Brian Hamilton-Vise

I know that what I am asking is impossible. But in our time, as in every time, the impossible is the least that one can demand. —James Baldwin

Missions is not optional

“The church is missionary or else it is not a church. Only if we misunderstand both ‘church’ and ‘mission’ can these two be divorced one from the other. To participate in Christ is to share in his mission. ‘As the Father has sent me, so send I you’ (John 20:21). There is no other kind of church, according to the New Testament, than the ‘apostolic,’ the ‘sent’ churches; and this does not mean that missions is the ‘hobby’ of a few devout souls. The church is not engaged in missions as a wealthy man throwing crumbs to a beggar, but as a farmer who sows precious seed, fully aware that his very life depends on the harvest. Missions is not optional, but the life of the church withers without it.”

— David Ewert, “The Covenant Community and Mission,” in Consultation on Anabaptist-Mennonite Theology, 128.

30 May 2007 | Comments (0)
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Brian Hamilton-Vise is a Ph.D. student in moral theology at the University of Notre Dame, where his research is in the history of Christian political and economic thought. His side interests are in the development of negative theology and in recent political theory. Email him at bdhamilton@gmail.com.

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