Christian Mission 101

July 2017

I'm developing a series of workshops at Church of the City New York called "Mission 101," as a way of engaging our congregation with the essential questions of missiology - with the goal of helping everyone create and identify new opportunities for missional encounters for themselves, as an outworking of their individual discipleship.  Discipleship and mission are always inter-related, but mission focuses on a slightly different set of questions, which I'll highlight here.

So, in order to make it participatory and create space for dialogue, I'll mostly facilitate these workshops conversationally, rather than teach them - trying to make them a little more socratic than didactic.  Here are a few of the essential "101" questions that we will explore (this is very much a "back of the napkin" set of responses, closer to what I would say conversationally, not academically, and each of these questions have much, much lengthier answers elsewhere).

What is God's mission in the world?

The mission of God in the world is known in missiology as the "Missio Dei."  Typically, any conversation of missiology will have the Great Commission as its foundation, when Jesus said to his disciples before he left them, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.  And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age" (Matt. 28:19-20).  This is Biblical center point of mission, which launches the book of Acts, our most extensive narrative treatment of the work of the early church.

The Missio Dei is summarized most simply as the ongoing extension of the ministry of Jesus, who was fully God and the fulfillment of all of the work of God throughout the Old Covenant.  So, as we look to the biblical story and see God as creator, liberator, redeemer, law-giver, just judge, and more, we see the summary of all of those things in Jesus, and rightly include them in our understanding of our work in the world.  But we most clearly rely on the mandate to "make disciples" and to "teach them" that which Jesus taught us, empowered by Jesus' Holy Spirit, to near and far horizons - to the "Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the ends of the Earth" (Acts 1:8) of our time.

What does that mean for the Christian?

The simplest way to understand our mandate as Christians is to "join God in what He's doing."  This is why reflection on what God is doing is so important, and why the first step of mission is to listen, to observe, to discover, to "join with," rather than to unilaterally act.  This is a really important framing of the whole enterprise - we join God, and by doing so, we operate within the bounds, the norms, the telos (goal), and the narrative shape of what we see God doing as revealed in scripture and through the history of the church.  God's priorities become our priorities, and that which concerns God is that which legitimately concerns us.

This means that every Christian is in some senses a "missionary," and each Christian should live a "missional" life as they grow into the way of Jesus, and that the church should be a "missional community."  Every disciple participates in a church which shares a responsibility to clearly invite more people to become disciples.  The biblical story and mandate also mean that the scope of our missional responsibility has multiple horizons - we are primarily responsible for missional encounter with our neighbors and community (what I call, following economics, "micro-missiology"), but we are simultaneously responsible for "missions," as we invest in the work of God in our city, our country, and into the world (what I call "macro-missiology").  Every Christian and Christian community needs to intentionally balance the proximate and non-proximate dimensions of our missional calling.

What does that look like in practice? 

Mission is something you do - it has a bias toward action - but mission is also something you design - meaning it always begins with intentionality and purpose.  To "do mission" without first designing it is like building without an architect or driving without a map, but to "design mission" without actually doing it is to be stuck in theory and concept.  Both are dangerous, although I believe the former is more common.

And so, my contention is that the work of "designing mission" is an essential skill for the missional church and the missional Christian, and while many people do it intuitively, we don't sufficiently talk about the tradeoffs and decisions that help us design mission more effectively.  While there is quite a bit to say about this, I would summarize it by saying that all missional encounters require (1) a specific person or group of people clearly in mind, (2) an "incarnational" encounter with that person or group that creates value for them, and communicates or embodies the Gospel with clarity, credibility, and plausibility, and (3) an intended outcome for that person or group, no matter how small, which frames the encounter and moves them incrementally toward Jesus (see the Engel Scale on this).  Within that arc are an almost endless set of opportunities for mission.

How do we know if our mission is effective?

Mission can be more or less faithful to the Biblical story, and it can be more or less effective in "making disciples."  We have the promise of the Holy Spirit to guide and lead and establish the church with all power and wisdom, but along with that, we have the responsibility included within our mandate to translate the invitation of Jesus to our time and place.  Jesus was "translated" into a particular culture, the Scriptures have been "translated" into many cultures over time, and our faith is always a "translated" faith, in a sense.  This is called "contextualization," and good contextualization is the leading indicator of good mission.  Effective, contextualized mission is basically the pursuit of "faithfulness and fruitfulness."

Faithfulness is our fidelity to the Biblical story and imagination and norms.  This is why we "won't" do certain things in mission, and why part of our missional responsibility is often to gently confront or critique.  Mission is oriented toward loving our neighbor on their terms, but never at the expense of compromising or obscuring the invitation of Jesus.  Fruitfulness is how we aim to "match" or "align" our work with our neighbors in our time and place, using the thought-forms and cultural-forms of our time to lower the barriers, clear the brush away, create clarity and plausibility, and move people incrementally forward toward becoming disciples.  These, then, are the two things we evaluate - are we being faithful?  Are we striving to be as fruitful as possible?

Where do we focus our limited missional energy?

This is finally where the rubber meets the road.  We exist, individually and communally, as people that have to manage the tradeoffs of our time, energy, and relationships.  How do we know where to be involved, and how to say "yes" and "no" to seemingly endless missional needs and opportunities?  I think there are a few clear ways.

First is developing missional habits.  "Religious people have rules, busy people have lists, missional people have stories," as the phrase goes. Becoming missional can begin as simply as being open to new encounters, and creating new rhythms and postures for how to interact with the people immediately around you, with loving missionary intention.

Second is developing your missional burden.  We each have things that God has caused us to "feel" a connection to deeply - specific people or groups of people, particular issues or injustices in the world, areas of pain or trauma or tragedy, or particular "frontiers" where the Gospel doesn't seem to be connecting.  Often this will flow naturally out of a personal story of coming to faith or a set of life experiences.  Finding and understanding your burden is essential to focusing your missional energy.

Third is developing your missional gifts.  We can't do everything.  Even when we can do many things, we should often strive to find the "best and highest" use of our gifts and skills.  I think of this most often and most clearly when I see, for example, highly skilled professionals in the west doing ministry or missionary work in an overseas context, doing work completely unrelated to their areas of highest competency, when those skills might be the gift that is actually most needed - and nobody thought to ask or connect the dots.  Operate and contribute out of your skill set.

Develop your missional habits, develop your missional burden, and develop your missional gifts - and then deploy them in an aligned way at all levels of mission - locally, city-wide, and around the world.  This is how you focus your mission.