Theology - Not Just for Professionals

In the last two blog posts, I said that this season of “stay home-stay safe” could be a season for short-term mission teams to focus on their spiritual growth and reflect on the meaning of mission.  Some groups might do this through a Bible study.  Others might use a book for mission teams like A Mission Journey.  Some groups might decide to each pray at the same time every day, so that they are praying at the same time in spite of being physically separated.  What all of these have in common is that they are ways we “do theology”.  What exactly does that mean, to “do theology”?  Isn’t that something that only seminary professors or pastors do?

Faith Seeking Understanding

Saint Anselm says that “I do not seek to understand so that I may believe; but I believe so that I may understand.”  Further, he says that God gives understanding to faith.  This idea is often shortened to “faith seeking understanding”.  People believe in the grace of Jesus Christ and the love of God and because they believe, they seek understanding of God’s love.  The United Methodist Book of Discipline describes theology as “our effort to reflect on God’s gracious action in our lives” which is very much like faith seeking understanding.  The word “theology” really just means people thinking about God’s love and actions in the world, people talking about how they understand God working in the world, or a person quietly reflecting on God’s love in their own life.  “Theology” is not just for specialists!

Faith seeking understanding means that we think about God’s love in our lives and how God is calling us to join in God’s work of justice and mercy.  I have often heard United Methodist volunteers in mission say that they “don’t do theology” or that they only do mission, not theology.  But when they talk about their Bible study group or their Sunday school group and how they felt God calling them to go and do something to help people, they are describing “faith seeking understanding” - theology!  That is, they talk about faith with their friends, they pray and study with friends, and then because they have talked about faith with others and have heard the call of God to be hands and feet of compassion, they “do mission”.

Seeking Understanding Through Study and Sweat

Years ago I taught a small group of preschoolers.  Some liked to sit and listen during storytime.  Some liked to play with blocks or other small toys.  Some liked to play outside on the playground.  Our little school always tried to find ways to teach concepts in ways that the children could learn best.  Hearing a lesson on the alphabet worked for some children, but others learned better when they had sidewalk chalk and could trace over the letters drawn outside.  We drew a big “J” and then jumped on the letter, saying “jump! jump! jump!”  People learn in different ways.  As people of faith, some can reflect best on their faith when they read complex texts.  Others reflect best on their faith when they talk with their friends after a long day rebuilding a porch, replacing siding, or digging a well.  Faith seeking understanding can happen through study or through sweat. 

In this season of waiting and rescheduling our mission trips, we have an opportunity to focus on the study side of faith seeking understanding.  As people who are dedicated to being in mission, it can be difficult to switch focus like this, to move from action to contemplation.  We can take encouragement from looking at the whole of scripture as God’s gracious mission for the world.  Christopher J.H. Wright says that the “…Bible renders to us the story of God’s mission through God’s people in their engagement with God’s world for the sake of the whole of God’s creation.”  We can use this time to read again the story of God’s love for the whole creation, which comes to completion in Jesus Christ – and from that story, we can find our burdens lightened, our sins forgiven, our hopes encouraged, and our faith strengthened through seeking understanding, preparing us for our next mission trip.  

Soon those of us who like to reflect on God’s love (doing theology) after a day of helping others (doing mission) will be able to reschedule our mission trips.  Soon we will be able to pick up the shovels and hammers that we use to show our love of God and neighbor through action.    Until then, may God bless our learning and seeking. 

Quote from page 22:  The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative by Christopher J. H. Wright, published 2006 by InterVarsity Press.

Not Going on the Mission Trip

Anthony Gittins describes a missionary experience as a passing over and coming back in his book Ministry at the Margins.  He says that this is “the greatest religious adventure of our time”. Many churches have mission teams that have spent months planning and preparing for their mission trip.  Some of these were spring break mission trips that canceled at the last minute.  Some of these are planned for the summer and are on hold, waiting to see how the COVID19 pandemic plays out, waiting to decide if it will be safe to proceed or prudent to reschedule.  Lots of people were expectantly waiting to go on their mission trip, hoping that it would be one of those great religious adventures, where they would step away from their usual routines, spend extra time in prayer and worship, meet new friends, offer a helping hand in some way, and then return home to consider all they had experienced.

 A Strange New Experience

Instead, we are all experiencing something unanticipated.  People are working from home, students are learning from home, teachers are learning how to connect with their students from their homes, pastors are learning how to connect with their congregations via videoconferencing and livestreams, everyone is having to adapt to keeping physical distance from friends and neighbors.  All of this is a strange new experience. 

One of the things that Anthony Gittins points out is that the missionary adventure does not necessarily require travel.  He says that “in the postmodern words, every city is multicultural and every neighborhood is surrounded by invisible barriers separating prosperity from poverty.  Anyone who want to can encounter poor or needy people; anyone who chooses to can pass over and come back.”  This is true for ordinary circumstances and most short-term mission volunteers I’ve met also do mission work in their neighborhoods and cities.  However, even that kind of work has been impacted by state and county orders to stay at home, with only essential services and businesses exempted. 

In western North Carolina there are a number of churches that offer free meals once a week.  These are called “Welcome Table” or “Open Table” meals.  Volunteer staffers prepare and serve a meal, anyone can come in and sit around a table to share a hot meal and fellowship.  Even these ministries have been suspended because of COVID19.  Manna Food Bank, our area agency, has continued to provide produce and food distribution services.  I know of several other community outreach agencies that are also finding ways to provide food to anyone who needs it.  All of these agencies have seen a decrease in volunteers and have had to adapt quickly to keeping those who can continue volunteering safe.  The adventure has shifted from meeting and helping our neighbors to trying to keep everyone safe from unseen germs.

 Stilled Hands and Feet

Perhaps the religious adventure that we are experiencing is how to be the body of Christ when we must be separate from each other.  People of faith who are active in short-term mission or volunteering in their local community have told me that they do so because they understand themselves to be part of the body of Christ, living out faith with their hands and feet.  It is disorienting to suddenly have that essential aspect of your faith brought to a halt.  It means that we have to think deeply about how we understand what it means to be the church, what it means to be the body of Christ.  It means we must rely more deeply on our spiritual practices of prayer and study.

In the late 1800s as men and women signed up for missionary work, they always began with prayer and study.  Their commitment was to a life in mission service, and many knew that they might not ever return home.  These missionaries had to be firmly grounded in prayer and study before they left because the journey and the work were difficult and long.  Short-term missionaries have had the relative ease of being able to quickly return home from their mission work.  A critique of short-term mission is that often volunteers are using the experience itself for their spiritual growth.  Perhaps in this moment of staying at home, we as short-term mission volunteers can focus on our spiritual growth in understanding God’s mission.  Perhaps our religious adventure is learning how to be still and listen for the voice of God active in the world.  Perhaps we will learn how to use our stilled hands and feet in prayer, challenged to not pass over and come back in person, yet still encounter God and our neighbor and learn to love them both more deeply. 

Quotes from page five in Ministry at the Margins: Strategy and Spirituality for Mission by Anthony J. Gittins, Published by Orbis Books, 2002. 

Short-term Mission in a Time of Coronavirus

John Wesley established three general rules for the earliest Methodist societies.  The modern phrasing of his rules is: Do no harm, do all the good you can, and stay in love with God.  The societies were small groups of people who sought spiritual renewal through gathering in small groups to pray, study scripture together, and to go out into their daily lives to intentionally help others.  These groups were in addition to usual Sunday worship, and many United Methodists today still gather in small groups to pray, to study, and to be in mission together.  But now we are told that to protect the most vulnerable among us we are to NOT meet in groups, we are not to gather together for worship, and we most certainly should not travel.  We should practice social distancing.  A hard thing to do for faithful people who desire to show love for God and neighbor by being present with one another. How do we do no harm and still do all the good we had planned to do?

 One of the underlying assumptions about short-term mission work is that we have the freedom to travel and be with people in their time of need.  This is why Early Response Teams have trailers packed with equipment and tools to go at a moment’s notice to an area affected by an earthquake or tornado.  This is why teams of volunteers keep their passports up to date and stay in communication with their denominational partners in other countries.  Yet in this moment in which a virus has spread across the globe, we are told that we must not travel, we must restrict our freedom so that others will be safe.  We must practice social distancing to reduce the curve of infection spread, so that hospitals and doctors’ offices can cope with the numbers of those who fall critically ill, and hopefully to keep those who are most at risk safe.

In the last 24 hours there are many United Methodists who are coming to terms with the news that our next General Conference, in which we were to take up legislation that might result in our denomination splitting, is to be postponed.  Many of my United Methodist friends have shared their initial reactions on social media.  But there are other stories that aren’t making headlines or being shared widely on social media - particularly, conversations being held in churches about whether or how to proceed with their planned short-term mission trips.  Is it safe for our team and our hosts if we go?  How can we help if we don’t go?  How can we show the love of God and neighbor if we don’t go?

Now is a good time for people to reflect on the deeper meaning of mission.  We can still gather via phone calls or video conferencing.  We can still pray together and study together.  This is a good time to pause for a deep dive into scripture and mission theology, to equip ourselves for when we return to showing God’s love through our sweat and labor.  This is a moment of holy opportunity. 

Recently I visited Haw Creek Commons in Asheville, North Carolina.  They have a small labyrinth painted on the floor of the coworking space.  The nearby elementary school had just let out and a few children came into the room on their way to piano lessons, others to take a break from the playground outside.  They were drawn to the labyrinth, and all of them ran around the path.  Run to the center, laugh, turn around and run back out again.  They were enthusiastic and joyful! 

Short-term mission work can draw us in like those joyful children on the labyrinth.  Our enthusiasm and joy in the work of helping our neighbors is shown in how quickly we respond to needs and how eagerly we set aside our usual routine for hammers and nails, saws and paintbrushes.  Our time is used up in planning meetings, traveling, dividing up into work teams, working hard to finish tasks for our new friends, and then traveling home to wash laundry and get back to our regular routines.  Like school children running the labyrinth, we rush in and out, not resting in the center.

This is a moment in which we can stop and rest in the center, to prayerfully consider how it is that Christ is calling us to be the church in mission.  If your mission teams would like to schedule a video conference / devotional focused on mission, contact me for more information about hour long sessions or mini-retreats led by Sister of Hope Ministries.  Be prayerful and patient, friends.  God is with us, now and always, dispersed or together, and we are the sheep of God’s pasture.

The Fragrance of Missions

This spring I planted a vegetable and herb garden.  I used to plant tomatoes and a few herbs each spring, but we moved to a new part of the country a couple years ago and I wasn't sure if I should try a garden here.  The weather is different, the soil is different, and besides....my gardening wasn't all that successful in recent years.

But I gave it a try anyway.  WOW.  It was a massive garden.  I had sent in a soil sample to my area Extension Agent and my husband accordingly tilled in some lime.  He built support trellises for the tomatoes and cucumbers, we also planted marigolds, basil, parsley, rosemary, banana peppers, Brussels sprouts and a couple cabbages.  Oh yeah, and a couple butternut squash plants.  Turns out, the bugs LOVED the sprouts and cabbage very much (I didn't get even one).  There were so many tomatoes and cucumbers that I couldn't give them away fast enough.  And that afterthought of a butternut?  Sheesh.  It took over the whole plot.

Back in early June when the garden was just planted, I had to do rather a lot of weeding.  This vegetable garden had been long neglected and was covered in pasture grass (a rather tough variety which my husband just mows in the rest of the back yard).  In order for the vegetables to thrive, we first had to till several times and then I had to be vigilant about hand weeding around the new plants.  It was a mucky task, out there each morning, digging carefully so as not to disturb the vegetable and herb seedlings and their growing root systems.

One morning I noticed that each time I reached for the weeds against the tomato plants, my arm would brush up against the basil, and its lovely scent would fill the morning air.  As I moved down the row to weed the squash, the same thing happened - my arm brushed the rosemary and its woody, fresh scent filled the air.  The scent of those herbs were aromatic anticipation of the delicious food to come.

As I pulled weeds gently away from the vegetable sprouts, it occurred to me that weeding the garden is a necessary task similar to a post-mission trip reflection or debrief.  Once home from a mission trip - whether across state lines or out of the country - it is important to do a little reflecting, to nurture the new spiritual growth that comes when we put faith into action.  The fragrance of missions reminds us that no matter how difficult the subjects we face in a debriefing session, God is with us, deepening our relationships with each other, with those we went to help, and with Jesus Christ.

A mission team that went to do hurricane recovery had some difficult weeding to do.  As they got to know the people they were helping to rebuild homes and schools, they started to think carefully about the relationship between the US (where they were from) and the country in which they were serving.  One man pointed out that he had many of the same questions about climate change and economic structures that kept people in poverty after his hurricane recovery work in the US as well as internationally.  Another person asked about international trade laws and how that affected the ability of a small nation to obtain adequate resources.  The weeds of colonialism, capitalism, globalism, and economic inequality really bothered this team, even though they hadn't talked about it much during their work or travel days.  Back home though, each of them was thinking about it individually, and didn't think anyone else was as stressed out as they were.  But talking about it together made the task of weeding out larger problems easier.  As they talked, they also remembered relationships formed, and the people who prayed for them and with them during the trip.  This was the fragrance of missions, that reminded them how important it is to examine the mucky things, to weed them out of our own hearts, and to look courageously at where we have benefited from unjust structures.  It is difficult work, but the fragrance of the blessing of relationships makes it work worth doing, and strengthens your own spiritual root system.

If you're home from a summer mission trip, and there are heavy questions weighing on you, you're not alone.  If you'd like to have a guide walk your team through a debrief, let me know.  There are fall and winter dates open for retreats, either in person or via videoconference.  Contact me today for more information.  And may the fragrance of your mission trip be a blessing to you and all you helped.

Understanding Our Perspective

A few days ago I went to a lecture by John Pavlovitz. He spoke passionately about the church’s need to embrace an expansive hope, to keep extending the table, because the table belongs to Christ, not to us. I think a lot about extending the table, in part because I drive past a restaurant renovation every day on my way to and from town. The restaurant will be called “Sawhorse” because the new owners grew up in a family that used sawhorses to expand the table, to welcome guests for any meal. It’s an approach to hospitality and abundance that is inspiring. After the recent General Conference vote to add more punitive measures to LGBTQ exclusion in the UMC and the mosque shootings in Christchurch, NZ, I needed to hear words of hope and inspiration to continue living into the way of Christ the peacemaker. I’m grateful for the work and ministry that John is doing.

One thing he said caught my mission-oriented ear however, and it is an all-too-common thing I hear from people who have been on mission trips. “They had nothing.”

Pavlovitz was describing the joy and warmth of the young people at a school in Kenya, where he and his wife were visiting. By the way he described it, the village must have been in a rural area and likely one struggling with poverty. It is shocking to US citizens who travel to discover the depths of poverty that affect the majority of the world’s citizens. It is shocking for US citizens to discover that poverty affects so many people right here in our own country. Sometimes it takes a short-term mission trip to push us beyond our familiar streets, neighborhoods and stores to see the reality of poverty and how it affects our neighbors. Yet, we can be restricted in how we view our neighbors because of our perspective.

Our perspective is the set of unconscious lenses we wear when we look at the world. Dr. Cate Denial is a historian who recently described an exercise she used to help her students understand the perspectives they bring to the study of history. She had students pair up, with one describing a set of objects to another whose back was turned away from the objects while they drew what was described to them. Student pairs were scattered around the room, with the objects on the desk at the front of the room. They shared their drawings and discussed the differences between them. Great questions were raised about primary sources (the persons who were describing the objects) and perspective. The students began to consider other lenses that affect our perspective - cultural background, education, ideology.

In short-term mission, our perspective is impacted by the unconscious lenses we wear. Our cultural background affects how we think about money. Our education colors how we think about other people and governmental systems. Our own political views are a lens. When we travel, we bring our perspectives with us, and these affect how we think about and talk about our neighbors in other places. The common phrase “they had so little” or “they had nothing” can be a perspective that comes from our affluence. We may not realize that we understand “what we have” in material terms, while the people who are welcoming us understand “what we have” in terms of hospitality.

When Pavlovitz visited Kenya, the young people who greeted him likely welcomed him with joyful songs and cheerful smiles. Their perspective was that they offered him their best hospitality, which is what they had in abundance. What if when we return home from mission trips we talked about our hosts in terms of what they had instead of what they lacked, which came from not unpacking our perspective? What if we took off our lens of materialism and consumerism to see that our humanity is what we share and judge people from a perspective of hospitable generosity? Then we can say “they gave us their very best”.

Unpacking our perspective and understanding the unconscious lenses that we wear on mission trips is important, because how we talk about our neighbors matters. How we talk with them matters. How we talk about them when we return home matters. The concept of Ubuntu means “I am because We are.” I am more fully human, more fully who God created me to be because we are in relationship. I am, because we are. How we talk about our neighbors matters, to us and to our shared humanity in Christ.

Training Season

Last Sunday my town was hit by an ice storm.  The weather forecast had called for some snow, but all we got was rain, sleet and freezing temps.  That added up to a layer of ice on trees, power lines and roadways.  Many area churches canceled their regular services or moved them to a later time.  For large churches, a notice on the local TV station got the word out.  Others used Facebook.  My congregation includes many folks who don’t have computers or smart phones, so we relied on our landline phone list and prayer chain. 

Sometimes things are as simple as A plus B plus C equals success.  Other times things are R plus S plus F equals Sunday morning scrambling around coming up with alternative plans. 

A friend of mine asked last week if I had any information for his new leadership position at his church.  I found an old copy of a booklet from the United Methodist General Board of Discipleship that had information for his job in his church.  While I was looking, I remembered that January is a time when many United Methodist districts will offer leadership training.  Last week I saw that there was a training session happening in my annual conference for mission volunteers.  It seems that January is “training season” for volunteers of many kinds in the church.

My friend had a look at the information booklet and said “there’s a lot there”.  It can be overwhelming when you’re suddenly in charge, and you know that the church is important to people so you want to get it right.  In fact, the information booklet for leaders in charge of mission at their church has this interesting quote:  “There is no magic formula for a perfect mission program.  Don’t think that 2 mission trips + 50 UMCOR Health Kits + 1 mission study = success!”

That is SO right.  There is no formula for a perfect mission program or a perfect mission trip.  I’ve been on mission teams that used the pre-trip team meetings to decide the schedule, the vacation activities, and who would bring the Vacation Bible School project supplies in their second suitcases.  However, those meetings didn’t spend any time on learning the language our hosts would speak, learning about our destination’s history and current context, or considering what problems we might encounter on our trip.  There are always problems to encounter on a mission trip.  The group might have had a better experience if we’d been a little prepared for difficulties – or at least hadn’t expected perfection.

My work as a mission consultant would be a snap if I could advertise it as “Four Easy Steps To The Perfect Mission Trip!” or “Three Easy Steps To Revitalizing Your Mission Outreach!”.  Truth is, there is no magic formula.  But there is joy in the journey.  Each mission team or outreach committee is made up of dedicated people who are ready to put their hands and hearts to work, to be involved in disciple-making for the transformation of the world.  When they feel a bit overwhelmed like my friend, then I’m ready to come alongside and guide the mission team or outreach committee through the work of discerning their particular goals, to help them prepare for their trip, or to have a post-trip retreat to unpack all their feelings and questions about their experience.  It really helps to have someone walk with you through your work in local church missions, beyond a booklet or an hour-long workshop at the district training session. 

If you are new to mission team preparation or you’ve just accepted a role on your church’s outreach team and you’re not sure what to do, contact me for a phone consultation or a video consultation.  We can create a plan to help your team be ready for missions and avoid the last-minute scramble.

Waters of Baptism

This week as I’ve been preparing for Baptism of the Lord Sunday in my local churches, I’ve been reading a lot about water, about Methodist understanding of baptism, and as always, mission. What does mission have to do with our baptism?

Baptism is one of my earliest memories, watching my brothers being baptized in our childhood church. What I didn’t realize as a child was that being baptized meant that we were being incorporated into the body of Christ. A four-year old child has a limited capacity to understand such an abstract concept. To be honest, most of us no matter our age, struggle to really, deeply understand what it means to be incorporated by the Holy Spirit into God’s new creation, which is the body of Christ for the world.

In the United Methodist liturgy for baptism, these are the words the congregation says to the newly baptized person. “Through baptism you are incorporated by the Holy Spirit into God’s new creation and made to share in Christ’s royal priesthood. We are all one in Christ Jesus. With joy and thanksgiving we welcome you as members of the family of Christ.” This is the thing that we all work to understand as disciples. Our experience of baptism is not private. It is personal, but it moves us beyond our selfish interests and helps us to become part of the body of Christ, given for the sake of the world. We are saved, not for ourselves, but for others.

This brings us to mission. When we go out on a short-term mission trip, we likely have been moved by empathy and compassion for those who struggle and suffer. We want to help! This is clear by the United Methodist Volunteers in Mission response to the needs in Puerto Rico. Devastated by hurricanes, the people of Puerto Rico need help to recover. The Methodist Church in Puerto Rico reports that there are already 125 teams signed up to work there in 2019 - that’s more than two teams of volunteers per week on average. Our baptism means that if our brothers and sisters are suffering, so we suffer with them, and some folks are able to travel and put their compassion into sweat and work.

For our worship on Sunday, we’ll use water imagery. We’ll sing about baptism, we’ll talk about baptism, and we’ll dip our fingers in water to remember our baptisms. A clergy friend of mine has a family coming to be baptized on this special Sunday. I love water imagery. But everyone has a different experience of water, and for me, this includes growing up on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Hurricanes were an annual threat. I’ve lived through several hurricanes, some with rain and wind, and some with flooding. Water is a powerful image and it is helpful to remember that although we have the water of baptism as one of our sacraments, we need to remember that water imagery can be helpful or painful for people.

I worshiped with a group once that loved to sing a contemporary worship song that talks about God’s love being like a hurricane. The first time I heard it, I was stunned into silence. That song did NOT help me to sing praise to God or to consider more deeply God’s love for me. All I could think about was the destructive power of hurricanes. Surely the songwriter did not know what it was like to live through a hurricane, right? And then I learned that the song was written by a Houston-based Christian band leader. Is it possible that a person living in Houston would not know the destructive power of hurricanes? Yes, it’s possible.

This is the point at which we find the opportunity to learn together through mission projects. All those United Methodist volunteers going from the US to Puerto Rico to help with hurricane recovery have the opportunity to worship with their Methodist brothers and sisters, to listen to their stories, to learn about their faith, and how their faith has sustained them through it all. While the work projects are critically needed, so are the connections and relationships between people. All those mission teams have the opportunity to listen to the faith of the people of Puerto Rico. It can take a lifetime to understand what it really means to be incorporated by the Holy Spirit and to share in Christ’s royal priesthood.

If you have a mission team heading out on a hurricane recovery trip this year and you are interested in having a post-trip team retreat to debrief and talk about how baptism shapes our mission work, contact me! Dates are open now for summer and fall 2019 retreats and workshops.

What is Mission?

Last month I attended the Wild Goose Festival and had the opportunity to hear a presentation by the hosts of the Failed Missionary podcast and the author of The Very Worst Missionary.  The conversation revealed a lot of pain and questions around the practice of mission, in particular, evangelical short-term mission and mission placements of a few years.  To be up front, my experience in short-term mission is in the United Methodist Church structures, not the evangelical church, and there are some differences.  However, I am familiar with a wide variety of texts on theology of mission, and the conversations I heard spurred me to look closely at the questions raised.

Questions From Experience

To begin, I started listening to the Failed Missionary podcast.  A number of things struck me, but one has echoed in my mind for days.  At the end of one episode, one of the guests asks “well, what is mission?” struggling to put a definition to their experience as a missionary.  The person being interviewed and the host had all spent a few years outside the U.S. in a missionary placement, yet they had never been given a solid theology of mission that provided a framework for their ministry.  This led to frustration and disillusionment, and ultimately, theological dissonance and abandoning of their work in missions.   

Because each of the people being interviewed acknowledged that their initial foray into mission work began with an experience in short-term mission, I felt that this blog would be a good place to explore the question “what is mission?”  What is this thing we call mission?  What are we doing when we enter into the practice of Christian mission, whether that is a two week trip outside the U.S., a one week trip to help with disaster recovery, or a Saturday helping at the local food bank community garden?  What is mission?

The question of what is mission is one that deserves to be wrestled with by people as they seek to faithfully live out their discipleship.  In United Methodism, the question of what is mission might be answered differently depending on who was asked the question.  For example, long term missionaries will take into consideration their context and the struggles of the church where they work, those trained to work as part of Early Response Teams might answer keeping in mind the immediate aftermath of a natural disaster, and short-term mission teams may answer in the context of the places and people they have served, whether far from home or just across town.

Wait, What’s a Missiologist?

Two missiologists I have found to be helpful in beginning to answer the question “what is mission?” are Rev. Dr. J. Andrew Kirk and Prof. M. Thomas Thangaraj.  First, a missiologist is someone whose work is the disciplined study of mission and theological reflection on the practice of mission by the church.  

Second, the definitions presented by these missiologists are presented as provisional, and part of a larger academic conversation on theology of mission.  They do not present their arguments as settled, but as furthering the discussion of the church’s practice of mission.  I am always interested to hear what people who are engaged in short-term mission think when they hear these definitions, and learn together how these might inform their understanding of mission going forward.  So now, the tentative definitions.

Definition of Mission

Kirk asserts that “mission is, quite simply, though profoundly, what the Christian community is sent to do, beginning right where it is located.”  This grounds mission in the words of Christ at the ascension to the disciples, “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem…and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8).  Mission, in this definition, is not just something that Christians do in other places, but is something they do right in their own communities.  Kirk also states that while mission is “fulfilled in different ways according to particular local circumstances, the obligations of mission are the same wherever the community is established.”  The obligations of mission are to bear witness to the “meaning and relevance of the kingdom”, which means that the church is to show in its life, worship and work the call of God to do justice, love kindness and live in humility. 

Thangaraj helpfully defines mission as something that is more than an activity of the church.  He states that while mission does mean being sent, “this ‘sent-ness’ is not… spatial. It is rather a quality of being”.  That we are sent to be the church in mission does not mean that we must travel, but our being sent as the church in mission defines how we are to live, beginning right where we are located.  Thangaraj and Kirk are clear that mission does not require travel, but a new understanding of the church community.  What we must understand about ourselves as church, then, is that “mission happens in a network of relations.”  Thangaraj describes mission as happening in the context of relationships between people.  Mission, therefore, requires that we are to consider deeply how to act in mission with responsibility, solidarity, and mutuality.  Responsibility means we listen deeply to others and acknowledge our responsibility to care for them as beloved children of God; solidarity means that as we listen deeply to the other we are mindful of how we are interconnected; mutuality means a recognition that mission is something we share with fellow Christians, both giving and receiving, not something that we do FOR others.

What Do You Say?

These tentative definitions of mission are quite dense, and may be explored more deeply in future posts.  But for now they are a good start as we consider the question of “what is mission?”  Whether a person has just signed up for a short-term mission trip and is wondering what they’ve gotten into, or if a person has just come back from their annual summer mission trip and want to reflect again on their experience, the question of “what is mission?” is a good place to start the conversation.  How do you answer the question “what is mission?”  Join in the conversation!

Quotes from:

Kirk, J. Andrew. What is Mission? Theological Explorations.  (Minneapolis: Fortress Press. 2000), 24, 36

Thangaraj, M. Thomas. The Common Task: A Theology of Christian Mission. (Nashville: Abingdon Press. 1999.), 48