Mission Short Sale
Posted March 17th, 2010 by Ernest
Anyone who’s been following the housing market in the current economy is familiar with the term “short sale.” Basically, a short sale is when a borrower can’t pay the mortgage, so and the lender sells the property for leas than it’s owed in order to cut its losses. Sure, a house may be worth more, but the time, cost, and hassle of trying to foreclose and sell in a down economy aren’t worth it. We borrow the term when we tell kids not to underestimate their potential, or “sell themselves short.”
I’m confused by the current tendency to sell short the mission of the church. Many today talk about missions as though the point was to inform the nations rather than to make disciples of them. As though our commission would be fulfilled if we were to preach the gospel once within earshot of every person on the globe. These people would make the mission about giving people a “chance to hear” the gospel.
Preaching the gospel is certainly central to the mission. Romans 10 asks, “…how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them?” But the mission is more than just preaching the good news.
Others would sell the mission short by making it about meeting physical needs (which is something we are commanded to do!). These proponents of “preaching the gospel without words” claim that standing for justice and feeding the hungry is enough. It isn’t.
In Matthew 28, Jesus commissions the church to go and make obedient disciples. This is the mission– not to make converts. Not to give people opportunities to hear the good news. Not to “reach” people. To make disciples and to teach them to obey. What does this entail? Preaching. Meeting physical, social, and personal needs. But preaching alone isn’t enough. caring for the needy isn’t enough. The mission is more than these things alone.
The mission is to move people from wherever they are spiritually to maturity in Christ. When cultures must be crossed in order to do this (I think culture must always be crossed), missionaries must do the work of incarnation (presence) and cultural translation (contextualization). Anything less is selling the mission short.
Tags: Preaching, Short Sale
Unless writing a lot makes one a "writer," Ernest is a former missionary. After more than six years in Western Europe, he moved to Portland, where he drinks too much coffee and over-analyzes human behavior. For more about Ernest, visit the About page where you can read a long-time reader's interview with him. Or, if you don't mind waiting a very, very long time, send him an email.
3 Responses to “Mission Short Sale”
March 22nd, 2010 at 10:26 am
Ernest,
Some may say that you are stopping short. Is it enough to just disciple individuals without also planting churches? Can you have mature Christians who are not also participating in the life of the church?
Why am I asking? I’m thinking through these issues myself. What is mission? What is missions? Is missions limited to cross-cultural church planting? Where does Christian presence play a role?
Please don’t take any of these as challenges from me, I am working through these and I appreciate your post!
Wes
March 24th, 2010 at 1:51 pm
Wes,
I see your point– of course mature believers must be part of a local expression of the Church. But the commission- our mission- is not to plant churches, it’s to make disciples. There is a difference. As my friend Alan Hirsch likes to say, our mission is disciple-making. Church is what happens as a result. To do it the other way around (that is, to plant churches in effort to make disciples), we miss something. We get caught up in models, structures, systems, brands, and the like.
I admit that my “definition” of missions is different from that of people far wiser than I. I think that all mission (even that which is done at “home” with people of the “same” culture) is cross-cultural. All believers must do the work of translating the gospel (“incarnating” it) into the cultures in which we find ourselves. There is no “home” anymore.
Maybe I should do a post on the definition of mission. Thanks for the idea.
March 27th, 2010 at 12:24 pm
Missions is sold short today because it is easier to put a number to how many were fed food today (meeting physical needs) or how many decisions were made for Jesus (informing the nations). It is much more difficult to define or inform on discipling a person/people, and the numbers will be much, much lower and slower growing.
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