The backgrounds and development of the missions enterprise from the apostolic period until the present are analyzed with a view to their benefit to the intercultural task before us today. A proper understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit in this endeavor is emphasized. To give the student a good grasp of present-day major movements, significant current trends in missiological thought and practice will be examined. The Great Commission is not merely an external command to be obeyed, but an expression of the church's fundamental law of existence. Yet, throughout the centuries, a profound divorce has been perpetuated between the church and her mission.
Mission is seen as something added on to the church, rather than emanating from it.
This course addresses the organic union between the church and her mission in the world. It offers practical ways of reuniting what God never intended to be separated, getting churches out of the maintenance mode and into the mission mode. The church rediscovers her glory when her essential nature finds expression in her mission to a dark world. This is a guided independent study course designed to give the student an overall knowledge of the religious contexts of the world which the Gospel must penetrate. As a major part of most cultural worldviews religions and religious themes will be studied by the student in detail with a view to their function in the society where they are found.