Missions and Missional

Perhaps you've heard of the current evangelical buzzword "missional," but you might not know what the difference is between that and "missions." In the best use of the term, it is trying to get Christians to think and act like missionaries in their own locality, but some end up pitting this local missional approach with cross-cultural missions.

Ed Stetzer brings the two together helpfully:

If there were ever a people who understood that they would join Jesus on his mission, it would certainly be his disciples in the early church. They lived with him. They heard his teaching. And then he says to them in John 20:21, “As the Father has sent me, I also send you.” One of the basic principles of hermeneutics is to ask what did the words mean to the original hearers, and it seems self-evident that when they heard John 20:21 they responded by going to the nations. Paul yearned to go to Spain. Thomas went to India. The Apostles responded to this “sending” with global engagement.

Thus, when we say that mission exists because worship doesn't everywhere exist, we understand that central to the mission of God is the proclamation of the good news of the gospel so that men and women everywhere might hear, respond, repent, and give glory to God. Jesus sends the church out — but he specifically mentions that this is to the uttermost parts of the earth. Any talk about missions that ignores the lost and hurting immediately around us is missing part of the mission itself. But any talk about being missional that does not sense an urgency to move beyond our local territory into other tribes, tongues, and nations leads us into a biblical-theological dead end.

As the recipients of amazing grace we are compelled by divine love to join Jesus on mission so that his name and his fame might be known, not only through our individual lives and local churches, but also all over the earth.