Monthly Archives: October 2011

Mission:  this word means different things to different people. For some it means planting churches; for others planting trees. For some it means critiquing contemporary politics; for others it means working within contemporary political frameworks. Some argue that mission means going overseas; others say it is going next door. For some it means developing businesses and encouraging entrepreneurship; for others it is rejection of the assumptions embedded in the business worldview. To add to the confusion, the word is used outside Christian discussion; secular organisations develop their own “mission statements”.  In fact some of these organisations may also be involved in tree planting, business development, and serving local and global neighbours.

Amidst this complexity, some have asked if the word mission is even useful anymore. The answer must be “yes” for at least two reasons. Firstly, no other term in the vocabulary of a faithful church fully captures the essence of mission. Mission is a broad umbrella under which one finds evangelism and discipling alongside social justice for widows and orphans, alongside ecological justice for forests and birds. Language specific to any one of these fields cannot do justice to the others. The diverse interpretation of mission then is not weakness but strength. Diversity goes deeper than interpretation; mission actually does mean all these things simultaneously in the mind of God. This brings us to the second reason to keep the word mission.

Mission belongs to and originates from God. The church doesn’t send; it is sent. The faithful church cannot help but speak the language of mission since mission is the reality into which it was and is born. The church exists by mission as a fire exists by burning. Mission then is all that God is doing to fully restore His creation back to Himself. Crucial to this is the work of Christ as one faithful to the mission of God through the empowering of the Holy Spirit, to the glorification of God among all nations and by all creation.

This definition of mission is in danger of disintegration due to the particular exclusion of the centrality of God’s work in Christ. Consider mission as care for creation illustrated in the story of the penguin ‘Happy Feet’. In terms of energy and finance expended, this penguin has been the recipient of holistic care on a lavish scale. Why are we willing to spend so much money to take care of the earth (even one penguin) and yet we are unwilling to take seriously the fact that the only way humanity and creation will be fully restored is because of what God has done in Christ? It is doubly unfortunate that money and technology were perceived as the “salvation” of ‘Happy Feet’ , revealing how we are tempted to pursue a pale facsimile of God’s mission that is indistinguishable from organisational “mission statements”. We will happily say “silver and gold we have and give to you, (penguin or person)” but we appear reluctant to say “in the name of Jesus rise up and walk (Acts 3:1-8)”. The penguin meanwhile has walked, disappeared even, whilst all the social and ecological evils that plagued us before it waddled into public consciousness persist. The Glory of God has not been visibly increased. The redemption wrought by God through Christ was not proclaimed. The whole exercise appears, because of this omission, rather flimsy and insubstantial. Humanity is part of creation.  Yet for all our intelligence and ingenuity we can’t fix the structural problems in our societies and the violence they do to the earth. Indeed it is often the ingenuity of exploitation that creates ecological degradation and social injustice in the first place. Without reference to the work of Christ, sustainability is unsustainable.

Consider an African example, where sustainable projects aimed at water conservation and prevention of soil erosion in one village were destroyed because an envious neighbouring village did not want to see the other benefit. At some point mission must deal with the dynamics of fallen humanity. The hills will skip like lambs and the trees clap their hands in praise of God. Regrettably, humanity silences this chorus of praise by cutting down trees and digging up the hills in its worship of profit. The earth wants to glorify God and groans until humans willingly join God’s mission and are reconciled to God and each other. Ecologists teach us that changing even one organism in an ecosystem creates an entirely new system. ‘Christ-centred’ care for creation as mission acknowledges this and seeks to transform humanity in the likeness of Christ so that all of creation may glorify God in unison, resulting literally in a new heaven and earth.

If mission is everything that a church does, what do we make of traditional cross-cultural mission that organisations like NZCMS have typically been associated with? Whether or not someone crosses cultural boundaries to pursue mission is a non-issue. Wherever the church is, it is in God’s world and about God’s mission. We live in an age of mission from everywhere to everywhere especially as the centre of global Christianity moves from the global north and west to global south and east (imprecise as these terms are). Hence God’s mission and some of those who have joined it will inevitably cross cultures. This means leaving one’s own location (social, geographical, intellectual) to enter the space of an ‘other.’ That space may be found across an ocean, in a shift from a suburban to urban or rural setting, or simply by relocating within a local subculture.

Christ’s incarnation is the model for this type of mission. He emptied himself and left behind the glories of heaven to enter the darkness and poverty of earth, (Phil. 2:5-8).The emptying is significantly more than a one-off historical event in the life and work of Christ. Cross-cultural mission always involves self-emptying. Missionaries must die daily so that Christ might live in them. They must decrease so that he might increase (John 3:30). Jesus said “As the father has sent me, I am sending you.” (John 20:21). This as speaks of more than the act of sending. God’s church is sent not merely to preach Christ’s atoning work on the cross, nor to proclaim as Jesus proclaimed, good news to the poor, sight for the blind and freedom to prisoners (Luke 4:18-19). We are sent, carrying the message of and about Christ, in the same way as Christ. We follow him in God’s mission carrying a message certainly, but also carrying our cross (Matt. 16:24). Mission may cross cultures; this is well understood.

Less well understood is that fact that all in mission must embrace the culture of the cross. Cross cultural mission in this sense critiques the present age of i-centred consumers called to the i-phone, the i-pad and even i-mission, where “mission” takes them to the exotic places they desire, where they feel fulfilled and where, if they suffer at all, it will only be to the extent that they are happy to accept and over which they maintain control. The sufficiency of God’s grace in suffering (2 Cor. 12:9) is replaced by the self-sufficiency of the individual to whom call has come to mean a consumer’s prerogative to choose. God’s power is made perfect in weakness.  Mission that avoids self-emptying weakness, vulnerability, sacrifice and attendant suffering hides the power and grace of God and therefore is not really mission since God is not glorified through it.