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...

Missions Moblization

Here’s how Wesley Tullis, formerly a Director of Prayer Mobilization for Youth With A Mission, helps churches and believers understand mobilization: "Essentially mobilization refers to any process by which God's people are awakened and kept moving and growing until they find their place for strategic involvement in the task of completing world evangelization. Mobilizers are those who channel key resources, training, and vision for world evangelization to the Body of Christ. It has been said, that to improperly appreciate and support the role of the mobilizer is to seriously hinder the functions of the goer, sender, and welcomer." So, mobilization is not exclusively focused on just raising up more cross-cultural missionaries. The ultimate objective is to recruit, train, and connect every believer to their most strategic role in fulfilling the Great Commission—whatever role that may be!

Phil Parshall, missionary and author, described mobilizers this way: "Someone must sound the rallying call. Those who desire to see others trained, prepared and released to ministry are known as mobilizers. Mobilizers stir other Christians to active concern for reaching the world. They coordinate efforts between senders, the local churches, sending agencies, and missionaries on the field. Mobilizers are essential. To understand the role of mobilizers, think of World War II as a parallel. Only 10% of the American population went to the war. Of those, only 1% were actually on the firing lines. However, for them to be successful in their mission, the entire country had to be mobilized!"

From "Mobilization: The Key to World Evangelization" by Steve Shadrach