The first work pillaged for the rubric is The Church by Edmund P. Clowney.
In the midst of Clowney’s discussion of apostolicity and holiness as marks of the church, he makes the point that the church has the apostolic mission; it does not exist in this mission. By this, he contrasts partnership and commission with the liberal (his designation) notion that the church is composed of those who recognize their salvation (in other words, every one is saved, but not everyone knows it). I fully agree with his contrast and his conclusion—we have a mission. But it did raise a question concerning the missional church: How does being mission compare with existing in mission? I also note that none of these speaks of the church doing missions. This is an important distinction. This distinction is an important critique of the historic (evangelical) church, which tends to concentrate on doing missions.
So, might an important distinction be between having/being mission and doing missions?
