# What Is the Mission of the Church?

## Metadata
- Author: [[Kevin DeYoung]]
- Full Title: What Is the Mission of the Church?
- Category: #books
## Highlights
- It used to be that mission referred pretty narrowly to Christians sent out cross-culturally to convert non-Christians and plant churches. But now mission is understood much more broadly. ([Location 183](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005LIH9N2&location=183))
- At its most basic, the term mission implies two things to most people: (1) being sent and (2) being given a task. The first point makes sense because mission comes from a Latin word (mittere) meaning “to send.” The second point is implied in the first. When sent on a mission, we are sent to do something—and not everything, either, but rather we are given a particular assignment. ([Location 194](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005LIH9N2&location=194))
- “What is the mission of the church?” they will hear you asking, “What is the specific task or purpose that the church is sent into the world to accomplish?” This is our working definition of mission and what we mean to ask with the title of this book. ([Location 207](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005LIH9N2&location=207))
- We’d do better to speak of living as citizens of the kingdom, rather than telling our people that they build the kingdom. ([Location 229](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005LIH9N2&location=229))
- We think it would be better to invite individual Christians, in keeping with their gifts and calling, to try to solve these problems rather than indicting the church for “not caring.” ([Location 233](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005LIH9N2&location=233))
- We are concerned that in all our passion for renewing the city or tackling social problems, we run the risk of marginalizing the one thing that makes Christian mission Christian: namely, making disciples of Jesus Christ. ([Location 235](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005LIH9N2&location=235))
- We do not want: Christians to be indifferent toward the suffering around them and around the world Christians to think evangelism is the only thing in life that really counts Christians who risk their lives and sacrifice for the poor and disadvantaged to think their work is in any way suspect or is praiseworthy only if it results in conversions Christians to retreat into holy huddles or be blissfully unconcerned to work hard and make an impact in whatever field or career to which the Lord calls them Christians to stop dreaming of creative, courageous ways to love their neighbors and impact their cities ([Location 239](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005LIH9N2&location=239))
- we do want: We want to make sure the gospel—the good news of Christ’s death for sin and subsequent resurrection—is of first importance in our churches. We want Christians freed from false guilt—from thinking the church is either responsible for most problems in the world or responsible to fix these problems. We want the crystal-clear and utterly unique task of the church—making disciples of Jesus Christ to the glory of God the Father—put front and center, not lost in a flurry of commendable concerns. We want Christians to understand the story line of the Bible and think more critically about specific texts within this story. We want the church to remember that there is something worse than death and something better than human flourishing. If we hope only for renewed cities and restored bodies in this life, we are of all people most to be pitied. ([Location 246](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005LIH9N2&location=246))
- of Christ’s death for sin and subsequent resurrection—is of first importance in our churches. We want Christians freed from false guilt—from thinking the church is either responsible for most problems in the world or responsible to fix these problems. We want the crystal-clear and utterly unique task of the church—making disciples of Jesus Christ to the glory of God the Father—put front and center, not lost in a flurry of commendable concerns. We want Christians to understand the story line of the Bible and think more critically about specific texts within this story. We want the church to remember that there is something worse than death and something better than human flourishing. If we hope only for renewed cities and restored bodies in this life, we are of all people most to be pitied. ([Location 247](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005LIH9N2&location=247))
- We believe the church is sent into the world to witness to Jesus by proclaiming the gospel and making disciples of all nations. This is our task. This is our unique and central calling. ([Location 294](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005LIH9N2&location=294))
- If there are missiological implications from Genesis, their emphasis is not “go and bless everyone” but rather “go and call the nations to put their faith in Christ.” ([Location 447](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005LIH9N2&location=447))
- God does not send out his church to conquer. He sends us out in the name of the One who has already conquered. We go only because he reigns. ([Location 623](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005LIH9N2&location=623))
- If you are looking for a picture of the early church giving itself to creation care, plans for societal renewal, and strategies to serve the community in Jesus’s name, you won’t find them in Acts. But if you are looking for preaching, teaching, and the centrality of the Word, this is your book. The story of Acts is the story of the earliest Christians’ efforts to carry out the commission given them in Acts 1:8. ([Location 670](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005LIH9N2&location=670))
- The mission of the church is to go into the world and make disciples by declaring the gospel of Jesus Christ in the power of the Spirit and gathering these disciples into churches, that they might worship the Lord and obey his commands now and in eternity to the glory of God the Father. ([Location 860](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005LIH9N2&location=860))
- Summary So the kingdom of God then, we may say, is God’s redemptive reign, in the person of his Son, Jesus Messiah, which has broken into the present evil age and is now visible in the church. With that understanding, there are a few other questions we should consider about the New Testament’s teaching on the kingdom of God. ([Location 1891](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005LIH9N2&location=1891))
- It seems to us that a better, more biblically realistic way to think about the world in this present age is to realize that until Jesus comes back, we will (as he told us, in fact) “always have the poor” with us (Matt. 26:11), and that our societies and civilizations will always be marked by corruption, injustice, and even oppression. Should this make us complacent? By no means! Should we strive and work against those evils? Absolutely! ([Location 1927](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005LIH9N2&location=1927))
- From our anecdotal evidence we’ve found no issue more debated, especially on Christian college campuses and among well-educated twenty- and thirty-somethings, than social justice. Younger evangelicals are more concerned about the poor, about digging wells, about sex trafficking, about orphans than at any other time in recent memory. Social justice is hot and is bound to stay that way for some time. One prominent scholar has gone so far as to claim that a renewed interest in social justice, or what he prefers to call a missional or holistic gospel, represents the biggest shift in evangelicalism in the last century.1 ([Location 2099](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005LIH9N2&location=2099))
- Our contention is that social justice in the Bible is not an achieved result but equal treatment and a fair process. No bribes. No backroom deals. No slanderous judgments. No breaking your promises. No taking advantage of the weak. That’s what the Bible means by social justice.2 Ideally, justice is blind. That’s why Lady Justice on our courthouses has her eyes covered. That’s why the US Supreme Court building has inscribed on it the words “Equal Justice Under Law.” Justice means there should be one standard, one law, for anyone and everyone, not different rules for different kinds of people. ([Location 2173](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005LIH9N2&location=2173))
- But in a modern economy, wealth can be created. This isn’t to say the rich never exploit the poor. That happens too. But in a capitalist economy, the rich can get richer while the poor also get richer. This is, in fact, what has happened in virtually every country over the last two centuries. Almost across the board, people live longer and have more, even if many people do not have anywhere near as much as people in the industrialized world enjoy. ([Location 2228](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005LIH9N2&location=2228))
- As Michael Novak argues: [Social justice] is allowed to float in the air as if everyone will recognize an instance of it when it appears. This vagueness seems indispensable. The minute one begins to define social justice, one runs into embarrassing intellectual difficulties. It becomes, most often, a term of art whose operational meaning is, “We need a law against that.”8 ([Location 2683](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005LIH9N2&location=2683))
- Or as some wag once put it, Bill Gates and Microsoft have done more to alleviate poverty in India than Mother Teresa.20 ([Location 2815](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005LIH9N2&location=2815))
- And What about the Church? We’ve been arguing in this book that the mission of the church is best defined not by a charge to engage the world’s social structures in an effort to build the kingdom or join God in his work of remaking the world, but rather by the Great Commission that Jesus gave to his followers just before his ascension—that is, verbal witness to him and the making of disciples. But while we’ve argued that tasks like disciple making, proclamation, church planting, and church establishment constitute the mission of the church, we’ve tried to walk a fine line so as not to insinuate that any other kind of work—say, humanitarian work or justice work or love work—is somehow un-Christian. Please, please, please know that is not what we are saying. Any book that comes across as suggesting that loving our neighbors is somehow sub-Christian is a very poor book indeed. ([Location 3484](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005LIH9N2&location=3484))
- Let’s take the second question first. Should the church institutional do social ministries? Must it do so? Really, the answer to that question comes down to how you understand the church’s mission, doesn’t it? If you think the church’s mission is to build a better, more just world, then of course the church must be involved, in some way or another, in increasing the social, economic, and political well-being of its city’s citizens (and also of its nation’s citizens and the world’s inhabitants). If that’s what you believe, then you’re actually defaulting on the mission if you’re not doing things that work toward that goal. But if you understand (as we’ve argued) that the church’s mission is actually the proclamation of the gospel and making disciples, then bettering the city’s and the world’s social condition becomes, at best, a less direct way of furthering that mission, and therefore it falls somewhat short of being a universal obligation for the local church. But that brings us back to the first question: Can the local church do such things? Might it not be good for the local church to do such things? Of course this question is moot for those who understand the mission of the church to be the social transformation of the world. For those Christians, the answer is that of course the church can, precisely because it must. But for those who understand the church’s mission to be proclamation and disciple making, this is a real question. Is it illegitimate for the church to do anything other than evangelism? We don’t think so. ([Location 3526](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005LIH9N2&location=3526))