The Mission "Barricade"

Particularly in the context of a dominant heathen culture, the Sacraments ultimately serve as a barricade against the perpetual onslaught of non-Christian elements on the believers. The gifts that began to shape the life of the community in Baptism continue to strengthen the fellowship through the Sacrament of the Altar. The Church is a sacramental community living in alien and hostile situations and the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper affirms her as that. the Church of Christ thus lives in and from the Sacraments. The missiologist Walter Freytag observes correctly: "A church without the Sacraments will die."

Klaus Detlev Schulz, Mission from the Cross: The Lutheran Theology of Mission (CPH 2009)