Who is a Missionary?

Who is a missionary?

That seems like an easy answer at face value until you realize that many people use the same word and mean different things by it. And then you discover that many people use the word to mean almost anything (see When Everything is Missions by Denny Spitters and Matthew Ellison). Immediately we are confronted with a question about how we are going to use our terms. Will we argue for the use of terms historically and theologically or will we try to adapt our language to match the way that most people use it? Will we be normative or descriptive? For a similar debate try to figure out what it means for someone to be evangelical.

For a descriptive analysis, most Christians use the term missions to mean “doing good work out there.” We do good work within the walls of our church, and we do good work outside those walls too. So, a believer is encouraged to go into all the world and live like a Christian among unbelievers, and they think they are playing a small part in the role of missions. This could include mowing your neighbor’s grass, giving blood, ethical workplace practices, or even political advocacy. For many Christians, missions is simply the last category in the description found in Acts 1:8. So, we do our good work in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, and missions is the uttermost parts of the world. Even more narrowly than this, the Christians who are particularly focused on the conversion of the lost through the gospel of Jesus recognize that well-drilling in Africa is not the same as evangelization, discipleship, and church planting. So, there is a good number of Christians who want to connect the term missions to the proclamation of the gospel, even if indirectly related through an activity that leads to gospel proclamation. For these Christians, a medical relief trip is still considered missions if the person is explicitly a Christian to those they serve and seeking an opportunity to share the truth of Jesus and why they do what they do. 

I, of course, am going to be among those who have a narrower understanding of the term. But I want to be sensitive to those who use it more broadly and appreciative of their good desires. And my primary desire here is to avoid mission creep. When the term is expanded, then the focus can shift and we can lose sight of the very specific command that Jesus has given to the church. I speak from experience of having met expatriates on the other side of the world, claiming to do missions, and I wonder if those who fund them know exactly what they are doing.

What does the Bible say? God has given to local churches a very specific description of the task before us. To simply state the biblical emphasis, God expects the church to preach his word about his Son to the ends of the earth, which results in more churches forming to worship him. Missions is the work of the local church and it results in the formation of local churches.  For a more thorough biblical apologetic for the centrality of the church in both the sending of missionaries and the fruit of missions work, see at least the first third of David’s Meade’s book, Missions on Point. According to Romans 10, Missions must be proclamational. How can they hear unless someone preaches, and how can they preach unless they are sent? In this sense, the work of missions is no different than the work of your home church, except that the missionary has been sent to go to a place where there is not yet a church. So, to use our term with clarity and precision we must place modifiers on it. God has called the church to prioritize proclamational, church-planting missions. There is a tip of the spear, you might say, to focus our attention on the narrow center of what God has called us to do, where everything else should be seen as supportive of that work.

In this most narrow sense then, a missionary is an elder-qualified man who is planting churches cross-culturally. But, practically speaking, this man cannot go alone and a church is highly interested in sending a lot more people than just this man out into the unknown. In fact, I would expect that the majority of people who are sent by a church do not fit this most narrow sense of the term, and they shouldn’t. Therefore, it is acceptable to call anyone a missionary who is supporting the work of cross-cultural church planting through evangelism, discipleship, support ministry, and indigenous church edification. The missionary’s wife could be called a missionary. The single lady who does women’s discipleship alongside the work of a church planter, could be called a missionary. The educator who runs an English camp where the gospel is preached and attendees are directed toward the local church could be considered a missionary. And I could go on, but I think you get the point.

At the end of the day, a church must decide who to prioritize in supporting as they seek to be obedient to God’s call to go into all the world. Many factors can play into the formation of the strategic vision that they adopt. When we advise churches on developing their strategic vision, we encourage them to put more money into the very few people who are going to the least reached parts of the world. This is because there is a biblical emphasis on shining our light in the darkest places, but also because going to a place that is near to where the church already exists is easier and there are more people who are available to do that near work. And because it is the church’s responsibility to send, they are the ones who declare that someone is their missionary. So, if I want to know whether someone is a missionary or not, I am going to look to their sending church. I’m going to find out from their sending church what their definition of missions and a missionary is. I’m going to ask what their church’s strategy is for fulfilling the Great Commission and how this person fits into that plan.  So, who is a missionary? Well, what does the church say?