I think you produce some very relevant inquires. How do we do missions to those with different categories of thought. I recently read somewhere how the first Christian missions to China experienced that dilemma. The very thought of a suffering God was abhorent to the natives but Mary was quite pleasing to their system of thinking. I think that same phenomon has occured in Central America.
I see the same phenomon occuring in the sect I grew up in (of which I am no longer a member). They are struggling to break out of the ethnicity of the sect but I wonder at what cost to the truth. Certainly there are aspects of the ethnicity weaved into the theology but in the process of unweaving it appears that core truths are being ripped out of the fiber of the sect.
I agree that a return to "Apostolic" Christianity in the cultural sense is a fruitless effort. Perhaps I'm wrong, but it seems to me that you have conflated that exact problem with your analysis of Jesus mission. From my perspective we are to emulate the spirit of Christ's mission but I don't think that necessarily means the method of Christ's mission. I think we can find plenty of examples of cultists who have literalized the methodology of Christ's mission to some horrible consequences.
I am of the persuasion that in order to rightly view Christ's mission and the role of the church we must widen our lens of perspective and view Christ's mission in the whole of His redemptive His-story. What is quite apparent is that each sect has focused upon a narrow aspect of His ministry. Additionally, American Christianity seems to be obsessed with individual piety to the exclusion of kingdom responsibility. This kingdom responsibility is not strictly a mission oriented, saving souls responsibility. It is a realization that all of our life is meant to be in obedience to God. It is a wholistic approach. We must be looking at every sphere, or institution, of man as an opportunity to reconcile it to Christ. This broadened kingdom perspective will go a long way, I think, in resolving many of the conflicts within Christendom. There is a definte purpose to this present kingdom besides simply saving souls for some future kingdom. It seems to me that God is testing and refining His Church in this kingdom as a means for some greater purpose in the next kingdom.
This kingdom responsibility is not strictly a mission oriented, saving souls responsibility. It is a realization that all of our life is meant to be in obedience to God. It is a wholistic approach. We must be looking at every sphere, or institution, of man as an opportunity to reconcile it to Christ. I am in agreement with you, I think. Whatever ground you occupy is God's ground, it is the stage from which you will work out your own story. You aren't less in God's will if you are a mechanic, or an accountant, or a real estate salesman, than if you are a minister. Really, we are all priests, where ever we are, but priests with dirt under our nails, and kids to raise.
The primary stage where God's people operate is not the physical church but the world itself. The people who devote themselves to full-time ministry have their place, someone has to keep pushing the word out there I suppose, but God's work is done when you and I go out into the world and create it. I believe it is a mistake to over-spiritualize things as much as it is to ignore the spiritual component of what we do.
The work we do, the battles we fight have a spiritual component, not because we apply it like a bandage, but because they do inherently. God is at work in history, he is at work in the economy, he is at work in every aspect of humanity because he is at work in us, and we carry that seed in us as we go out into the fray. He coordinates the battle even when we don't see it.
God's will does not depend upon every single human being believing in him, all he needs is a certain critical mass of people who hear and act and things start to happen. The result won't be necessarily any particular system, such things develop organically to fit the times and the people. The results will transform those systems, though.