Missio Dei

Definition and Meaning

The term "mission of God" renders the Latin Missio Dei. The concept does not regard mission as an enterprise that the church plans and carries out. Rather, it holds that the source of mission is the activity of the triune God toward the world, just as the Father sends the Son and the Father and the Son send the Holy Spirit. The church is both an instrument of and a witness to this "sending." The goal of mission is understood to be the realization of the kingdom of God, which is broader than the expansion of the church.

Biblical and Historical Background

Proponents of the concept cite the words of Jesus: "as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you" (John 20:21). They also point to the account of God calling Abraham so that he might be a blessing to the nations (Genesis 12).

The theological roots of the concept are commonly traced to a lecture in the 1930s in which Karl Barth presented mission as an activity of God. The expression is said to have spread through the 1952 conference of the International Missionary Council (IMC) held at Willingen, Germany. It later became widely known after the German theologian Georg Vicedom published a book of the same name.

In the 1960s, interpretations broadened within the World Council of Churches (WCC). A "God–world–church" schema emerged, holding that God works directly in the history of the world even apart from the church, and a movement arose that placed social justice and humanization at the center of mission. The evangelical camp criticized this trend for weakening evangelism and personal conversion. The 1974 Lausanne Congress responded by affirming both the primacy of evangelism and social responsibility.

Practice in the Korean Church

The ecumenical camp (denominations and organizations participating in the ecumenical movement) adopted the concept as the foundation of its understanding of mission. This camp includes the National Council of Churches in Korea and its member denominations, such as the Presbyterian Church in the Republic of Korea, the Presbyterian Church of Korea (Tonghap), and the Korean Methodist Church. These bodies have used the concept as the theological basis for social mission, including urban industrial mission and participation in the human rights and democratization movements (see The Church and the Democratization Movement).

Conservative Presbyterian and evangelical denominations take a different view. Within bodies such as the Presbyterian Church in Korea (Hapdong) and the Presbyterian Church in Korea (Kosin), critics have argued that some interpretations of the concept obscure church-centered evangelism and the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18–20). This debate is also bound up with the WCC controversy.

Since the 1990s, a trend toward embracing the concept has also emerged across these camps. Discussion of the "missional church," which rereads the mission of God from a trinitarian perspective and understands the very existence of the church as missional, has gained momentum in the pastoral ministry of many denominations.