What is mission?

I was reading Gordon Cotterill's blog today and noticed the text running across the top of his blog and couldn't help but read it!

The comments about Mission reminded me about a book I have just received which is actually the text of a lecture given by Andrew Kirk in Sweden two or three years ago. The book called "What is Mission?" tries to answer that very question and raises concerns with some of the narrow views of what Mission is.

One particular comment though caught my eye in the book. Kirk says:

"In the discussion about the relationship between a 'given' gospel and concrete cultures, there appears to be a tendency towards relativising the gospel and absolutising culture. This is bringin sharp disagreements among Christians world-wide."

This comment reminds me that one of the biggest problems facing the Church today is that we often spend more time fighting amongst ourselves, rather than we do the real enemy. Having worked for a number of years for the Anglican Communion I see the often bitter arguments that are threatening to tear it apart, the base of which is this very problem.

Again in TSA I often find myself laughing in frustration at some of the letters or even articles in Salvationist that really are more about cultural differences than the gospel. We will sit back in 5, 10 or 20 years time and find that views have become so polarised that we are faced with an irrevocable split because of our attitudes of saying that our way is the only way!