Missions: What it is and what it's not

The words “mission” and “missions” (with the final “s”) are often used somewhat interchangeably. However, there are subtle differences between these two terms. If mission is everything the Church does to participate in the overarching missio Dei, then missions is the more specific term, referring to exactly how the church carries out mission. These specific missions can take the form of specific tasks which help accomplish the wider mission. (1)

A more comprehensive explanation is that missions are the “specific activities which are undertaken by human decision to bring the gospel to places or situations where it is not heard, to create a Christian presence in a place or situation where there is no such presence or no effective presence.” (2) Missions most often refers to crossing cultural or linguistic barriers to take the message of the Gospel to peoples who have not yet heard the message or who have not yet developed self-supporting churches.

“In sum, missio Dei is a comprehensive term encompassing everything God does in relation to the kingdom and everything the church is sent to do on earth. The term mission represents something narrower: everything with redemptive purpose that the church is sent to do. Finally, missions is the most specialized of the terms, describing the activity of churches, agencies, and people in making disciples and planting churches.” (3)

What Missions is Not
While it is important to understand what missions is, it is also important to realize what missions is not. Missions is sometimes identified simply as cross- or inter-cultural ministries. Although crossing cultures is often involved in missions, it is not synonymous with it. When missions services at churches are reduced to cross-cultural orientations (complete with international flags on display, ethnic foods being eaten, hand-made trinkets being shown, foreign languages introduced, pictures or models of historical landmarks shown, maps or globes used to decorate, and information about foreign countries shared) the true meaning of missions has been lost. While these can be fun and helpful to understand the cultures of places around the world, we must be careful that the cross-cultural component of missions does not replace the missio Dei. Our missions services must call for participation in God’s mission. Missions cannot exist without mission being firmly rooted in the missio Dei. If missions exists alone, it is merely human activity.

1. Christopher J. H. Wright, The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative (Downer’s Grove, Illinois: IVP Academic, 2006), 23.
2. Lesslie Newbigin, The Open Secret (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1995), 121.
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.