In recent months we have described a handful of elements at the heart of our missionary community. We are a community at work – Kingdom work, whatever our trade or profession (November 2009). Our work is our witness – the witness of mouths and hands employed holistically together (December 2009). And our unfailing authority for this life and mission is God’s dependable word (January 2010).
This month we describe the target of our witness. Where do we hope to work and to witness, specifically? It would certainly seem clear enough: Jesus himself sets the direction. We are to “make disciples”…of all nations of the world (Matthew 28:19).
“The gospel wants to be taught and preached always and always,” Luther explained, “in order that it may always appear above the horizon.” The gospel assembles us into the family of God – and then disperses us, too. It draws us to the center, to the wonderful news about Jesus Christ, his life among us, his work at Calvary, and his empty tomb. And then it thrusts us out again.
But where do we start? “All nations of the world” make a very big target. How should we focus our efforts?
Some years ago, Lutheran missiologist James Scherer described the issue of “focus” in a very helpful way. I have not found a better description since.
Churches draw up ‘mission statements’ which are often little more than declarations of organizational goals, e.g., how the church as an institution can survive, and even improve its performance. It is not unusual to hear that some particular activity of the church – e.g., its preaching, worship, education, or stewardship – has been designated as ‘the church’s mission.’ Such loose references to ‘mission’ as designating either the total work of the church or some particularly favored activity are not wrong, but they have the effect of blurring the issue.
“The problem with this approach is that ‘when everything is mission, nothing is mission'” (Gospel, Church and Kingdom, 1987:36). Scherer goes on to specify a clear, practical definition of the evangelistic task of the church:
Mission as applied to the work of the church means the specific intention of bearing witness to the gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ at the borderline between faith and unbelief.… The entire life of the church has a missionary purpose, to be sure. But the heart of mission is always making the gospel known where it would not be known without a special and costly act of boundary-crossing witness (ibid.:37).
Our focus is something more than “all nations” of the world. It is precisely the “borderline between faith and unbelief” that runs through them. It is reaching the unreached. It is making disciples of those who are not. It is sounding the gospel of Jesus Christ where it has not sounded before. “Organizational goals,” even the survival of the church as an institution, are inadequate objectives for Christian people. World-wide, boundary-crossing, unreached-focused, gospel-bearing disciple-making – this is the focus of our life and work in the world.
Our human family is comprised today of 6.7 billion persons. The Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization estimates that 40% of this number live in societies with no known Christians, or with only a tiny minority of believers. It is a staggering number – approximately 2.7 billion men, women and children without knowledge or exposure to the Good News of Jesus Christ. What is more staggering – the gospel cannot be known among these many millions “without a special and costly act of boundary-crossing witness” – as Scherer points out. There is no church among these millions that might share the Good News among neighbors: that is just the problem. Christians from other places and cultures must learn these languages, adapt to these cultures, cross boundaries and learn to communicate the gospel – if the gospel is ever to become known among them.
We call this work “Christian mission.” We are made by grace the people of God. And then we are sent – across borderlines and boundaries to share that grace with the world.
Other posts in this Elements at Our Heart series: