I’m a red-blooded, baseball-loving American, but in the last few years I’ve been converted. I started to watch and—gasp—enjoy soccer (or, what almost everyone in the world calls “football”). A good friend of mine invited me into a community of fans for an English soccer team I knew nothing about. I became a Liverpool Football Club fan as they were on the cusp of greatness. Last year, they won the elite tournament of the best European clubs, the Champions League. And, maybe even more satisfying, this summer they won the elusive title of the English Premier League. 

Almost everyone who follows the Reds (the name for Liverpool’s club, due to their red kits—or “uniforms” for the uninitiated) would trace their recent success to their purchase by an American group led by Boston Red Sox owner John Henry, and the subsequent hiring of Jürgen Klopp to manage the team. Klopp (a fairly outspoken Christian, by the way) brought a fresh style of football to Liverpool, called Gegenpressing in German, literally, “counter-pressing.” Gegenpressing is an aggressive, exhausting, and fast-paced style of footballing. In Klopp’s own words: “The best moment to win the ball is immediately after your team just lost it. The opponent is still looking for orientation where to pass the ball. He will have taken his eyes off the game to make his tackle or interception and he will have expended energy. Both make him vulnerable.”

In contrast to the smooth and silent orchestral style of other Premier League managers, Klopp has described his modus operandi as “heavy metal” football. Loud, fast, aggressive, risky, all-out— playing offense even when most clubs would regroup and settle back to defend. 

Stacking up the football world’s most coveted trophies in just a handful of years has proven the wisdom of Klopp’s philosophy, and I can’t help but wonder if there’s a parable here for the church’s mission in the world. In his masterpiece, Dynamics of Spiritual Life, Richard Lovelace says: “In folk religion the posture of the Christian toward fallen angels is defensive; in Scripture the church is on the offensive, and the blows it receives from Satan come from a retreating enemy.” 

Here Lovelace only echoes the heart of Jesus himself, who said that Hades’s gates would not overpower the church (Mt 16:18). As many have pointed out, gates are for defense, not offense. Gates don’t move into battle. Gates wait until the battle moves toward them. This implies that the church’s mission should be moving forward toward the space where Satan has seemed to stake his authority. The church’s mission should be forward-moving, aggressive, risky. The church should be inclined to play offense, even when it seems like it might be time to concede ground. When the enemy tackles or intercepts the movement of the church, the church should then be most intent to regain ground and move toward the goal of fulfilling the Great Commander’s Mission. 

But we’re often tempted to tend the space we’ve already won, rather than contesting for space God wants us to take. Lovelace says, “This tendency to forget the redemptive emergency in the world and concentrate on enjoying dominion in a part of it has been a continual temptation in the church.” That phrase “redemptive emergency” gets at the heart of it. We are in a struggle for the lives of real people, for a real forever. One thing I’ve learned to love about football is the way a single moment, a single move, and a single goal can win a match. Every moment on the pitch is one of urgency and, at times, emergency. We too must realize our moments are few and any one of them could be a game-changer. 

I think the church might just need a Gegenpressing, “heavy metal” missional mindset. Here are just three ways to practice Gegenpressing or “heavy metal” mission in the contested space where the church marches out the orders of our Great Commander’s Mission. 

1. Missiology and Theology. I love theology. I love studying and reading theology. I love writing theology. I loved writing my PhD dissertation in systematic theology. I love listening to and presenting academic, theological papers. I love books. I love libraries. I could easily spend any given day alone with nothing but time and books and be quite glad about it. But (for me at least) that would be more like “parking the bus.” “Parking the bus” is the opposite of Gegenpressing. A manager parks the bus when he positions his entire team on the defensive half of the pitch simply to play defense against a superior side. God has not called his church to park the theological bus, but to pursue theological labor on the redemptive edge of mission against the kingdom of darkness. We are not called only to contemplation, but also to action. We aren’t called merely to teach current disciples, but make more disciples. If our theology doesn’t lead to missiological urgency, our theology has misfired. 
   
2. Conversion and Formation. This overlaps with the first point and speaks more directly into the way that missiology and theology play out in the contested space of our Father’s world. We should be unapologetically conversionist in our ministry philosophies. We should be unapologetically trying to reach more people, more effectively, and more urgently. There’s a redemptive emergency, and when we’re tempted to settle back and defend, when it seems as if the culture is turning against us, maybe we should consider “The Klopp Option.” Gegenpressing requires healthy, fit, and tenacious footballers. We need missionary pastors and planters and leaders who are healthy enough spiritually to attack and get the ball back, exactly when they might otherwise be tempted to settle back and just breathe for a moment. 
   
3. Innovation and Tradition. I love the way many are pressing back into the ancient patterns and teachings of the faith. In academia, this has manifested in the retrieval movement, a re-discovery of pro-Nicene and “pro-Chalcedonian” theology, premodern exegesis using the Rule of Faith, and other wonderful (re)developments. In the local church, many have rediscovered liturgical patterns and other ancient practices. In this moment, we nevertheless need to wed tradition with faithful innovation. We need a missiological theology that operates with creative fidelity in a world under contest for the souls of people and nations. We must be willing to step into new ways of reaching the world for Christ and with Christ, all the while rooting ourselves in the Great Tradition and, most non-negotiably, Holy Scripture. 

Perhaps like the Gegenpressing, “heavy metal” mode of footballing has helped Klopp and the lads hoist trophy after trophy, such a mindset may help us compete such that many more may receive “the imperishable crown” (1 Cor. 9:25) bestowed by God, in Christ, by grace, through faith.