“Not All Roads Lead to God, but God Walks All Roads to Reach People.”

Abstract

The doctrine of prevenient grace in the Wesleyan tradition has always played an important role in shaping the way we understand and participate in the mission of God (Missio Dei) and the role of the church in it. The doctrine of prevenient grace, in the Wesleyan-Arminian tradition, continues to shape the understanding of holiness as God’s activity to restore broken relationships. Holiness, as it is often misunderstood, is not a physical separation between what we consider holy and unholy, churchy and worldly, pure and impure, but the redemption of broken relationships (God and humans, humans with each other, humans and creation and human with the self). The goal of this paper is to further explore the theological and missiological bases of the doctrine of prevenient grace, as understood by Wesley, and the practical implication that this doctrine has in shaping the way the church fulfills its missiological call in the world. This paper is divided into three main sections: the first part of the paper will focus on defining prevenient grace and its relationship to the mission of God (Missio Dei); the second part will explore the missiological and theological implications of the doctrine of prevenient grace, and the last part will illustrate practically the theological and missiological motivation of the work of the Church of the Nazarene with refugees in Zagreb, Croatia.