Missions

In popular usage, missions means Christian witness in other lands. This use derives mainly from the modern Protestant missionary movement of the past two centuries and indirectly from earlier Roman Catholic precedents. But in recent decades the term has taken on additional nuances. Today some people insist that the term missions should be replaced by mission, in part because of the historical connection between missions and Western colonialism. This article reviews the story of Christian missions, then summarizes the status of Christian missions at the end of the twentieth century.

An Overview of Christian Missions

Jesus commissioned his disciples to be “witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). He also said the key was love: “This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other” (John 13:35, The Message). With remarkable energy the early church did what Jesus said. But it was not primarily the apostles who carried the message to new areas. Rather, as “persecution broke out against the church at Jerusalem” (Acts 8:1), the believers were scattered, and they shared the good news wherever they went. Most witnessed only to fellow Jews, but some Greek-speaking Jewish believers “began to speak to Greeks also, telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus” (Acts 11:20). Thus the dynamic, multicultural church in Antioch was born and soon became the launching pad of the missionary work of Paul, Barnabas, Silas, Mark and probably others.

Four things impelled the early church into missionary outreach: the commission of Jesus, the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, the church’s intense, mutually supportive community life and persecution. God used all of these. The church became a many-celled, increasingly diverse extension of the original little community of men and women who were Jesus’ most intimate disciples. Their love and care gave them something to share, but it also brought opposition and conflict—just as Jesus had predicted. Jesus was still with them through the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit sent many of them out into the world. Yet we should remember that most Christians stayed in their own towns and neighborhoods, raising their families and living “peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness” (1 Tim. 2:2), witnessing to Christ by their deeds and lives. They became the spiritual and material support base for those whom God commissioned to carry the good news to other peoples. This was their mission, and it was a key part of the broader missionary outreach of the Christian community.

From that crucial Day of Pentecost, about a.d. 33, until the present, the drama Jesus initiated and predicted in Acts 1:8 has been unfolding. The gospel has gone forth “to the ends of the earth,” especially in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Missiologists estimate that there are some twelve thousand distinct ethnolinguistic “people groups” in the world, and that by 1995 about nine thousand of them had living, functioning Christian churches within them. The global church is more diverse than ever in history. How did this happen?

To All the Earth

The church spread north, south, east and west from Palestine. Because the New Testament gives special prominence to Paul’s missionary activity, and because European Christianity has had such a global impact, many people assume that the main direction of church growth has been from east to west (from the Middle East to Europe and the Americas). So in many places Christianity has been seen as a Western religion. But this is only part of the story.

Not only did Paul go west; the apostle Thomas went east. Other Christian missionaries spread south into Africa and north into the Slavic lands. By the sixth century, Christians were found as far east as India and throughout North Africa. Christians in India of the Saint Thomas (Mar Thoma) Church believe their church was founded by the apostle Thomas, and the claim now seems historically plausible.

There was also a strong church in Syria for several centuries. Christian missionaries later carried the gospel to China and Japan, though nearly all traces of their work prior to the modern era eventually disappeared. These missionaries faced many difficulties. The great Jesuit missionary to Asia, Francis Xavier (1506-1552), complained that “Christian” merchants from Europe discredited the gospel by their lifestyles and business practices.

Europe was evangelized during the first half of the Middle Ages. Many tribes and kingdoms turned to Christianity. Though sometimes the reasons were partly political and conversions were shallow, the Middle Ages offer striking examples of authentic Christian missions and movements of renewal. The most effective missionary activity was carried out by Christian “orders,” communities of men (and sometimes women) dedicated to poverty, celibacy and spreading the gospel among unreached peoples. The Irish Celtic missionary Columban (550-615) and his monastic brothers evangelized parts of France. The British missionary Boniface (680-754), commissioned by Pope Gregory II to convert the German people, was so successful that historian Christopher Dawson said Boniface “had a deeper influence on the history of Europe than any Englishman who ever lived.” Boniface was ably assisted by a number of missionary nuns, including his godly cousin Lioba. This was pioneer missionary work.

Opposition and Extension

The spread of Islam from the seventh to the fifteenth centuries dramatically changed the face of Christian missions. This religious-military-political crusade largely supplanted Christianity throughout the Middle East and North Africa and reached into Europe as far as Bosnia and northern Spain, where it was checked by European armies. Its spread east was even more dramatic, as evidenced today by large Muslim populations from Afghanistan and Iran to Indonesia and Malaysia. The medieval Christian Crusades, in a tragic distortion of Christian mission, fought to win back the Holy Land from Islam. Although ultimately unsuccessful, the Crusades left a heritage of bitterness between Islam and Christianity that still survives.

At the beginning of the modern era the Jesuits carried out successful missionary work in South America and elsewhere. But as often happens when mission is allied with empire, Christian witness was compromised by political intrigue and economic greed. The great age of Protestant missions, beginning in the early 1700s, saw an unprecedented spread of the gospel worldwide that still continues. Most Protestant churches today outside the North Atlantic region trace their origin to missionary outreach between 1800 and 1914, the period historian Kenneth Latourette called “the Great Century.” Since this missionary advance often coincided with the colonial expansion of the Western powers, especially in Africa and Asia, it was sometimes shallow and patronizing. Missionaries often assumed that European “Christian” culture was a part of the gospel. Yet Christianity took deep root, especially in many parts of Africa—ongoing testimony to the power of the gospel.

Global Christianity has changed dramatically since 1900. David Barrett writes in The World Christian Encyclopedia,

Christianity has become the most extensive and universal religion in history. There are today Christians and organized Christian churches in every inhabited country on earth. . . . For the first time in history, [the church is now] ecumenical in the literal meaning of the word: its boundaries are coextensive with the oikumene, “the whole inhabited world.”

Christian Missions Today

The church has always had a world mission. But the emergence of Christianity as universal in a numerical and geographic sense is historically new. In the nineteen centuries following Jesus’ resurrection, Christianity grew to include one-third of all humanity; yet more than 80 percent of these were whites. In the twentieth century Christianity has declined or lost its vibrancy in Europe and North America but has grown dramatically elsewhere. Today Christians number more than half the population in two-thirds of the world’s 225 nations and still constitute one-third of humanity (though many of these are nominal or “cultural” Christians). About 60 percent of all Christians are urbanized, as compared with a little over 40 percent of the world population. Most significantly, from being predominantly white, Christianity is now an amalgam of the races and peoples of the world, with whites numbering 40 percent or less.

Today missions have become a highly complex global, international enterprise. Korean churches send missionaries to Russia, China, the United States and other lands. Brazilian missionaries serve in dozens of countries. Mission organizations like Youth with a Mission and the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students send teams of mixed nationalities and races. Many missionaries today are “tentmakers”—teachers, engineers, architects and other professionals. Like Priscilla and Aquila, they travel to other countries or peoples, hold jobs there and witness through work, informal contacts and daily life experiences. Many other Christians find their mission field among college and university students studying abroad.

Today most missionaries come from the vigorous Christian churches in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The church’s center of gravity has shifted from Europe and North America to the South and East, from traditionally Christian lands to the whole world.

As Christianity enters the twenty-first century, missions face four major challenges:

• massive urbanization, with hundreds of huge megacities around the globe, many of them crowded with the poor;

• relationship with the other great world religions, particularly Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism;

• how to cope with a materialistic, high-tech culture in economically dynamic regions like the Pacific Rim;

• an emerging global society, increasingly interconnected but also torn by ethnic, cultural and economic tensions.

Thus faithful Christian mission in coming decades will require effective urban witness, faithful interreligious mission and dialogue, discipleship that challenges technological materialism and a compelling vision for global society.

Your Place in World Missions

Since all Christians are to be Jesus’ disciples and to help make disciples, all should be involved in missions at some level. Some of the most common ways are

• serving short-term among a different people group as a means of sharing the gospel. Some do this as a part of their work or profession. Others are sent by various Christian sponsoring agencies.

• participating in a house church or other small group that “adopts” a particular unreached people or a church in another culture and serves them through prayer, information sharing and financial support. Contact can be by mail, video, short trips and e-mail.

• supporting career missionaries in their work, whether through individual giving or through a house church, congregation or denominational program.

• prayer. Increasingly useful resources for helping to extend Christian missions through prayer are available. All Christians can be involved in missions through prayer, both individually and in their Christian fellowships.

» See also: Evangelism

» See also: Global Village

» See also: Mission

» See also: Multiculturalism

» See also: Pluralism

» See also: Social Action

» See also: Tentmaking

» See also: Witness

References and Resources

D. B. Barrett, ed., World Christian Encyclopedia (Nairobi, Kenya: Oxford University Press, 1982); P. Johnstone, Operation World: The Day-by-Day Guide to Praying for the World, 5th ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1993); R. Keeley, ed., Christianity: A World Faith (Herts., U.K.: Lion, 1985); K. S. Latourette, History of the Expansion of Christianity, 7 vols. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1978); S. H. Moffett, A History of Christianity in Asia, vol. 1, Beginnings to 1500 (New York: Harper, 1992); S. Neill, A History of Christian Missions, rev. ed. (New York: Penguin, 1986), R. A. Tucker, From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya: A Biographical History of Christian Missions (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1983).

—Howard A. Snyder