Mission and Missions

by A. Scott Moreau

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Derived from the Latin mitto, which in turn is a translation of the Greek apostollo (to send), the term "mission," as an English term with no direct biblical equivalent, has a broad range of acceptable meanings. The Compact Oxford Dictionary gives the earliest occurrences of the English word in 1598 . By 1729, use of the word in relation to the church focused on the Great Commission: "Jesus Christ gave his disciples their mission in these words, 'Go and teach all nations, & etc.'" (E. Chambers, Cyclopaedia; or an Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences).

The contemporary secular definition of mission is simply "sending someone forth with a specific purpose.." That purpose may be defined broadly (e.g., to represent the interests of the sender) or very narrowly (e.g., to hand-deliver a message written by the sender). With the broadness of the term, our concept of the mission of the church will to a large degree depend on our theological orientation rather than an etymological analysis.

Few would challenge the need for clarity in our definition, for, as Dyrness notes: ". . . mission lies at the core of theology--within the character and action of God himself. There is an impulse to give and share that springs from the very nature of God and that therefore characterized all his works. So all that theologians call fundamental theology is mission theology" (p. 11). At the same time, however, the difficulty of defining mission cannot be overlooked or minimized: "Mission is never something self-evident, and nowhere--neither in the practice of mission nor in even our best theological reflections on mission, does it succeed in removing all confusions, misunderstandings, enigmas and temptations." (Bosch, p. 9).

Several questions among the many which could be asked illuminate the contemporary discussion and options: 1) Is mission, most broadly, the whole scope of God's intention in the world or, more narrowly, the God-given Missionary Task of the Church? 2) If our focus is on the task of the Church, is mission limited to one core component of the Church's work or is it everything that the Church does? 3) Is it possible to determine a focus or priority for mission, and, if so, what should that be? At least until the IMC Willingen Conference in 1952, the answers to these questions for evangelicals appeared to be relatively straight forward. Missions was evangelism and the evidence of successful mission was the extension of the Church through the crossing of cultural, geographic, and linguistic boundaries.

In this century, however, we have seen several developments, most of which were birthed in the Ecumenical Movement and brought into evangelical discussion by people involved in both groups. Two of these developments relate to the word mission. First was the recognition that God's mission was broader than the activities of his Church. Missio Dei, coined as a missiological term by Karl Hartenstein in 1934, was used in the 1952 Willingen Conference to stress that mission is God's not the church's. Georg Vicedom popularized it in the Mexico City Conference (1963) and in his text The Mission of God (1965). Missio Dei focuses on everything God does in his task of establishing his kingdom in all its fullness in all the world. While it includes what the Church does, it is not limited to that, for God works both in and out of the Church. Thus themes such as "Let the world set the agenda" were driven by a recognition that God is not limited to his work in and through the church and that his mission is seen wherever Kingdom values (especially justice and mercy) are being promoted, fought for, or instituted.

The second important development was the dropping of the "s" from "missions" to reflect the unity of the total biblical task of the Church. The dropping of the final "s" was formalized in ecumenical discussion when the International Review of Missions became the International Review of Mission in 1970. By 1972, George Peters, an evangelical teaching at Dallas Theological Seminary, wrote that mission, in contrast to missions, was "a comprehensive term including the upward, inward and outward ministries of the church. It is the church as 'sent' (a pilgrim, stranger, witness, prophet, servant, as salt, as light, etc.) in this world." (Peters, p. 11). He maintained that missions, on the other hand, is the actual work and the practical realization of the mission of the Church. Some Evangelicals voiced concerns that dropping the "s" might lead to the loss of commitment to, and action for, world evangelization and church planting.

Evangelical approaches to defining mission have not been unified. John Stott allowed the broadening of the discussion, as long as evangelism was seen as a leading partner in the missionary task. W. Harold Fuller proposed using mission for our purpose and passion, while ministry refers to all that we do. Arthur Johnston opposed any broadening of mission. Ron Sider argued that social transformation is mission. On a pragmatic level, the reality of the disagreement is seen in the titles used for introductory theology courses taught in 78 North American institutions: 31 drop the final "s" ("Theology of Mission") and 46 keep it ("Theology of Missions") (Siewert).

Multiple conferences organized from within the Evangelical Movement have sought to address the issue of mission and the primacy of evangelism within it. The Congress on the Church's Worldwide Mission (Wheaton Congress, 1966) was organized to deal with theological and practical issues. Affirming the scriptural foundation for social justice, the declaration of the congress still proclaimed the primacy of evangelism. In the same year the World Congress on Evangelism (Berlin Congress 1966) was also held. Focused primarily on responding to shifting definitions of evangelism, the integral relationship of evangelism and missions was maintained. In 1970, the Frankfurt Declaration on the Fundamental Crisis in Christian Mission was developed in response to ecumenical shifts in thinking about mission, and it promoted a return to the classic orientation of mission as the presentation of salvation through evangelism. Calls for broadening the evangelical perspective came at the Thanksgiving Workshop on Evangelicals and Social Concern (Chicago, 1973), which issued the "Chicago Declaration of Evangelical Social Concern." This was "essentially an affirmation of God's total claim on the lives of his people, a confession of failure in demonstrating God's justice in society, and a call for evangelicals 'to demonstrate repentance in a Christian discipleship that confronts the social and political injustice of our nation.'" (Padilla, p. 242). At the Lausanne Congress on World Evangelism (1974), John Stott pointed to the broadening of definition of mission and indicated that he saw no reason to resist this development. Building his paradigm on John's version of the Great Commission, he proposed that we see mission as the church "sent" into the world to serve just as Jesus served, including Evangelism and Social Responsibility as partners in the missionary task. He did not see fulfilling the Great Commission as completing the directive of the Great Commandment, seeing both as integral to mission. Lausanne proved to be a critical juncture in this respect. By 1989, in fact, the role of the Lausanne Covenant would be noted in the official story of Lausanne II as follows: "It is a watershed in placing social justice within the purposes of the Church's mission (Articles 4 and 5)"(Nichols, p. 15).

Since Lausanne, three streams have solidified within evangelicalism. One emphasizes the historic orientation of mission as evangelism, and carried on in meetings such as the Global Consultations on World Evangelization (GCOWE) organized in 1989, 1995, and 1997. The focus of this stream remains the development of thriving church movements among people groups around the world.

A second stream, following Stott, focuses on integrating a holistic approach to mission, incorporating evangelism and issues of social justice and reconciliation (see Holistic Mission). Consultations such as that in Wheaton in 1983, convened to discuss the nature of the church, gave voice to this group and "laid a sound theological basis for the mission of the Church, with no dichotomy between evangelism and social responsibility" (Padilla, p. 247).

The third stream, sometimes referred to as the radical discipleship group, and including evangelicals such as Ron Sider, Rene Padilla, and Samuel Escobar, considers social justice to be mission just as evangelism is, and does not give priority to either (see also Option for the Poor).

Representatives of the three streams have come together from time to time, perhaps most notably at the Consultation on the Relationship between Evangelism and Social Responsibility (Grand Rapids 1982), where the partnership of evangelism and social responsibility and the primacy of evangelism were both reaffirmed, though it was noted that "some of us have felt uncomfortable about this phrase, lest by it we should be breaking the partnership" (LCWE, p. 24). Wheaton '83 gave greater weight to the partnership stream, as well as opening discussion on transforming societies through structural intervention as an element of holistic mission. Finally, representatives of all three streams were also present at the Lausanne Congress II on World Evangelism (Manila, 1989). Again, the focus continued to give weight to the idea of partnership with evangelism being primary. Through the declaration and subsequent ongoing reflection, the second stream gained prominence in evangelical mission.

The debate continues and concensus over this complex issue remains a goal to be reached in the future rather than a present reality.

Bibliography: D. Bosch, Witness to the World: The Christian Mission in Theological Perspective; W. Dyrness, Let the Earth Hear His Voice; LCWE, Evangelism and Social Responsibility: An Evangelical Covenant; W. H. Fuller, Church in Africa Today and Tomorrow: Proceedings of the A.E.A.M. 4th General Assembly, pp. 280-98; A. Johnston, the Battle for World Evangelism; A. Nichols, ed., The Whole Gospel for the Whole World: Story of Lausanne II Congress on World Evangelization, Manila 1989; R. C. Padilla, The Best in Theology, 1:239-252; G. Peters, A Biblical Theology of Missions; J. Siewert, Directory of Schools and Professors of Mission, Rev. ed.; J. R. W. Stott, Mission in the Modern World; C. Van Engen, Mission on the Way: Issues in Mission Theology; G. Vicedom, The Mission of God: An Introduction to a Theology of Mission.