Mission

What is Jesus Christ asking me to be and do today?

This question needs exploring time and again by every Christian, but not as an individual exercise. As members of the one body of Christ, we discover our calling only in community. Nor do we find answers in mere rational discourse. Rather it is in concrete engagement in mission that we gradually discover what God’s will is and what our mission, unity and identity might look like.

In the context of the Edinburgh 2010 study process, twelve local groups in Argentina, Cameroon and the Netherlands took up the challenge to cross denominational boundaries as they grappled with their calling ...

• in a world where there's love but also hate
• when we seek equality but stumble over many unequal and disempowering relationships
• when violence in the home, in the street and in other war zones takes on frightening proportions

In such a world, our world, God's world, what is Jesus Christ asking us to be and do today?

Download a PDF of the booklet Movements, with stories, experiences and insights of the twelve test groups. And for further stories and reports, visit the Mission Today Intercultural Pilot Project webpage.

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Making a Difference – Transforming mission

This WCRC publication tells the story of churches in Belgium, South Africa and Rwanda empowering each other in mission in new ways and with unexpected results! You are invited to order your own copy (free of charge) online or download a PDF. Or visit the MADIP webpage for further stories of how participants made a difference to their world and each other.

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In June 2010, the Section on Mission at the Uniting General Council in Grand Rapids brought together missiologists and church leaders from WARC and REC member churches. Together they developed a theological understanding of mission that built on the emphases of the antecedent organisations, especially as addressed through the Mission in Unity Project 1999-2005 and the WARC Mission Project 2006-2010. The Reformed Ecumenical Council was represented on the Advisory Committee of these projects. Under the heading "Theological basis", the Mission Section Report highlighted six missiological ideas that would be vital for the WCRC mission thrust beyond 2010:

1. Mission as the Churches' response to God's invitation.
   The Section agreed that the churches’ response to God’s mission is, and must continue to be, at the heart of WCRC. The missional identity and engagement of the churches and of our communion is the raison d’être (reason for being) of WCRC, is essential to its Reformed identity, and therefore, must be reflected in its structures, use of resources and programmatic actions.
2. The Missio Dei is communal.
   God’s mission (Missio Dei) is God’s purpose in Christ to renew the whole of creation. It is communal in nature because God is a communal God. This mission is a dynamic process whereby God’s people are called to participate in God’s mission. Therefore, engaging in God’s mission is God’s call to the whole church as a worldwide community. We engage most faithfully in mission when we do so together. The church not only participates but is also transformed by its engagement in the mission of God.
3. Crossing today's frontiers.
   Whereas our ancestors understood mission as engaging with those who were geographically “far away”, we understand mission to be the crossing of all borders and barriers that separate people from God, one another and Creation, trusting that by crossing borders, the Spirit makes possible reconciliation through Christ. This is the gospel message of salvation in Jesus Christ to be shared both within the church and with neighbours with a deep sense of respect, sensitivity, understanding and humility in relation to peoples of other faiths, belief systems and contexts.
4. Primacy of the local community in mission.
   Creative engagement in God’s mission is the joy and responsibility of every believer. The primary place for missional engagement is the local community in which Christians live, even when mission is undertaken within a global network which brings the people of Christ together as agents of justice, reconciliation, transformation and redemption.
5. Repent for past and present practice that dehumanizes.
   The First Nations Peoples reminded us of our responsibilities as participants in God’s mission (Missio Dei) and the need to repent of any form of mission praxis that disempowers or dehumanizes. Mission, bearing witness to the justice of God and overcoming the wrongdoings of the past, requires intentional and continuous efforts of de-linking the historical and enduring connections between slavery, colonialism and Christian mission.
6. The plural, interreligious context.
   Mission is practised in partnership with the triune God and among churches reflecting the fact that mission today is done in the midst of a religiously plural society.

Read the full report of the UGC Section on Mission, Grand Rapids, June 2010.

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Publication about Christian mission for the 21st century marks first anniversary of Uniting General Council

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If you have questions or comments concerning our work or want further information, please contact Douwe Visser at dvi@wcrc.ch

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