We must be careful how we understand mission. If we understand it as a human activity or a matter of our obedience to God’s command, then we are always in danger of focusing on our own mission rather than God’s mission. Compassion will ever play an essential role in mission for service towards the sick, the hungry, the poor, and the dispossessed are signs of the gospel of the kingdom. However, if mission becomes detached from the action and purpose of God, then neither the meeting of human need or the spiritual healing of human beings can adequately define our understanding of ‘mission’. God’s action and purpose alone should determine both our understand and practice of mission because real mission is always God’s mission, rather than our own. Thus we only truly engage in mission when we participate in what God is doing in and for a broken and fallen world.
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