Question time
Geoff Maddock is
Global Interaction ’ s VIC / TAS State Leader . He is a deep thinker with experience in local and global mission contexts .
RESONATE ISSUE 37 | PAGE 11
There are many questions we can ask about mission and our place in it , but do we ever question mission itself ? Is it justifiable today ?
It ’ s reasonable to have mixed feelings about an enterprise with such a mixed legacy . The history of mission is undeniably intermingled with colonialism and the harm associated with that . It ’ s right to acknowledge the brutality of some mission endeavours and to recognise mission efforts were often accompanied by cultural dominance , economic cruelty and military conquest .
These coercive practices have no place in God ’ s mission . But where does that leave mission in this century ?
As we consider this question , we hold in tension the importance of reflecting , confessing and lamenting with the conviction that there is good reason for hope-fuelled mission in the decades to come . But this conviction rightly leads us to another question .
What Kind of Mission ?
When we talk about God ’ s relationship with the world , certain scriptures leap to mind , but one in particular captures the Christian imagination . John 3:16 .
For God so loved the world ...
This truth is the doorway every missional idea and practice must pass through . It also contains the means of God ’ s loving mission – the incarnation .
... that he gave his only Son …
God ’ s non-coercive , bodily love for the world is the fountainhead for all we hope to do in mission . It is simultaneously the motivation and the method . To escape the mistakes of the past and freshly align ourselves with a biblical missiology ,