THE MISSION
What is mission, and what is the principal foundation for the mission of the church? The
word mission itself comes from the Latin verb missio, which means "to send." So,
literally, missions has to do with sending. In the Scriptures, we see the verb to
send being used over and over, in a multitude of ways. But there's a sense in which the
whole life of the church and the whole experience of the Christian are rooted ultimately
in some kind of sending that is founded in the authority and the action of God Himself.
It is God who institutes, sanctifies, and mandates the mission of the church. One of the
most famous passages in the Bible speaks to this mission: "For God so loved the
world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but
have eternal life" (John 3:16). Many people know this verse, but how many know the
next verse? "For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in
order that the world might be saved through him" (v. 17). The motive behind the divine
action of redemption crystallized in John 3:16 lies in the action of God in sending His
Son into the world. The purpose was not negative but positive; God didn't send the Son
for the purpose of judgment, but rather for the purpose of redemption. Verse 34 reveals
more about that mission: "For he whom God has sent utters the words of God, for he
gives the Spirit without measure." Who is the one whom God had sent? It's Jesus
Christ, and He was sent speaking the words of God and giving the Holy Spirit without
measure.
Jesus speaks also in His High Priestly Prayer of speaking the words of God and of
having been sent by the Father: "For I have given them the words that you gave me,
and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and
they have believed that you sent me" (John 17:8). As He continues to pray for the
disciples, He says, "As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world"
(v. 18). Here we see the basis for the mission of the church. God sent Christ; Christ
sent the church. The biblical basis for missions is the Word of God spoken in divine
authority; it is the mandate of Christ.
We live in a time wherein the secular culture and many ecclesiastical authorities
dismiss the whole concept of world missions. Some claim that the time of world
missionary activity is over. One argument offered for this is that missions are not only
unnecessary but are a destructive force unleashed upon the world. The charge is that
world missions have been nothing more than a platform for imperialism and for the
exploitation of the underdeveloped nations by the industrialized nations in the world.
There is also the sociological consideration that civilization is a corrupting influence
upon innocent natives who would have greater well-being and peace without the
problems of the Western world that are inevitably carried in the carpetbags of the
missionary.
This is pure nonsense, of course, and not supported by evidence. Modern missions
provide valuable medical, educational, and agricultural resources, in addition to the
important work of preaching the gospel. Unfortunately, the number of missionaries in
the field continues to decline, because a significant portion of the church no longer
believes that it's necessary to fulfill the mandate from Christ to carry the gospel to the
ends of the earth.
But the mission of God has always been a sending program. God spoke to Abram in
the land of the Chaldeans and sent him to a new land where he would be the father of
a great nation. He came to Moses in the midst of the Midianite wilderness and sent
Moses to Pharaoh with the message, "Let my people go." God sent His children out of
Egypt and into the Promised Land. When they were disobedient to the covenant that
God had made with them, He sent the prophets to warn them. When that didn't bring
them around, He sent His Son.
The word apostle means "one who is sent." In the time of the New Testament, an
apostle was one who would carry the authority to speak in the name of the one who
had sent him. In the New Testament, the first Apostle is Christ Himself, the one sent by
the Father. Then, the Father and Son sent the Holy Spirit. Then, the Spirit was poured
out on the church, and the church was sent to complete the ministry of Christ in all the
world—to every tongue, to every nation, to every tribe.
In Romans 10, Paul raises a series of questions that speak directly to the matter of our
responsibility. Having affirmed that "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be
saved" (v. 13), he then asks:
How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to
believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without
someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written,
"How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!" (vv. 14–15)
No one can call upon Christ to save them if they don't believe in Him. Paul puts his
finger on the challenge and the responsibility of the church: to send, so that people
might hear about Christ, and upon hearing, might believe and be saved.
When is the missionary mandate over? When it has been fulfilled, and the mandate of
Christ has been completed. If someone stands up in a church meeting and says that
the day of mission is over, resist him with all of your might, because that person is
advocating nothing less than treason to the Lord of the church. It is the church's duty to
fulfill the Great Commission, to send people into all the world. That's what missions is
all about.
DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY IN THE MISSION OF GOD
Christians, and other religious communities, have long adapted to changes in media
technologies. The emergence of writing, the move from scroll to codex, the printing
press, the spread of literacy, the development of electronic media (radio, telephone,
film, and television), and the subsequent rise of digital communication (social media,
websites, digital publishing) provide obvious examples. Yet, it distorts the history of
religion and media to simply note that religious figures adopt new ways of expressing
themselves. They also resist media change, or alternatively, they adopt new forms of
media which they imagine as mere containers for unchanging messages that support
unchanging religious practice. These anxieties and simplifications must be examined,
for new media cultures encourage new ways of understanding ourselves and support
particular forms of religious practice while making others seem less “natural.”
Resistance to new media and its power is long established. Jeremiah (chapter 36)
reports that the prophet adopted the new form of the scroll to send a word of the Lord
to King Jehoiakim, and that the king responds by feeding the scroll into the fire. Tom
Boomershine describes this as the first recorded act of religious resistance to new
media and its power. Judaism was formed in the era of scroll, and the Torah as scroll
has a ritual function not replaced by the codex, in which pages are bound between
covers. Christians have also thought that the sacrality of the word is tied to its form.
The early church embraced the codex, the new media of its day, and later Christians
wondered whether the word of God and the mission of the church were well served by
changes to that form. Printing made it possible to put vernacular translations of the
Bible into the hands of lay people and required the church to ponder the implications of
this change. We saw similar struggles in explorations of whether the word of God could
be expressed through film and television, in debates about the value and challenges of
Bible apps, and in discussions of whether Christian community can be sustained in
digital spaces and through social media.
While some Christians distrust new media, others embrace media change without
considering the way that their faith claims and practices will change in new media
cultures. They imagine new media as the arrival of increasingly sophisticated amplifiers
allowing an unchanging message to reach ever larger and more distant audiences. But
in fact, different media make possible quite different ways of thinking and relating. We
might tease this out by exploring the complicated relationships between publishing,
literacy, and the rise of modern understanding of the individual. Print didn’t simply put
the scriptures in more people’s hands. Learning to read gave them a new relationship
to scripture, increasing the likelihood that they experienced themselves as interpreters
of the word. Similarly, in the era of televangelism some Christians embraced the
technology, and the genre of the television talk show, without understanding the ways
they would be drawn into the patterns and excesses of celebrity culture.
Today Christians are living into digital culture. It won’t be adequate to either resist it as
incapable of supporting authentic Christian life or to embrace it without considering the
changes it brings in Christian identity and community. Consider three factors of digital
culture. First, it assumes that communications are two-way. Whether one blogs, tweets,
or posts sermons, digital culture assumes that the post is the beginning of a
conversation in which it is possible for others to respond, and assumes that the original
poster is listening. Second, this and other factors flatten authority. Faith leaders create
contexts for meaningful conversation, they can help the community draw on its
heritage, but pronouncement is ineffective in this culture. As I have argued elsewhere,
more significant than digital technology is what I call the digital metaphor. Digital texts,
images, and soundscapes are created from pixels. The pixels can be rearranged; they
are subject to ongoing editing and repurposing. Through this metaphor, people think of
themselves, their religious identity, their theologies, and the church itself as under
constant formation and reformation. It won’t matter if church hierarchies adopt the tools
of digital communication if they fail to understand the digital culture in which they seek
to practice faithfully and effectively.
THE BIBLICAL BASIS OF MISSIONS
God’s heart for the nations shines through in every book of the Bible, and it is His
passion that drives our own. None of us would be mobilizers if we had not first been
mobilized ourselves through the study of Scripture. Together, let’s catch a glimpse of
God’s passion for all peoples to worship Him.
From the beginning, God blesses His people to be a blessing to all nations.
Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s
house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will
bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those
who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the
earth shall be blessed.”
Genesis 12:1– 3
God makes a promise to Abraham that He will make him into a great nation as
innumerable as the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore. God’s purpose was
that through this family, He would bless all the families of the earth. Jesus, a
descendant of Abraham, is the fulfillment of this great promise! Jesus is the greatest
blessing to all nations.
David’s triumph over Goliath spread God’s fame across the globe.
Then David said to the Philistine, “You come to me with a sword and with a spear and
with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies
of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I
will strike you down and cut off your head. And I will give the dead bodies of the host of
the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth, that all
the earth may know that there is a God in Israel …”
1 Samuel 17:45 – 46
David and Goliath, Daniel in the lion’s den, and other famous biblical stories show the
primary purpose behind these miracles was for God’s name and fame to spread to all
nations.
God’s desire to be exalted by all peoples will be fulfilled.
Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in
the earth!
Psalm 46:10
David encourages us to quiet ourselves and meditate on the awesomeness of God. As
we contemplate the attributes of His character and the power of His actions, we begin
to see that His glory is such that the only appropriate response is worship from all
nations.
Christ commissions us to spread the gospel to the ends of the earth.
“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be
my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
Acts 1:8
After Christ gave us His Great Commission in Matthew 28:19 – 20, He gave us His
strategy. It isn’t a linear progression where we evangelize the world only after we
witness locally. Neither is it an “or” statement where believers can focus on one area
and neglect the others. He has called all of us to affect all three areas at once —
locally, regionally, and globally. Only then will there be witness of Christ to all nations.
Paul’s holy ambition for God’s world testifies to our role on this planet.
I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named,
lest I build on someone else’s foundation, but as it is written, “Those who have never
been told of him will see, and those who have never heard will understand.”
Romans 15:20 – 21 (quoting Isaiah 52:15)
Paul’s greatest desire was to bring the good news to people who had never heard of
Jesus before. Today, with the large amount of people who still have never heard of
Jesus, we would do well to follow in Paul’s footsteps and play our role joining God in
redeeming to Himself people from all nations.
The revelation to John and to us confirms we do not labor in vain.
And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its
seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every
tribe and language and people and nation.”
Revelation 5:9
MOBILIZING BY MAKING DISCIPLESHIP
Disciples making disciples. On Facebook? If you think Facebook is just for cat videos
and selfies, think again. Missionaries in OMF and around the world are sharing the
gospel through the means of Facebook Ads, direct messaging, Interactive Voice
Response and other digital tools. In a digital world, Christian missionaries are finding
creative means to make connections and build relationships in order to share the
gospel.
Simply put, digital evangelism is the use of the internet and other digital tools to share
the gospel with others. What this looks like can vary widely in practice. The Billy
Graham Evangelistic Association engages with individuals by answering questions,
providing online counseling and email discipleship.
You may be engaging in digital evangelism yourself without realizing it. For churches
and individuals it might mean online small groups, blogs and YouTube videos sharing
the truth of the gospel.
In missions, it can be all or some of these things and is shaped by the country and
audience the missionary hopes to engage with.
REACHING THE UNREACHED
Digital evangelism provides us with a unique opportunity to reach those who haven’t
heard about Jesus. In Asia, only one in ten know a Christian. We in missions are
constantly aware of how limited our efforts are. Digital evangelism has the potential to
reach larger numbers of people with less manpower and the ability to access hard to
reach locations.
BREAKING BARRIERS
It feels safer to send a direct message than to walk into a church. Digital evangelism
allows for anonymity and can provide an excellent entry point for individuals to ask
questions, familiarize themselves with Christianity, and begin processing and thinking
in the privacy of their own lives. Entering a church, joining a Bible study or even
speaking to an individual involves a level of emotional commitment. Digital
communication has the ability to break down some of these barriers to the gospel and
facilitates future relationship building.
IT’S BRINGING HOPE
“We are not trying to make and promote videos for their own sake, but rather we want
to generate quality discussions that will lead to face-to-face meetings and people
believing in Jesus.
The end goal of digital evangelism is not digital engagement. It’s about building
relationships and bringing hope. In a world that has little hope to offer, we have a
responsibility to share our hope with anyone God places in our path.
Jesus paid for a people with His own blood and will one day receive His people, His
bride. God’s purpose is that all people groups will be represented in His Kingdom. This
is where all of history is headed; where God our Creator, our Father, and our Savior will
be worshiped by all nations.
