At one point, the terms Mission and Missions meant the same when it came to the understanding that a mission was a task among the Christian faith and that we all have a mission to spread the gospel. Moreau states, “Until the mid-1900s, no distinction was made between the two. Generally, the preferred term was missions.”
1 The word mission, to which this would be singular,
and from the Latin word Mission Dei, refers to God sending the mission to the church to do his work. The Great Commission is that word for all disciples to “Go and preach the Gospel” to the uttermost parts of the earth, which played an essential role in developing the theology of mission.
All the work the church is doing will be centered around God, according to Moreau, who states, “Mission is God-centered rather than human-centered, but without neglecting the important role that God has assigned to the church in that process.”
2
The other word, missions, which is plural, has multiple tasks under this word; the church is a subset of a larger whole mission. Van Aarde states, “According to David Bosch (2001), the connection between the ‘missio Dei’ and its theological roots is fundamental for sound theory in the sending activities of the church.”
3
In other words, the church's missions fall under charity, social justice, and assistance. My idea concerning missions was based on missionary work, going out to the world to bring the gospel to others who have not heard of Jesus and the good news about salvation. I understood the great commission was to create disciples to help get the word of God to the world. I did not realize that there is more than one way to do the missions of God's work. When considering the result of a missionary, I never thought about the difficulties of crossing cultural boundaries. These boundaries can come in language and affect everything we do and think; there is also the issue of going into another region where the religion and traditions are very different from where
one may have come from. With my 20 years of military service and some of that time serving overseas, I can imagine how difficult it is to go into an area where the culture is different and try to get them to rethink what they have been taught all their life. Brahinsky states, “If missions have effects that are completely outside the hopes of their designers, it is likely that other forms of social control are similarly unstable and uncertain.”
4
I have spent over 20 years in the Army, serving in several countries, and working with other cultures supporting their ministry, but I have
not been on one regarding involvement in mission work. Still, I look forward to attempting one soon. 1
A. Scott Moreau, Gary R. Corwin, and Gary B. McGee, Introducing World Missions: A Biblical, Historical, and Practical Survey, ed. A. Scott Moreau, Second Edition., Encountering Mission (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic: A division of Baker Publishing Group, 2015), 18.
2
Ibid, 18
3
Timothy Van Aarde, “The Relation of God’s Mission and the Mission of the Church in Ephesians.” Missionalia / 44, no. 3 (2016), 338.
4
Josh Brahinsky, “Missionary Conversions.” HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory. 10, no. 3 (2020): 828–843.
