Mission Work in the Modern Church: Theology and Practice

Introduction: The Enduring Call to Mission

Historically, mission work played a critical role in the establishment of the Christian Church. Christians were called to spread Christianity beyond their initial groups of worshippers, and the concept of the mission to spread religion gradually developed over time. Over the course of history, these missions have taken varying forms, though mission work has frequently combined the provision of some type of help with introductions to the basic tenets of Christianity. Modern mission work continues to combine these two elements, but in varying ways. Christians are no less called to spread the Gospel than they were in the early days, when Christianity was a new religion unknown to many people of the world. Spreading the Gospel is about more than giving people information about Christianity; for mission workers, spreading the Gospel is about letting people know what it means to live by those Christian principles.

Historical Mission Work and Its Political Dimensions

Because Christians are called to spread the Gospel, the reality is that all Christians should be mission workers in their daily lives. While this approach appears to be clearly designated by Scripture, for many years the political aspects of the church held greater importance than its religious aspects. Churches, both Catholic and Protestant, had power structures that essentially made some churches subordinate to others. The churches that were in power sent workers to churches with less power or to areas that did not yet have a church presence. The result was a form of Christianity that was centered outside of the communities where it was practiced.

This was a departure from early Christianity, which was extremely community-based and not dependent upon a centralized location of power. The shift back to local practice began in the 1950s and rested on three basic tenets: the church and the mission were inseparable; every Christian community is a mission; and churches are equal partners with one another (Bosch 1991, p. 370). While this ideal has not been fully achieved, there has certainly been a shift in the way the governing bodies of various Christian churches approach mission work — one that has made it more community-centered and less political.

Misuse of Mission and the Reign of God

However, any discussion of mission work would be incomplete if it failed to acknowledge that some historical efforts labeled as mission work were merely excuses to exercise racist and prejudicial dogma against groups of easily oppressed people. The history of mission not only includes introducing Christ to new bodies of people, but also the misuse of Christian theology to oppress and enslave. The root cause of this has been a critical error that substituted the church and Christianity for God. The church does not exist to be a self-perpetuating entity. As Bevans and Schroeder observe, "The point of the church is rather to point beyond itself, to be a community that preaches, serves, and witnesses to the reign of God" (2004, p. 7).

Therefore, when contemplating any type of mission work, the most critical issue a pastor must consider is whether the mission work will preach, serve, and witness to the reign of God. Mission work that would deny the humanity of the people being helped, that exists solely to promote the spread of the church, or that conditions helping on religious conversion fails to fulfill all three of those categories. While the inculturation of Christian theology is a valid goal of missionary work, a missionary should be wary of other forms of inculturation that become the de facto goals of that work.

Furthermore, any modern missionary work must examine the relative political and socioeconomic power of the missionaries in comparison with those to whom they are preaching. It is impossible to view missionary work in a vacuum, as if religion is somehow separate and distinct from the lived experiences of people. In fact, it is not even desirable to do so. At its heart, Christianity is meant to be a lived religion. Therefore, all true mission work begins with Christians living the principles of Christianity. Introducing a Westernized concept of Christianity — one that requires rejecting traditional cultural behaviors and norms — to indigenous people is unlikely to produce a community capable of genuinely living Christianity. Instead, there will be a schism between religion and daily practice that perpetuates the profound inequalities that tend to exist between missionaries and the people they seek to convert.