Steve Addison asked the question, noting that there is no clear consensus of what “mission” is and describing how he is surprised by the range of responses. So, in the interest of clarity, I will suggest my own definition(s).
First, let me begin by distinguishing between two different modes: the evangelist, who makes new converts; and the discipler, who trains converts. (Some folks do both.) Steve notes that there are a “whole variety of activities that can be missional–from aid and development, to political action, to drinking coffee with friends. You can even be a ‘business apostle.’” I would call these activities the “context” for evangelism and discipleship. In other words, someone who does relief & development, or teaches English as a second language, is not necessarily an evangelist. But an evangelist can share the good news through these contexts.
Side note: Just because these activities are done without evangelism does not make them bad. Somehow we get into the idea that anything which does not lead to souls won is bad. Sometimes public evangelism isn’t possible. Sometimes it’s all about planting a seed. Sometimes it’s simply about clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, bring water to the thirsty, helping the poor, being with the oppressed, etc.
A home missionary is someone who works in one of the two modes in their own home country. A foreign missionary is someone who works in one of the two modes in a country other than their home country. (Simple enough, eh?) With this globalizing world and its hundreds of millions of foreigners coming to the shores of every country, home missionaries can be just as important and strategic as foreign missionaries.
A home cross-cultural missionary is someone who works in one of the two modes, in their home country, but among an ethnolinguistic group other than their own. So, for example, it’s the white YWAMer from Texas who ministers to Arabs in Detroit. Or, it’s the Korean American who’s working amongst inner city African Americans. When you cross a cultural boundary, having to learn new customs, new languages, etc., it’s a new stage of difficulty.
A foreign cross-cultural missionary is someone who works in one of the two modes, in a country not their own, among an ethnolinguistic group other than their own. This can be even more difficult!
I also heard a new term the other day. I won’t steal their thunder by citing the name or the statistics, but let me just say that there is a difference between a full time vocational missionary and a “part-time evangelist” who goes to another country for a different reason (e.g. a job) and in the course of making friends can be a witness for Christ. Such “amateur missionaries” (and here I am not using the term “amateur” in a negative statement about quality, but because this is not their primary professional vocation) can be very effective: perhaps not so effective as professionals on a one-on-one basis, but because there are so many and because they are so relational they can have a cumulatively greater effect.
Finally, we have the distinguishing factors short-term and long-term. I don’t count someone as “long-term” unless they are intentionally present in country for longer than 2 years. (But I have also heard of mid-term which means anywhere from 1 month to 2 years, the typical short-term trip being 2 weeks).
So there’s my definitions. Hope they are useful. None of the categories are somehow “less than” other categories. But I will say that we have significantly more home missionaries than foreign missionaries, more short-term than long-term, more same-culture than cross-cultural. I think we all know why.
