Last week I had a telling interaction with one of my co-teachers at Upward Bound Study Center in Monterey Park, where we teach recent immigrant Chinese students ESL and other subjects.
We were talking about something and she said something along the idea that she'll "be on mission" next week. Meaning she was going overseas. I thought about it for a second and said, "Aren't you already on mission?"
She said, "Well, you can take it up with God." I responded, "I don't have a comeback for that."
Notwithstanding my inability to give an adequate comeback, there's something about our in-house Christian language that has "mission" still placed in foreign, extraordinary, special terms. In some ways, it seems to be a positive elevation of this aspect of what it means to be the Church. But in many ways, it creates the kind of hierarchy that makes it only for those spiritually mature and sacrificial enough to be part of this elite circle--and everyone else either a spectator or financial supporter.
Mission flows from the heart of the Triune God. If that is a fundamental part of God's nature, then mission is not something we simply "do" as one thing amongst many in The Church. It is central to her being.
You all are "on a mission from God"!
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