Five Marks of Mission

What is the mission of the church? Put differently: When we are doing what the church is supposed to do, what is it we are doing? One answer is these five marks of mission:

• To proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom
• To teach, baptise and nurture new believers
• To respond to human need by loving service
• To seek to transform unjust structures of society
• To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth

I didn't devise the list. It has made it's way around the Anglican Communion for nearly a quarter century. I think it brings up some helpful ideas. I also know that the mission of the church differs in different contexts. So that the main mission of the church in Myanmar right now is to help in meeting the immediate physcial needs of people affected by flooding. That's the third mark on the list and it is primary for that church now. Obviously, that is not part of the mission here locally in Camden County. And I don't think the list was intended to be a cafeteria plan of selecting which one to take up for action, but rather a way of naming the sorts of categories in which our mission takes place.

And as I ask this, I do so thinking of the Camden Ministerial Alliance of which I am a part and Mission for Camden which we support. Both of these are multi-church groups in Camden County, Georgia. So thinking beyond King of Peace Church to the more than 100 churches that are here in working together for Jesus Christ in this place, what ways might we be challenged to live more fully into the mission of the church? What should we churches be doing together to live into the Gospel we proclaim?

peace,
Frank+
The Rev. Frank Logue, Pastor