Excuse me, but what’s ‘mission’?

As a new missionary visiting a church recently, this was a question asked by one keen enquirer. He explained that he was a new Christian, he had just joined this church and he knew that it was a church that supported mission, prayed for people overseas and encouraged local mission. But he was a little embarrassed to ask what mission actually was.

So what’s the answer?

Fortunately I had recently read an article by Keith Ferdinando¹ so I was able to share a few possible definitions and some of the issues that arise with each one.

Ferdinando’s suggestion is that, as a word, ‘mission’ has suffered from the disease of linguistic entropy. It has come to mean what its user wants it to mean, resulting in the potentially dangerous position of “if everything is mission, nothing is mission” (this was a phrase coined by Stephen Neill in 1958).

The potential meaninglessness of the word aside, Ferdinando identifies four contemporary understandings of mission, forming a set of concentric circles of reducing diameter.

1. The Missio Dei

This is the view that sees everything God does in the world as his mission, and that we are coworkers with him in that mission, whether we do that as part of his people or not. In fact, using this definition, people who do not know or acknowledge God can be his missionaries, carrying out his will even though they are not aware of it.

One possible expression of this view is that it is God’s mission that justice, human dignity and reconciliation be furthered in this world, and therefore anyone who pursues those categories is involved in mission.

The problem with this view is that it requires a fundamental shift in the definition of salvation, with its primary concern being for the reconstruction of society rather than to redeem sinners.

2. The cultural mandate

This is the view that mission is all that the church does in the world (as opposed to all that God does in the world in view 1.) Thus, mission is the activity performed by all Christians in whatever area of life they are involved in—education, industry, relationships, commerce, sport, and so on. Ferdinando sees the roots of this view in the attempt to discount the dualistic vision of ‘secular’ and ‘spiritual’ categories, but rather see the Christian life as lived in all spheres.

The effect of this definition is to equate mission with the Christian life, thus resulting in a loss of distinction and precision when it comes to talking about mission.

3. Social action

Although it has a broad range of possible meanings, ‘social action’ can be described as activity that leads to the alleviation of human suffering and the elimination of injustice, exploitation and deprivation.

There is no question that this is a good and desirable thing, but the question is to what extent is this activity an integral part of mission? Publications from the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization and the emerging missionary force of the two-thirds world have forced the Christian community to think hard about the place of social action in mission, the question of ‘holistic mission’ and the relative priority of social action, along with other factors such as proclamation and training.

One possible danger of social action is that it can be Christians doing what the world sees that Christians should be doing. That is, a little bit of religion is good for everyone as long as it teaches people to be good and helps them in their troubles. But once people get a bit serious or start talking about propositions of truth, then we are stepping over the line of acceptability.

4. Making disciples of all nations

If one end of the ‘mission spectrum’ is social action, the other end is often (and sometimes unfairly) seen as evangelism. However, Ferdinando suggests that perhaps ‘making disciples’ is a better term for what is happening in mission as it represents what we see the apostles doing as they went out in Acts. They made disciples by bringing people to faith through proclamation and encouraging their spiritual growth in the areas of their relationship with God and with others. Critically, this often brought about the consequence of social action (such as caring for widows and orphans), but that was the consequence of discipling, rather than the substance of the mission.

He also points out (using William Carey as a case study) that the history of mission shows that it is often gospel preaching and effective discipleship that leads to social change.

Does it actually matter?

But does all this matter? On one hand, it doesn’t matter how we define mission just as long as we are clear in our definition so others know what they are being asked to support or pray for, and why.

However, on the other hand, it does matter, because mission is a key activity of the church. It’s not a matter of choice whether a church should be ‘missional’ or not; it’s an imperative. So we need to make sure that we work out what ‘mission’ actually is.

¹ Keith Ferdinando, ‘Mission: A problem of definition’, Themelios, Vol 33 Issue 1, May 2008, pp. 46-59.