Foundations for Christian Mission, Mentor's Guide, MG04

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F O U N D A T I O N S F O R C H R I S T I A N M I S S I O N

people, the bereaved, children at risk and families in tension, and to rehabilitate offenders against the law, alcoholics, drug-addicts and chronic gamblers. 3. It must bear witness to “the truth as it is in Jesus” (Eph. 4.21). This includes a number of tasks, sometimes separated into apologetics, pre-evangelism and evangelism. Bearing witness means both the verbal communication of the apostolic gospel and visual demonstration of its power to bring new life and hope to human relationships and communities. 4. It should be engaged in seeing that God’s justice is done in society. In particular, the church will be active in promoting and defending the integrity of family life against easy divorce, abortion, casual or abnormal sexual relationships, pornography, the exploitation of women and children, and experimentation on early human life. It will also seek alternatives to policies which give rise to more homeless, badly educated, undernourished and unemployed people. It will fight for human rights and against human discrimination. Finally, it will challenge the inexorable build-up of weapons of mass destruction and the increasing arms trade between rich and poor nations. 5. It has a responsibility to show what it means in practice to be a reconciled and liberated community in the midst of a corrupt, distressed and despairing world. It is sent to demonstrate the reality of God’s unmerited grace by practising forgiveness, the sharing of goods and resources, by eliminating prejudice and suspicion, and by exercising power as servanthood, not as domination and control. The church is to be both a sign and an agent of God’s purpose to create a new order where his peace and justice will reign.

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~ J. A. Kirk. “Missiology.” The New Dictionary of Theology . S. B. Ferguson, ed. (electronic ed.). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000. p. 435.