Monday, February 13, 2012

Missions or Ministry?

At a meeting recently someone defined missions as "Taking the Good News where it is actually news." That struck me as rather profound. I then thought it would be helpful to have a similar definition for "ministry". So I quickly defined it as "Helping or serving others in tangible ways." As a result, I have spent a bit of time pondering the difference between the two.
Often we conduct missions trips at the BCM and encourage students to become involved in summer missions projects. We raise money for Send-Me-Now missions and challenge our members to live missional lifestyles. We also challenge students to be aware of others needs and to seek to meet those in tangible ways. We have graduates working in ministry jobs and many others who are missionaries. We have alumni who serve in the Peace Corps, seeking to minister to others and make a difference in this secular world. There are graduates from BCM who seek to share their faith verbally through intentional relationships. There are many others involved in ministries and churches who have servant's hearts and do ministry as a natural outflow of their lives.
But I think we often confuse the two terms - missions and ministry. I have dubbed ventures such as cleaning up after a natural disaster "a missions project" when all we did was work from morning until night clearing debris and never actually talking to anyone. There have been similar clean-up projects where I have spent much of the time building relationships with homeowners while a crew cleared away storm debris. However, such personal interaction is not always the case - the "Good News" is not always shared while being involved in vital "ministry" projects. Thinking over these matters has provided a good reminder that while "ministry" can occur on a "missions" venture, doing "ministry" does not necessarily bring about "missions". Much of it has to do with both the intent of the event as well as what actually occurs.
Thoughts?

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Good stuff! "Missions is taking the Good News where it is actually news."