What is the Mission of the Church

The word mission is not a biblical word, so we must define what we mean when we talk about a mission.

The word mission comes from the Latin words mitto (to send) and missio (sending). 

So mission implies that someone has sent something to accomplish a task. In other words, God has sent the church to accomplish a task.

So perhaps a better way to reframe this question is what has God sent the church to accomplish? While there may be many good things the church could do, what is the primary thing that God has sent us to do?

Most Christians can agree on the basics of the faith. Most would agree with Gregg R. Allison that “The church is missional. It is the body of divinely called and divinely sent ministers proclaiming the gospel and advancing the kingdom of God.”¹ However, while we may agree that the church is missional (sent on a mission), there is a growing debate about what exactly we are sent to do.

The majority of the debate surrounds the church’s calling to share good news (evangelism) and do good works (social justice).

Most scholars debate the mission of the church like there is a pendulum with one side swinging towards good news and the other side towards good works. Swing too far towards good news and the good works people fear you will lose your love for people. Swing too far towards good works, and the good news people fear you will lose the gospel.

The irony is that no pastor would stand before their congregation and say, “Do not do good works.” And no pastor would say, “Do not share the good news.” Both are good and important aspects of the church’s mission.

So what is the mission of the church then? Is it good news, good works, some combination of both, or something else entirely?

I will argue that the mission of the church is not just good news, and it is not just good works. The mission of the church is to make disciples. And disciple-making, as defined by Jesus in the Great Commission, is a combination of both good news and good works.

What Did God Send Us to Do?

If the church’s mission means that the church was sent by God to accomplish a specific task, then we must begin by asking, “What did God send us to do?”

The Great Commission is the primary place where we see God sending his church. We call it the Great Commission because it is where Jesus gave his disciples their mission, and this is still the church’s mission today since we are still disciples of Jesus.

Before Jesus ascended into heaven, he stood before his disciples and proclaimed:

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. (Matt 28:18-20).

To better understand Jesus’ commission to us, we need to walk through six parts of this commandment. It may be helpful to reframe them as six questions.

1. Jesus gives us the why.

Why should we do this mission?

Jesus reminds us of his authority. Being God, he has all authority in heaven and on earth. It is a reminder that what he is about to say is more than a suggestion, it a commandment from God, himself.

There are other reasons to carry out Christ’s mission, such as our love for others, but our primary reason is simply that God has commanded us to do it. If there were no other reasons, this should be reason enough.

2. Jesus gives us the when.

When should we begin this mission?

Jesus commands the disciples, “Go.” In other words, he is initiating the mission, sending us to accomplish a task. There is a sense of immediacy in this command.

We are to begin immediately.

3. Jesus gives us the what.

What are we sent to do?

Jesus tells us the specific task that he is sending us to do: “make disciples.” This is our mission. We are sent to make disciples of Jesus. But Jesus, in his infinite wisdom, knows that making disciples is too vague of a mission.

We need more guidelines. So Jesus continues to define what he means by making disciples.

4. Jesus gives us the where.

Where are we sent?

He tells us to make disciples in “all nations.” So our mission is not limited geographically, or ethnically. The disciples may have been inclined only to reach Jews in Israel, but the mission is broader than that.

Our mission is to make disciples all around the world among all people from every tribe, tongue, and nation (Rev 7:9).

5. Jesus gives us the how.

How do we make disciples?

This is critical for our discussion. There are two things that Jesus says we need to do:

1.  Baptize them in the name of the triune God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit).

2.  Teach them to obey everything Jesus has commanded.

We will explore these two sides of disciple-making more in-depth below.

6. Jesus answers our objections.

What if we aren’t good enough? What if it’s too risky?

Jesus reassures us that he will be with us always. He is sending us to go on a mission, but we are not alone. He will be with us, and the Holy Spirit will guide and empower us along the way.

We won’t accomplish the mission under our own power because we are good enough, but under God’s power because he is more than enough.

In summary, the mission of the church can be defined in response to these six question:

1.  Why should we go? God has commanded us to go.

2.  When should we go? We should go now.

3.  Where should we go? We are sent to all nations.

4.  What task are we sent to do? We are sent to make disciples of Jesus.

5.  How do we make disciples? We baptize them and teach them to obey Christ.

6.  What if we aren’t good enough? God will be with us.

This is what I mean when I say that the mission of the church is to make disciples.

The Two Sides of Making DiscIples

To further understand the mission of the church, we need to draw out the implications of the two-sided nature of disciple-making according to Jesus.

Jesus told us to make disciples by baptizing them and teaching them to obey his commands (Matt 28:19-20).

In the New Testament, baptism always follows conversion.

For example, on the day of Pentecost, Peter preaches the gospel and “those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.” (Acts 2:41).

In Acts 8, Philip preaches the gospel, and “when they believed… they were baptized, both men and women.” (Acts 8:12).

Later, Philip encounters the Ethiopian eunuch and helps him understand the gospel. As they approach some water, the Ethiopian says, “See, here is water! What prevents me from being baptized?… and they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him” (Acts 8:36-38). The eunuch believed, so nothing prevented him from being baptized.

Therefore, baptizing someone implies that they have heard the good news of the gospel and have responded with faith in Jesus (Rom 10:17).

This is the evangelism side of disciple-making.

After baptism, however, the disciple-making process does not end.

After baptism, we must then teach believers to obey everything that Jesus has commanded us.

So we must ask, what has Christ commanded us? We do not have enough room in this paper to get into all of Christ’s commands. Fortunately, he gave us a summary.

Jesus was asked which commandment was the greatest, and he replied: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets” (Matt 22:34-40).

This has come to be known as the Great Commandment. According to Jesus, the commandments to love God and your neighbor summarize all of the commands in Scripture. Therefore, when Jesus says that part of making disciples is teaching them to obey everything he commanded, we can summarize his commandments in the Great Commandment.

This point is critical because most people who argue against the Great Commission, making disciples, being the mission of the church contend that it makes evangelism (good news) a priority over service (good works).

They point to the examples of Jesus healing the sick, caring for the poor, and modeling what it means to love others. But they miss the point that making disciples is not just about evangelism. It includes teaching people to obey the Great Commandment, which would include our obedience as well.

So making disciples includes good news (baptizing) and good work (obeying). Jesus sent the church in the Great Commission.

We are to make disciples. And how do we do that? Baptize them (which requires sharing the good news), and teach them to obey everything Jesus commanded (which results in doing good works).

Going back to the earlier pendulum analogy with good news on one side and good works on the other, we can see why this is a bad paradigm of thinking. The goal is not a balance between good news and good works, where we limit good news in doing good works, or we limit good works by focusing on good news.

Even if the pendulum were perfectly in the middle, some would think it should be more towards one side or the other. I believe that the mission of the church and the pull of evangelism and service is more integrated than that. Good news and good works do not compete with one another.

Instead of seeing the mission of the church like a pendulum, perhaps it would be better to view the mission of the church more like a coin.

The entire coin represents making disciples, but it has two sides: baptizing and teaching. You cannot have one side without the other. They are both partners in creating the whole picture of making disciples.

Therefore, when people debate whether or not good news or good works should have a priority in the mission of the church, it is like two kids looking at different sides of the same quarter arguing that the coin is more “heads” or more ‘tails.” Their perspective is off.

The mission of the church is to make disciples, but disciple-making is two-sided. We make disciples by baptizing and teaching.

The Mission of the Early Church

The example of the early church provides further support that the mission of the church is to make disciples. From the beginning, the church focused on baptizing and teaching.

In Acts 2, we can make three important observations:

First, on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit first came upon the disciples and empowered them “to speak in other tongues” (Acts 2:4). Hearing the commotion, people “from every nation under heaven” (Acts 2:5) gathered to see what was happening. This was a confirmation of Jesus sending the church to go “make disciples of all nations” (Matt 28:19).

The first gathering of the early church went to all nations.

Second, Peter takes advantage of the situation to stand before the crowd and preach the gospel (Acts 2:14-36). Immediately after he shares the good news, he calls the people to “Repent and be baptized” (Acts 2:38). Many believed, so the church baptized about three thousand people on its first day (Acts 2:41).

This was a direct fulfillment of the church’s mission to make disciples by “baptizing them” (Matt 28:19). But they didn’t stop at baptism.

Third, while most Bible translations place a heading in Acts 2 between verse 41 and verse 42 creating a division that was not in the original manuscript, these two sections are tied together. Immediately after three thousand people are baptized in verse 41, we see what the church did with thousands of new believers in verse 42: “And they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching” (2:42).

What did the apostles teach them? While the Bible doesn’t say specifically, it is safe to assume that the apostles taught them what Jesus taught in the Great Commission, to obey all that Jesus has commanded (Matt 28:20), because we see the fruit of their obedience in the following verses. They practiced fellowship, the Lord’s Supper, prayer, giving generously to those in need, and worshiping God together (Acts 2:42-47).

In other words, their obedience to Christ’s teaching resulted in doing good works.

We also see many examples of the Great Commission playing out in Paul’s missionary work. In Corinth, Paul preaches the good news but receives some opposition. However, Acts 18:8 tells us that “Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed in the Lord, together with his entire household. And many of the Corinthians hearing Paul believed and were baptized.” So Paul preached the good news and baptized those who believed.

Next, we read that the Lord speaks to Paul in a vision saying, “Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you” (Acts 18:9-10). The Lord’s command echoes Christ’s promise in Matthew 28 that he will be with us. So what does Paul do next? Acts 18:11 says, “he stayed a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.”

Looking at this one example from Paul’s ministry, we see that Paul’s mission was the same as the church’s mission—to make disciples by baptizing and teaching them. He spent a year and a half in Corinth preaching the gospel, baptizing believers, and teaching them to obey God’s Word. He was following what Jesus commanded in the Great Commission. And Paul’s mission is the same as the church’s mission, and it is still our mission today.

Therefore, from the beginning of the church in Acts 2, we see the church set out to fulfill its Great Commission mission to make disciples. Throughout the remainder of the history of the early church, this mission continues to play out.

The apostles go throughout the world making disciples by sharing the good news, baptizing believers, and teaching them to obey Jesus.

Keep the Focus on the Mission

While few Christians would deny that making disciples is part of the mission of the church, reputable scholars still cannot seem to agree 

on what exactly the primary mission of the church is.²

So while they may include disciple-making, they also elevate other things like creation care, social renewal, or church sacraments to the same level or above the primary mission Jesus gave us.

We miss the mark when we take good things and make them primary things.

If you try to do everything, you will accomplish nothing.

The mission of the church must be focused on keeping the main thing the main thing.

If we do not keep the focus on what Christ commanded us to do, then we will drift into a vague, directionless existence that accomplishes nothing.

Jesus sent us to go to all nations to make disciples by baptizing new believers and teaching them to obey God’s commands.

The argument between whether this means that the church should focus on sharing the good news or doing good works is circular. We are sent to do both.

Evangelism is a prerequisite of baptism because they will not believe if they do not hear (Rom 10:17). And our love for others that compels us to serve is the fruit of our love for God and obedience to his commands (1 John 4:19-20).

The mission of the church is a paradox. It’s not just good news, and it’s not just good works. It is a combination of both in the call to make disciples.

Source:

---

1.  Gregg R. Allison, Sojourners and Strangers: The Doctrine of the Church (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 140.

2.  For example, see books like What Is The Mission of the Church?, Four Views on the Church’s Mission, and The Mission of the Church: Five Views in Conversation.