Home
Mat 18:11 For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost.
Mat 18:12 What think you? If a man have a hundred sheep, and one of them should go astray: doth he not leave the ninety-nine in the mountains, and goeth to seek that which is gone astray?
Mat 18:13 And if it so be that he find it: Amen I say to you, he rejoiceth more for that, than for the ninety-nine that went not astray.
Mat 18:14 Even so it is not the will of your Father, who is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish
A Christian mission has been widely defined, since the Lausanne Congress of 1974, as that which is designed “to form a viable indigenous church-planting movement.” This definition is motivated by a theologically imperative theme of the Bible to make God known, as outlined in the Great Commission. The definition is claimed to summarize the acts of Jesus’ ministry, which is taken as a model motivation for all ministries.
The Christian missionary movement seeks to implement churches after the pattern of the first century Apostles. The process of forming disciples is necessarily social. “Church” should be understood in the widest sense, as an organization of believers rather than simply a building. Many churches start by meeting in houses.
Church planting by cross-cultural missionaries leads to the establishment of self-governing, self-supporting and self-propagating assemblies of believers. This is the famous “three-self” formula invented by Henry Venn of the London Church Missionary Society in the 19th century. Cross-cultural missionaries are persons who accept church-planting duties go to people outside their culture, as Christ commanded in the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20).
However, Christian missions can more broadly mean any activity in which Christians are involved for world evangelization.