Our son, Adam, has been living and working in Japan for the past few years. Recently he wrote down what he considered to be his core values. He shared these with Anna and I, and after checking, he’s OK with me sharing some of his thoughts with you. Here is some of what he wrote on mission:

Most people quote the Great Commission from Matthew 28:18-20 when thinking about evangelism/mission. Good!

However, the passage that has had the biggest mission impact on me is in John 17. Jesus prays for his disciples and how the church born through them, should act. “May they be one as we are one” and “may they be in us so that the world may know that you have sent me”. Jesus asks his Father that he be made known to the world through the unity of those who follow him and through the church’s evident unity with God.

The foundations are set in love. Lasting unity requires intentionality, compromise, sacrifice, discipline and a deep rooted ‘communal’ joy in something (in the church’s case, ‘Jesus’).

It is too easy for Christians to be divided on topics of faith and doctrine that, whilst important, do not merit finger pointing and the breeding of hate. I see too much of this in the global church of today.

The first step in bringing Jesus into people’s lives is not having an opinion on who God is but striving for unity as a church; the call to mission is not about the individual but about the church.

That’s my son. I’m a proud dad.