Mission and Missions

Matt, thanks for posting your comment. I don't quite agree with you when you say “I feel that when we do what Bosch and others terms as "missions" we can open the door for what is termed as God's mission, i.e. missio Dei, to work.” We don’t “open the door,” God opens the door. Bosch and others are aware that missio Dei “focuses on everything God does in his task of establishing his kingdom in all its fullness in all the world” (Moreau). God does that mission with or without the church because God’s activities are not “shrink-wrapped down to church activity” (McNeal).

And, "if the church and God do different things" like you said, that difference is not in what God can do, but in what the church cannot do.” Both “mission” and “missions” belongs to God; in mission there is salvation that only God can give. In “missions” the church engages the world, finding Jesus in every context, circumstance and environment. The difference is not in God’s ability to cross the line, but in the church’s inability to cross the line, from “missions” to “mission.” God’s acts of salvation are all over the world, he crossed the line before we knew it. “You cannot take Jesus to India. You cannot take Jesus to Africa……..He is already besides the mother in the hut in India. He is already there loving, healing and ministering” (Niles in Messer).

With reference to existential philosophy, I believe “….we, the church, created our own links with the world, and freedom was the very essence of our existence” (Simone de Beauvoir), that's why we need God’s mission. And “there are definitely certain absolute truths that humans (all things) must abide by if they are to live by the truth and the wisdom this world attains”, that’s why we engage in “missions.”