From The River of God by Kim Cimio — Part III. Mission, Chapter 8
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. (Acts 1:8)
Why common definitions of mission fall short, what the history of missions teaches, how mission relates to the local church, and what it means to make disciples of the nations.
What is mission, and who counts as a missionary?
I came to Europe after reading Francis Schaeffer, himself a missionary to Europe. Later I grew frustrated that no one saw me as a missionary: go to a poor country and you’re a missionary; go to Europe and you’re a “missionary” in quotation marks. I nearly moved to Latin America, until a friend I deeply respect called to say God was calling me back to Europe. I knew it was from God, repented, and returned. But the question stayed with me: what is mission, and who is a missionary? The popular answers are mission as work in poor countries, mission as frontier mission, and mission as cross-cultural ministry. Each has serious problems. Mission has to be defined neither so narrowly that it misses what missionaries actually do, nor so broadly (“everyone is a missionary”) that the word loses its meaning. I call this the mission dilemma.
Is mission about helping poor countries?
Most Christians equate mission with activities among the poor, so they don’t see Europe as a mission field. This causes problems. If missionaries only go to poor countries, receiving them becomes a national embarrassment; an Egyptian minister in Canada was told, “We send missionaries, not receive them!” It also makes us overlook the many fruitful missionaries in the West from Brazil, Nigeria and India, because they don’t come from rich countries. And many wealthy places have very few Christians: Japan, the Gulf states, Taiwan, and Europe, a rich continent in spiritual poverty. The link between mission and poverty is a legacy of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when the Christian West was rich and the rest was poor and pagan. The world is no longer divided into Christendom and Heathendom, and building on that outdated idea distorts our mission.
Is mission only frontier mission to unreached people groups?
Frontier mission is necessary, and we should send many missionaries where there aren’t enough local Christians. But only about 3% of missionaries work among unreached people groups. A definition that fits only 3% of what missionaries do is too narrow. It also pushes every ministry to justify itself as evangelism, turning mercy into “bait and switch.” In China, missionaries who gave rice after services got “rice Christians,” and the Chinese complained the care was fake. Mother Teresa washed and fed dying people who were often too weak to hear the gospel, yet her love testified powerfully to God, and Jesus said, “as you did it to one of the least of these… you did it to me” (Matthew 25:40). Finally, there are about 7,500 unreached people groups, a finite task we might finish this century. Would mission then be over? Nobody says pastoring has an end date.
Does going to another country make someone a missionary?
Many think a pastor at home is a pastor, and a pastor abroad is a missionary. Ralph Winter’s E-Scale (E1 in your own culture, E2 in a similar culture, E3 in a very different one) corresponds to Jerusalem, Samaria and the ends of the earth in Acts 1:8. But the scale is descriptive, not a command to prioritize E3. And it can’t explain why cross-cultural ministry is more valuable. People usually minister most effectively among their own people; most Europeans I work with are as qualified as I am and bear more fruit. David Bosch called this idea “the myth of baptism by salt water,” as if crossing the sea made you a missionary. It can even harm churches in developing countries that lose their best leaders abroad. When a young church sends missionaries, we celebrate, but moving abroad doesn’t automatically make someone a missionary.
What are the main waves in the history of Protestant missions?
The first Protestant missionaries were the Moravians, refugees who settled at Herrnhut under the 22-year-old Count Zinzendorf. After signing a Brotherly Agreement and seeking God together, they experienced revival and sent missionaries worldwide; their calm in a storm challenged John Wesley’s faith. William Carey, a self-taught shoemaker, launched the first wave. His 1792 Enquiry argued that if the Great Commission was only for the apostles, so was the promise “I am with you always,” and he called for “means,” especially mission societies. Hudson Taylor led the second wave, moving inland in China, adopting Chinese language and dress, and pioneering faith mission, which later influenced Loren Cunningham and Francis Schaeffer. The third wave came through Cameron Townsend, who founded Wycliffe Bible Translators, and Donald McGavran, whose idea of distinct people groups gave mission a new goal just when many thought it was finished.
What is the difference between the local church and a mission organization?
The word mission comes from the Latin mitto, to send, as apostle comes from the Greek apostello. Mission is the task God gives to be done through apostolic ministry. In Acts 13:2, the Holy Spirit told the church in Antioch, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” Some kingdom tasks are best done regularly, by pastors, deacons and elders; others intensively and irregularly, by missionaries. Neither is more important. Ralph Winter called these modality and sodality. A modality, like a local church, is a stable, inclusive, place-based fellowship built to endure. A sodality, like a mission organization, is a mobile, task-focused structure whose members make a “second decision.” Mission is sodality. YWAM can do what it does because it has its own structure and doesn’t run a local church week after week.
Can someone be a missionary in their own country?
Yes. Sodalities are usually international, combining locals and foreigners, and both matter. I visited a mission that had worked for decades with little growth, mainly because almost all its workers were foreigners and it had failed to mobilize locals. But foreigners bring a freshness locals may lack. YWAM Korea began with an American missionary, David Ross, who started a student Bible study when universities were closed during social unrest. Without him, it might have formed much later and with more difficulty. So while mission has traditionally meant going to another country, we should now think in terms of being international. Mission needs many local workers, and someone can be a missionary in their own country.
What is the foundation of the Great Commission?
Before his ascension, Jesus said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:18–20). In the wilderness, the devil had claimed that the world’s authority “has been delivered to me” (Luke 4:6). Through the cross and resurrection, God gave Jesus all authority in heaven and on earth. A new reality entered history. That, not merely our desire to save people who are dying without God, is the true foundation of mission. In Greek, the only imperative is “make disciples of the nations”; going, baptizing and teaching are participles. So the command is: make disciples of the nations by going, baptizing and teaching.
What is the difference between a believer and a disciple?
In John 8:31–32, Jesus spoke to those who already believed him: “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Believing is not the end. Abide (Greek meno) was John’s favorite word; more than half its New Testament uses are in his writings. It means dwelling in a deep relationship: “Abide in me, and I in you” (John 15:4). We abide in his word by reading, meditating on and practicing it. We become disciples when we are transformed by his word. This must also happen on a national scale. Papua New Guinea is about 97% Christian, yet has one of the world’s highest crime rates. Its people are Christians as individuals, but the nation is not discipled. It isn’t a frontier field, yet it still needs mission.
What does it mean to disciple nations?
Nations are among history’s most mysterious concepts. Modern Germany is only about 150 years old, yet Germans feel it is much older. Benedict Anderson called a nation an “imagined community,” and that imagination has a spiritual dimension historians miss. God promised to make Abraham a great nation, and Deuteronomy 32:8 says the Most High divided mankind and “fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God,” linking nations to spiritual beings (see Michael Heiser’s work). When the gospel enters a country, its spiritual atmosphere changes and it bears fruit in its culture, and nations will be judged (Matthew 25:32). We disciple nations by going, which means acting, as I did coming to Europe young and poor; by baptizing, which means evangelizing; and by teaching, because the gospel is not just a ticket to heaven. We honor the missionary baptizing in a river but not the one teaching in a classroom. Jesus told us to do both.
Source: Kim Cimio, The River of God (Vision & Logic, 2025), chapter 8, “Mission Dilemma.” Answers are condensed from the book in the author’s words.
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