What is the Mission of the Church?

What is the Mission of the Church?: Making Sense of Social Justice, Shalom, and the Great Commission
By: Kevin DeYoung

I picked up this book because we've been tired of hearing the word 'mission' or 'missional' and feeling like we don't know what it means anymore. I've read other Kevin DeYoung books and think highly of his theology; so when D.A. Carson praised his handling of the Bible, I knew I could trust his interpretation of Scripture and what the Bible has to say about this topic.

As I started reading the book my first thought was that this was going to be a long, redundant book. Especially if I didn't really have a problem with their answer to the book's titled question. However, I found the entirety of the book helpful, relevant, and important. At the very least, a book to reference when questions come up concerning our involvement in social justice as an individual and as a local church body.

I'm not sure how anyone who read the whole book could come away thinking they were advocating for people to stop helping the poor and needy. It would seem to be an example of what they actually described in the book: "The minute you start arguing that good works are not of the utmost importance, people accuse you of saying that they are of no importance at all." They Scripturally defend why we MUST do good works if we are truly followers of Jesus and specifically say they are not discouraging anyone from pursuing social justice.

But what they further differentiate, is that what we are called to do as individuals (the church scattered) isn't necessarily the main mission of the church gathered. The Bible has several examples of commands given to the church body that the individual person "should not undertake to obey on his own" and vice versa. For example, the sacraments are for the church gathered to take together, whereas, the taking of only one wife is for the individual, etc. They say "Not everything we do in obedience to Christ should be understood as part of the church's mission."

They convincingly lay out, Scripturally, why the mission of the church can be found in the Great Commission passages- to go and make disciples, to proclaim Christ crucified. I discovered that a lot of passages of Scriptures used to justify social-justice-heavy mission statements are actually misinterpreted. To understand the church's mission we must understand Jesus' mission, what the Bible means when it refers to the 'poor', and understand the over-arching storyline of the Bible. They also had a short section on economics that I found very interesting when identifying strategies to help the poor and taking into consideration their effects.

I would very much recommend this book, regardless of what your personal convictions are in terms of 'social justice' involvement. I truly think that the criticisms others have given 1-2 star reviews for are unfounded. If nothing else, read it for yourself.

Some excerpts:

"Ultimately, if the church does not preach Christ and him crucified, if the church does not plant, nurture, and establish more churches, if the church does not teach the nations to obey Christ, no one else and nothing else will. And yet, many others will meet physical needs."

"We Christians are to be conspicuous in our following of our King Jesus. We are to do good works as a testimony that God has made us into something different from what we once were, and from the unredeemed world around us. As people of the kingdom, we are to be salt and light in a fallen world. That is, we are to be different, and by those good deeds together with our true words, we are to testify to God’s character."

"Since hell is real, we must help each other die well even more than we strive to help our neighbors live comfortably. Since hell is real, we must never think alleviating earthly suffering is the most loving thing we can do. Since hell is real, evangelism and discipleship are not simply good options or commendable ministries, but are literally a matter of life and death."

"The social justice discussion would be less controversial and more profitable if we stopped talking about justice and started talking about love. Is it unjust for poverty to exist in the world alongside such wealth? Are we implicated in injustice because we live in a society with so many have-nots?... But should we love wildly, sacrificially, and creatively here, there, and everywhere? Absolutely… It’s too easy to wield ‘social justice’ like a two-by-four to whack every middle-class Christian who tithes, works hard, deals fairly with others, and serves faithfully in the local church but doesn’t have time to give to or be involved in every cause. It is hard to prove that most evangelical Christians are guilty of grave injustices toward the poor. Let’s not stir up guilt where it doesn’t belong… it is not hard to prove that there is more we can do to love… We really ought to love everyone, not all in the same way, but when we can, where we can, however we can."