Mere Missions

26 • M ere M issions : M oving F orward to M ultiply

human life) that are being saved. The Church receives these souls into a new family where racism, sexism, classism, and division are addressed so that the world would see our love for each other and our unity. The Kingdom, God’s rule and reign, His domain, is directed towards the eternal destiny of souls. Missions is our part in God’s mandate to participate with Him to “search and rescue” souls. While this language of “souls” may at first glance seem either naïve or even archaic, I believe that it is the language of Scripture. Such language, however, does not discount the reality of human life as a body-soul-spirit reality. When God redeems a soul, the body becomes a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6.19-20), and the spirit is sealed with the very Spirit of God (Eph. 1.13). My emphasis on souls is not a denial of our human existence; it is to say that the eternal destiny of every person is at stake in the Gospel. To deny this is unbiblical, and to describe human life as only a “soul affair” is unbiblical as well. (The early Gnostics asserted that the soul alone was important, and that the body was unimportant and irrelevant. Such teaching was rejected as unchristian as early as the first century). As I have participated with the God of missions, I have found that the best rule of engagement is simplicity. I am not saying simplistic. There is a difference. Simplicity means to take complex issues, like the theology of missions, and make them easy to understand or do. Simplistic, on the other hand, is treating complex issues and problems as if they were much simpler than they really are. A simplistic approach to missions may well create and add to the complexity creating deeper and more complicated problems. Understanding the difference has impacted the way I have approached ministry and missions among the poor and will be reflected in this book. Each chapter has the following same flow, creating a simple grasp on the focus being covered: