Why Study Mission?

This is the fifth in a series of blog posts about Understanding our Mission. Click here to view Part 1.

Our understanding of missiology, the academic study of mission, is reflected in how we understand the place of mission in the overall context of the Church. In 1908, Martin Kähler, when noting that the New Testament Church was more concerned with mission than formulating theology, observed that “Mission is the mother of theology.”(1) In fact, the Church of Apostolic Christianity was defined by participating in God’s mission, which led to the development of theology. As Christianity became the religion of Western culture, however, theology lost its missionary dimension.(2)

It was not until the nineteenth century, in the midst of the modern missions movement, that there was significant interest in the study of missions. The academic field of missiology is grounded in biblical and theological studies, yet uses social sciences such as anthropology, communication, history, linguistics, political science, psychology, and sociology to better apply the foundation to the human condition.(3) As missiology became an academic discipline, its use of the social sciences caused it to be appended to practical theology – to prepare people for the task of cross-cultural missionary work.(4) Mission and missiology became an expendable part of the overall ministry of the church and the academic institution. “Missiology became the theological institution’s ‘department of foreign affairs’, dealing with the exotic but at the same time peripheral.”(5)

Today, missiology needs to be recognized as the study of all mission, not simply the “exotic” and “peripheral.” If the Church is engaged in mission, and mission is rooted in the missio Dei, then missiology should be the academic discipline under which all other disciplines fall, lying at the heart of all subjects within a seminary curriculum.(6) All other theological disciplines would find their identity in how they participate in the missio Dei. “Just as the church ceases to be the church if it is not missionary, theology ceases to be theology if it loses its missionary character.”(7)

Missiology can no longer exist as an optional discipline reserved for those needing practical preparation for cross-cultural service. God’s mission needs to be central in the study of biblical literature, Christian history, and theology. Linking missiology with theological doctrines such as soteriology (the academic study of the doctrine of salvation) and harmartiology (the academic study of the doctrine of sin) could stimulate discussion on the role of holistic mission as a multifaceted approach to salvation from all the evils of sin, including the individual, cultural, and systemic. Studying missiology alongside eschatology (the academic study of end times) would bring into focus the goal of mission – that all peoples would worship God. “Missions is what makes theology relevant. It’s what makes seminaries relevant. It keeps seminaries and churches from becoming inward-looking and self-absorbed...”(8) The study of mission in an academic setting and the practical application of mission in a church setting are inextricably linked to one another. When our study of mission is tied to other disciplines, our practice of mission will be linked to and drive the overall purpose of the Church.


1. David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission (New York: Orbis Books, 1991), 16.
2. Bosch, 489.
3. A. Scott Moreau, Gary R. Corwin, and Gary B. McGee. Introducing World Missions: A Biblical, Historical, and Practical Survey (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004), 73-74.
4. Alan Neely, “Missiology” in Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions ed. A. Scott Moreau (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000), 633-634.
5. Bosch, 492.
6. Thomas Hale, On Being a Missionary (Pasadena, California: William Carey Library, 1995), 6.
7. Bosch, 494.
8. Hale, 6.