Friday, April 06, 2007
True Mission
Not entirely sure what to make of this post at "The Reformed Evangelist." In it Tony Milano examines the average "mission trip" from the average congregation and finds them wanting in terms of being actual "mission." That is to say while being long on service, such trips are generally short on evangelism.
To my mind, there is no debating that fact. Mr. Milano is also quick to point out tht there is nothing inherently wrong with those activities, that they are, in fact, biblically mandated. He just seems to want to make the point they are not "mission."
OK, right off the bat I just have to say that Mr. Milano's otherwise decent exegesis breaks down pretty severly when he attempts to equate "missionary" with "evangelist." On what scriptural basis does he draw this parallel? It has been my understanding that the term derives from the days when the church was viewed with the powers of a nation/state and they would send a "mission" to a foreign land as a representative. Such a representative mission was sent with a specific task, often "aid" which is precisely what many mission trips do to this day, by Mr. Milano's own admission.
But I don't want to pick on words too much, rather I want to focus on the idea. That modern mission trips out of churce's are not sufficiently evangelistic. As the former chairman of the missions committe of my church making me responsible for distribution of our mission dollars I have spent a lot of time on this question.
We need to ask ourselves, was Christ's best evangelism His sermons, or His death on the cross? I'll put my money on the latter. Just becasue we don't preach the gospel does not mean it is not declared. But I do have a rub with the average church mission trip - they are just too much fun. Rarely on the later "testimony day" in church do I hear about the service performed; normally I hear about how much fun everybody had and what it meant to them personally.
I don't think the post-resurrection Christ spent a lot of time talking about what a wonderful experience the whole death thing was for Him. Evangelism is great, but I think service is the key, and we need to do more of it.
Related Tags: mission, service, evangelism
To my mind, there is no debating that fact. Mr. Milano is also quick to point out tht there is nothing inherently wrong with those activities, that they are, in fact, biblically mandated. He just seems to want to make the point they are not "mission."
OK, right off the bat I just have to say that Mr. Milano's otherwise decent exegesis breaks down pretty severly when he attempts to equate "missionary" with "evangelist." On what scriptural basis does he draw this parallel? It has been my understanding that the term derives from the days when the church was viewed with the powers of a nation/state and they would send a "mission" to a foreign land as a representative. Such a representative mission was sent with a specific task, often "aid" which is precisely what many mission trips do to this day, by Mr. Milano's own admission.
But I don't want to pick on words too much, rather I want to focus on the idea. That modern mission trips out of churce's are not sufficiently evangelistic. As the former chairman of the missions committe of my church making me responsible for distribution of our mission dollars I have spent a lot of time on this question.
We need to ask ourselves, was Christ's best evangelism His sermons, or His death on the cross? I'll put my money on the latter. Just becasue we don't preach the gospel does not mean it is not declared. But I do have a rub with the average church mission trip - they are just too much fun. Rarely on the later "testimony day" in church do I hear about the service performed; normally I hear about how much fun everybody had and what it meant to them personally.
I don't think the post-resurrection Christ spent a lot of time talking about what a wonderful experience the whole death thing was for Him. Evangelism is great, but I think service is the key, and we need to do more of it.
Related Tags: mission, service, evangelism
