Defining definitions

I just came back from helping with a camp for 8th and 9th graders, in which the underlying theme of the week was missions. The first small group assignment began with the task of defining "missiology." You know its going to be a great week of camp when you start by defining seminary terms!

Missiology is the "study of religious (typically Christian) missions and their methods and purposes," which is great, but it does what my middle school English teacher never allowed us to do - use the root word in the definition. Missiology is great, but what is missions?

Missions is cross-culturally spreading the Gospel.

Okay, so what is the Gospel? The Gospel is the story of God's desire to create and redeem and have relationship with mankind. John Piper, using one sentence, puts it this way: "The Gospel is the news that Jesus Christ, the Righteous One, died for our sins and rose again, eternally triumphant over all his enemies, so that there is now no condemnation for those who believe, but only everlasting joy."

Missions differs from evangelism, in that it is cross-cultural. It is not just sharing the Gospel with your neighbor, who looks just like you and has basically the same language and traditions and experiences. That is evangelism. Missions is going to a different culture, a different people group with their own language, customs, beliefs, traditions, and location.

More to come later...