The Kingdom and Its Instrumentalities

Dallas Willard on the Church, the Kingdom, and the Pastor's Role in Both

Faith in Jesus Christ is what brings believers into “living interaction with the invisible Kingdom of the Heavens.” That is how Dallas Willard opens his eleventh lecture in the Spirituality and Ministry course.

For Willard, faith is active expectation of God’s movement. It transfers us from spectators into participants. Believers must discern what foundation drives their life and ministry as they seek to accomplish the power of God in the world. Pastors, and indeed all disciples, are called to examine their lives and align them with God’s present reign and life in his kingdom.

This lecture draws a line between the church and the Kingdom that I believe every pastor needs to sit with.

You can watch the full lecture or read the transcript here: The Kingdom and Its Instrumentalities

The Kingdom Is Present

Willard insists that the kingdom is not only an eschatological event but is present from everlasting to everlasting (Ps 41:13; 90:2). The kingdom is a present reality. Kingdom living requires a birth from above (John 3:6), where those born of the kingdom align their lives with God’s will in the world.

Willard defines the relationship between the kingdom and the church this way:

“Assemblies of ‘called out ones’ result from the movement of the Kingdom. The church is a manifestation of the Kingdom of God but it’s not the same as the Kingdom of God...A church is an expression of the effect of the Kingdom of God in the lives of individuals.”

For the church to embrace this position, it must see itself not as the end goal of God’s work but as a context in which individuals and communities are formed to live out God’s kingdom vision and embody the teachings of Jesus within the world.

The Church as Beachhead

Willard is careful to correct the misconception that expanding the kingdom is synonymous with church planting. Church planting is beneficial, but it is not identical with disciple-making, nor is it the fulfillment of the kingdom. The church, by its nature, will always include disciples and non-disciples. Churches are to be nurturing communities, training grounds where individuals learn to live under God’s rule, participating in the kingdom vision, and carrying the mission of the Kingdom wherever they go.

The church is not the kingdom of God, but a beachhead of the Kingdom, establishing the rule and reign of God in the midst of a crooked generation.

With this beachhead mindset, Willard critiques church cultures that separate discipleship and mission. For Willard, any community oriented toward discipleship will become missional. He states:

“I would rather define a missional church as a church you can’t stop growing rather than one that has woken up and said, ‘Hey, we need to be missional’...Being missional is an inevitable result of being disciples. You can’t stop it.”

Church vitality does not come from institutionally informed activity but through the transmission of kingdom life by disciples who exhibit the gospel in what they do and say wherever they go.

The Pastor and Kingdom Knowledge

Willard offers a comparative analysis of the instrumentalities of the kingdom of God and the instrumentalities of the kingdom of Satan. Satan’s primary instrumentalities are ideas and thoughts. This is why pastors, as teachers of the nations, must advocate for kingdom knowledge, for Satan works at the level of ideas to distort the will and actions of God.

Willard states: “Satan did not hit Eve with a stick, he hit her with an idea and she bought it.”

The pastor’s insistence on advocating for knowledge stands as a direct opposition to the primary instrumentalities of the kingdom of Satan. Gospel work is intellectual and critical of cultural norms. The church must confront ideas that run counter to kingdom knowledge, guiding disciples into kingdom reality and forming communities that bear witness to the wisdom of the kingdom, where lives are transformed under the reign of God.

The True Gospel Minister

Drawing on John Wesley, Willard establishes a clear picture of a true gospel minister, citing Wesley’s statement that a true minister “does not put asunder what God has joined but publishes alike Christ dying for us and Christ living in us.”

True gospel ministers in the Wesleyan and Willardian tradition proclaim a gospel of both deliverance from sin and transformation into the image of Christ. Ministry, for Willard, is about proclaiming and embodying the gospel of the Kingdom, which leads to transformation in the present.

For Reflection

• Does your congregation understand the church as a beachhead of the Kingdom, or have they come to see the church itself as the destination?

• Are you advocating for kingdom knowledge in your preaching and teaching, or have you left your people vulnerable to the ideas and narratives that run counter to the reign of God?

• Is your ministry proclaiming both Christ dying for us and Christ living in us, or have you put asunder what God has joined?