Should Christians eliminate the word Mission from our vocabulary?

Flowers blooming at William and Martha's after the rains

From Dictionary.com is the following definition of the word Mission:

1--a group or committee of persons sent to a foreign country to conduct negotiations, establish relations, provide scientific and technical assistance, or the like.

2--the business with which such a group is charged.

3--any important task or duty that is assigned, allotted, or self-imposed.

4--an important goal or purpose that is accompanied by strong conviction; a calling or vocation

5--a sending or being sent for some duty or purpose.

From Meriam-Webster.com:

1--a task or job that someone is given to do

2--a specific military or naval task

3--a flight by an aircraft or spacecraft to perform a specific task

As a former military man and being an engineer currently, I get the word mission, I understand it and I appreciate it.  It is at the core a statement about achieving a goal.  Lately, really since I visited home last year, I have struggled with using this word to define what I am supposed to be doing here in Africa. 

Don’t get me wrong, I doubt it could ever be erased from the Christian lexicon nor should it be.  But maybe we need to spend more time considering the implications that word has on what we should being doing as Christians.  Also I want to make it clear that while several books like to use topics like this to attack short term missions, I will not be doing that.  In fact I feel that long term missionaries or mission projects have been as likely to fall prey to the definition of the word missions as short term missions have been.  I also don’t think foreign missions does a better job than those missions conducted in and around your own back yard.

Nor do I think I am the expert here.  I am proposing a question I want to discuss because it bothers me and I want to work it out.

The church by definition should be involved in outreach activities.  The Bible is full of mission activities including Jonah’s trip to Nineveh to the life of Jesus here on earth.  Paul after his conversion, the twelve disciples both in Matthew 10 and after the Pentecost.  A looked up a lot of quotes when researching this topic and did not find many great ones relating to my specific topic but I did find some that fit into other areas.  Here is one from Mike Stachura (yes the Golf Digest editor) "The mark of a great church is not its seating capacity, but its sending capacity." 

The problem I am having with the word “mission” as it relates to what we do as Christians is that it indicates we have a task to complete.  I can’t think of a worse way to describe what we should be doing.  If we want to do good in this world, then the best way to do so is by not only living our lives as close to the example of Jesus Christ but doing so in relationship with those we need to be reaching out to!

Let me make sure I am clear on this front-As Human beings we are always in need of a task to complete-it is in our nature.  I am a task oriented person and always have been.  But the reality of what we do as Christians has to be that as we accomplish a task it has to become second to the act of living out a relationship with others and specifically those we hope to reach out and show God’s love to.

Another good quote, however this one from a book about dating but very relevant to this discussion:

“Every relationship for a Christian is an opportunity to love another person like God has loved us.” ― Joshua Harris, I Kissed Dating Goodbye: A New Attitude Toward Relationships and Romance

Another one by an author but I could not tie it down to a specific book so I included his website.

“It's not about religion, it's about relationship"--R. Alan Woods author (website: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/rhemarodaw)

So quotes are great and everything, but what about the Bible what does it have to show us on this perspective.  The most important example of developing relationships with those you wish to reach out to can be seen through Jesus.  He spent his last three years in a relationship with a group of hard headed, sometimes misguided individuals who had been selected to lead the community of believers after he went to heaven to sit at the right hand of His Father.  Even after death and being resurrected, he spent another 40 days with his disciples.  During these times he not only taught them, he ate with them, he traveled with them, he slept in the same accommodations as they did-he was in a relationship as their friend not only their Lord.

What was the result of this relationship?  11 of those individuals started the church that was to follow. It is believed that each served so faithfully that all but John died a martyr’s death. 

Now here comes the counter punch-Can we be truly effective by only entering into relationships in Christ’s name?  In the current culture of most majority worlds being in extreme poverty without many basic things we take for granted like clean water, steady supply of food, education it is nearly impossible to truly become a part of a Christian relationship with others and not become broken by our own haves and want to do things to help.  Hence I believe it is impossible to separate the need to do things or tasks to complete to help others to be involved in outreach, but I guess I fear we do so sometimes at the expense of the relationship we are supposed to develop.

The following is a quote concerning helpers trying to do things to cope with the devastation of Hurricane Katrina—“The irony about this perception issue is that in their desire to be productive and to get immediate physical help to those in need, some people will miss what God really wants to do. There is nothing that hurts so much as the emotional pain that many residents continue to go through. Yes, they want to get their house back in order, but even more, they want to know that people care about them.”—Seth Barnes, Author of Radical Living Blog (www.sethbarnes.com)

So I mentioned earlier on that I felt long term missionaries and missions fall prey to this problem just as much as short term mission teams.  It is easier to see with short term mission teams because their main goal is to accomplish a task.  Often to build something, or do basic medical checkups, or sing and dance with kids in a VBS.  But these can be about building relationships just as much as being about the task at hand.  It was best explained to me by Billy Clark who worked with our teams as part of Scripture Union of Peru when our church would send teams to help work on orphanages for Street Boys.  Basically he told us that the importance was not in what work we accomplished in construction even though that helped, but in the fact that our church came back every year to work with them.  The people we worked with saw that and the return relationship had more of an impact than any of our construction work had.  I could see what he was saying not only in those we got to know by returning every year to work alongside or play games with at night but in our own team members who developed lasting friendships with many of the young boys and followed that relationship after they aged out and went on to technical schools and started their adult lives.

I have seen it at home, when my Mom talks about losing someone off her Meals on Wheels route or not seeing someone that day and calling on someone who has keys to the house to check on them.  It also shows when she fills in for someone and the people ask about the person who normally delivers their meals to make sure they are ok.  Those are relationships built on helping someone.

I have also seen the damage.  Too many times I see the effects of the church planting that was more about planting multiple churches or getting people to become a statistic in conversions by coming down at altar call.  There are many of those here in Africa where there is no lasting or real relationship with those who have been “converted” or those churches planted.  In fact all too often what I see is a poor quality of church that is internally focused and believes that Sunday or Wednesday worship is all that there is to being Christian.  In almost all cases these are long term missionaries or long term mission projects that have created these situations.  Most of the pastors do not have adequate training in Biblical interpretation and because the focus of the foreign missionaries was on getting people down at the altar call that is what they focus on every worship service. 

So after all of this, I know we will never remove the word missions nor do I really think that we should.  After all sometimes the way to start a relationship with someone who needs God’s love is to complete a task that shows them God’s love.  Just don’t focus everything on the task and forget the real reason for being there is to be in relationship with God and all His children.  Those on your team, those you meet as you do your projects, the organizations you work with and yourself-especially don’t forget your own relationship with God as you get caught up in the emotions of a mission.

Again remember this is a discussion to me, I don’t know if my answers are right or wrong or if I am making sense most of the time.  Feel free to comment to let others know what you think.