Missions or Ministries: What’s in a Word?

As I complete my seventh and final year as executive director of OMSC@PTS, I want to offer some reflections on the potential contribution of the disciplinary developments in relation to or in contradistinction to inherited practices and theories of “Christian mission,” which I hope will be of interest to readers of the InternatIonal BulletIn of MIssIon research. Regular readers will have noticed that we have tried to build on this journal’s signature emphasis on the mission of the churches while embracing academic developments in World Christianity and Intercultural Theology.1 Though not intended as a comprehensive list or chronology of such developments, I have in mind, of course, the more or less familiar fields of mission studies, missiology, ecumenics, world or global Christianity, mission theology, comparative theology, missional theology, lived or grounded theology, and intercultural theology. Of course, a comprehensive history, taxonomy, and appraisal of the relative strengths and weaknesses of these developments would require a massive research effort and several volumes, so be advised that the humble suggestion I offer here is based mostly on observations and reflections over nearly forty years as a cross-cultural theological educator and academic administrator in Japan and North America. While this broad assortment of research approaches and agendas has been promoted almost exclusively by scholars in divinity schools, departments of theology, and seminaries, their relation to the traditional 19th century European and North American theological encyclopedia of biblical, historical, systematic, and practical fields has never been easy or obvious. With ideological perspectives running the gamut from normative and instrumental (to strengthen the practice and theory of Christian mission) to phenomenological and critical (to interrogate the practice and theory of Christian mission), the academic dialogue partners for these approaches have included extra-theological resources in social science, history, religious studies, and history of religions as well as intra-theological resources in biblical, historical, systematic, and practical fields. In summary, without denying serious differences and disagreements 1171605 IBM0010.1177/23969393231171605International Bulletin of Mission Research editorial2023