Growing up in the church, I was very aware of missions. There was a whole section of the church dedicated to missions with pictures and bios of missionaries that we supported. There was a map that plotted their locations across the globe. To this day, I am grateful for the way that church valued world missions.
As I have grown in faith and in my understanding of following Jesus, my perspective on missions has grown as well. Specifically, I have come to believe that missions is better understood as mission. You might ask, “Isn’t that just semantics?” Is dropping an “s” really a big deal? To me, it is a huge deal with radical implications. By shortening the word, we are actually expanding its impact. At Hope, we are currently in a teaching series on mission. Take some time to listen to a few of the teachings here or even plan to join us on one of the next two Sundays as we continue to explore the topic.
Over the next few posts, I hope to explain why we drop the “s” in missions and why mission is so critically important to who we are as a church.