missions (noun) Efforts done by the church to establish new congregations, especially in other cultures, but particularly in areas where no congregations exist.
Well, after a few days at the Harding lectures, I’m ready to write again. I’m sure you’re relieved.
I want to share a few ideas about missions. Since I don’t like long posts, I’ll break them up into several posts over the next few days. (We’ll see what the definition of “few” is)
When I talk about missions, I have something specific in mind. Last year at our church, one of our elders, a Bible professor at ACU, said something like, “Since benevolence is a mission of the church, we should include that in our missions budget.” Ouch! As Syndrome from “The Incredibles” would say “When everything is missions, nothing is.”
Admittedly, it’s a contrived term. But we need something to refer to church planting in other cultures, and by convention we’ve chosen the word missions. Many activities can go into that goal, but “missionary activity” is about starting new churches.
As I’ve noted before, our brotherhood has become a bit embarrassed by that. We’d rather build houses, feed the poor, start schools… do the things that our non-Christian neighbors will also laud and applaud. But there has to be a place, a prominent place, in the work of the church for the effort of establishing churches where there presently are none.
That’s a start. I’d like to hear your thoughts on what missions are, what role they have in the life of the church, and whether or not they have a place in the twenty-first century church.