence community 
ministry is an engagement in the particularity of what God is do-
ing (John 5:19), not in general terms, but as participation in Jesus 
patterned acts in local settings. 

Blue Horizon was abiding in the local neighborhood, 
through participating in spiritual practices of listening and dis-
cerning. This was a long way from the pre-existing imagination 
of “a youth group and the church hall opened up for youth activi-
ties.” Neverthless, it was a participation in the missio Dei for this oil 
economy-enriched, socially fragmenting local community in this 
particular period. Different times and places will offer different 
discerning and diagnosis. Such is the particularity of missio Dei in 
every community.

Local Mission Learnings

Our concern is to rightly locate the local church in relation to 
the missio Dei. We have used the Blue Horizon case study, first 
to articulate a local theology of what missio Dei looks like in a lo-
cal community ministry. Second, to examine how leaders, called 
to western European cultures, might be formed in the missio Dei 
freed from Christendom legacies. What are the implications for the 



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tensions around God’s agency in contexts of ecclesial decline, mis-
sion as being here rather than doing there, and local embodiment? 

Practices of listening, diagnosing and discerning, locate mis-
sion firmly in the agency of God. Doing what the Father does pays 
attention to vulnerable voices in the community and enable part-
nerships with non-church actors in ways that are inclusive while 
affirming gospel values. In the context of church decline, programs 
that worked in another church are often presented as “silver-bullet” 
solutions. However, listening demands a different imagination. If 
God does not speak, then listening is in vain. If the Kingdom of 
God is not coming, then discerning remains a human activity. 
If God is not abiding with local agents, then this discernment is 
not possible. In contrast to approaches from secular agencies, the 
discernment of the actions of God provides distinctly God-filled 
ethos, beliefs, values, and practices. This is consistent with New-
bigin’s (1989, 227) belief that in a post-Christian West, “the only 
answer, the only hermeneutic of the gospel, is a congregation of 
men and women who believe it and live by it.”

Practices of listening, diagnosing and discerning ensure 
individual embodiment and provide local color. The focus is the 
local community (“the estranged and frustrated young people and 
what they had said, and how they had become objects, defined 
as problems and not fitting into their community”). Practices of 
listening and discerning honor the particularity of God’s activity 
in every local context. Action is being, and being is action. This is 
consistent with mission ad-intra, an inward mission that involves 
“rethinking things and rereading the Bible and tradition to culti-
vate coherence between speaking and doing” (Tamez 2017, 87). 
Formation of the whole people of God occurs as abiding in the 
local is foregrounded.

Finally, practices of listening, diagnosing and discerning 
understand God as active in particular times and places amongst 
specific people. The Blue Horizon case study was removed geo-
graphically and in time from the “Listening in Mission” courses in 
Aotearoa New Zealand. This reduced the temptation to photocopy 
a program. Mission cannot be replicated. Instead, formation of 



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93

leaders requires their own listening, diagnosing and discerning. 
Further, the practices undertaken are indeed the work of the whole 
people of God, evident both in Blue Horizon and the structuring 
of the KCML “Listening in Mission” course. What results is consis-
tent with Bevans understanding of the church as “the community 
of the converted .  .  . a place where conversion is developed and 
fostered” (2018, 142–43). Such are the possibilities for missio Dei 
when through neighborhood listening, diagnosing local narratives 
and discerning God and the gospel, it is located in the local church.

Conclusion

This paper has examined missio Dei in a local community context. 
An understanding of the missio Dei has been developed, first as 
abiding by reading John 5:19 in conversation with Terese Okure, 
second as local by reading Luke 10:1–11 in conversation with Alan 
Roxburgh. Missiology is returned to the local church through 
practices of neighborhood listening, diagnosing local narratives, 
and discerning God and the gospel. This is evident in Blue Ho-
rizon and as a “Listening in Mission” case study with ordinands 
at Knox Centre for Mission and Leadership and among local 
congregations. Listening involves activating presence and seeking 
immersive relationships of curiosity and proximity. Diagnosing 
occurs through visual tools, utilizing metaphors of icebergs and 
bridges. Diagnosing enables discerning “Jesus actions” in the par-
ticularity of specific contexts. These become practices by which 
local peoples of God might abide in the missio Dei, experiencing 
their own conversion through abiding and localizing.

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