The future of mission is still God's mission
Dr Harvey Kwiyani explains why fully understanding God's mission helped to shape the new GC strapline.
Posted on 26 June 2023 by Global Connections
It has always been God's desire to make Jesus known among the nations, with the explicit aim of having disciples of Jesus in all nations. This is central to our understanding of mission. It has been central to mission for centuries. It is what makes the Incarnation, Calvary, and the Resurrection make sense, though it does not start in the Gospels or in the New Testament.
God's mission shapes the Old Testament as well.
It is seen in the call of Abraham, in the promises given to David, as well as in the rebuilding and restoration of the temple when some people from Babylon. God's mission can be seen in Genesis when God, through the Spirit, created the universe and breathed the same Spirit into Adam. When the end comes, as described in Revelations, it will be the same mission of God that makes the new heaven and earth. In a nutshell, God's mission shapes history. There is no part of the story of our existence that is not His Story.
With this understanding, we also believe that all of mission belongs to God and to no one else. That does not explain away our mistakes in mission, but even when humans do wrong, mission continues to belong to God. More often than not, God gets mission done without or in spite of our efforts. The God of mission is not done yet. This gives us confidence that mission has a future. There is no end to mission. The harvest is still ripe and there are still too few labourers. In these days of world Christianity, mission is about to get more exciting with peoples of all ethnicities, coming from all nations, working together to make many more disciples for our Lord Jesus.
The future of mission remains God's, whose purposes are everlasting.
As Global Connections, we have a particular focus on evangelical mission agencies, but we seek to be a voice to the wider mission community in the UK. We recognise that God continues to call us, UK Christians, to mission wherever God has located us. For many of us, this will be right in our neighbourhoods. For some, it will be overseas. We have as our motto, "Together for the Future of Mission." We believe that participating in mission requires us to work together as a community. We have heard it said too often that "together, you go far; alone, you go fast." We want God's work in mission with British Christians, so "together" is of extreme importance to us. With this in mind, we seek to connect, equip, and inspire the UK Christian community as we all explore what our role in mission will look like in the changing world of the 21st century.