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News and Ideas from around the Anglican World |
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David A. Harris and C. Peter Molloy
There is such an incredible diversity of Christian mission going on in our country and throughout the world--and by Anglicans no less! There are almost as many styles and forms of mission as there are particular contexts and situations. We can receive a small taste of this rich diversity in this current issue of TAP. How different mission work is in Canada’s far North from --say--Patrick Yu’s new mission work as a bishop in a metropolis like Toronto! And how different both of these are from the new mission initiative in England which will see priests on skateboards. And how dissimilar these may seem compared to the mission we are each involved in within our own parishes and lives.
Christ’s mission to the world
will not end until his return. Until then, he never ceases in his
work of drawing the world to himself— and, as Christians, we are
called to regularly and prayerfully consider our role in his work.
We are called to be God’s hands and feet in his world. Seasons like
Lent are times when we are called to think anew about what this
really means. To do so we must first consider who determines the
mission, then what the mission actually is, and finally we must
commit ourselves to fulfilling it in the face of real challenges.
So, who determines the mission? The first thing to remember here is that missionaries are first and foremost servants. Mission comes from the Latin missio meaning “to send.” When we accept a commission, we have no authority to change either the message or the task. This was true of Jesus and it is true of us. Remember Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me, nevertheless, not my will but yours be done.” God the Son committed himself to the mission of his Father, and he asks us to commit ourselves to his mission. “Peace be with you, as the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” God determines the mission, not us.
What is the mission? Well, just as a good messenger will return to her orders when confused about her task, we also must look to Holy Scripture when considering ours. Our mission is two-fold: first, to bring people to the love of Christ, and second, to bring the love of Christ to people.
It is our mission as Christians to bring people to see the love of Christ for them. We are called to make disciples, to baptize them, and to give them healthy churches in which to thrive. That is how Jesus defined our mission in the Gospels and that is how the first Apostles understood it in the Early Church. Moreover, that is how the faithful have understood it down through the ages. We are one immense “Communion of Saints” as we share in the work of making disciples “of all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
The second part of our mission is to bring the love of Christ to the world. That is the new commandment: that we love our neighbour as Christ has loved us. Just as Christ brought healing to the sick and food to the hungry, so too must we. A life of compassion and charity not only fulfills this second part of our mission, but it also gives credibility to the first half.
Knowing now who sends us, and what our mission is, we must commit ourselves to be faithful missioners, thinking biblically, historically, and creatively about how we can fulfill our mission in the Church today. Too frequently our thoughts (and writings) are preoccupied with threats to our mission. Such threats are serious and do need to be addressed. Schismatic actions, heretical teachings, diminished offerings and waning commitments, all these threaten our ability to fulfill our God-given mission. But we must never let these rightful occupations become pre-occupations in our life together. Our primary work is mission, and we forget this to our own peril, no matter what side of whatever issue we might be on.
Let us be encouraged by the mission we see. Let us pray for the Global Anglican Mission conference as it meets this month to discuss what their mission means in a divided church and in the face of the HIV-AIDS pandemic. Let us be encouraged to think creatively about our mission in Canada and consider the ministry initiatives that we see taking place in the Church of England. Let us be inspired by the resilience of the church in the north and its commitment to spreading the Gospel despite its funding cutbacks. And let us return again and again to the sanctifying Word of God, to be sure that we seek ever after God’s will for this world and not our own, ever praying “thy will be done.” |
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March 2006
As Christians we are all missionaries--called to participate in
Christ’s own work--his mission--in the world.|
Copyright The Anglican Planet © 2006 |