Five Marks of Mission

I began teaching “Foundations of Holistic Missions” at Philippine Baptist Theological Seminary. It is a class I enjoy, and I think it is useful for any Christian seeking to serve God in the world— not just for Mission Students.

As I was prepping for the class, I reviewed the Five Marks of Mission that was developed by the Anglicans. I really like the list. As an Evangelical, I might call it “Five Marks of Missions” (ending with an “S,” but that is not important.

The mission of the Church is the mission of Christ

To proclaim the Good News of the KingdomTo teach, baptize and nurture new believersTo respond to human need by loving serviceTo transform unjust structures of society, to challenge violence of every kind and pursue peace and reconciliationTo strive to safeguard the integrity of creation, and sustain and renew the life of the earth 

<https://www.anglicancommunion.org/mission/marks-of-mission.aspx>

I much prefer these 5 “Marks” to the 3 “P’s” of “The Seoul Statement”

Christ-filled presence, our Christ-centered proclamation, and our Christlike practice.

This does not mean that I have problems really with The Seoul Statement from the 4th Lausanne Congress in 2024 (You can read a bit more on the statement by CLICKING HERE). Also the 3 P’s is more of a launching point for talking about Christian missions, not a full understanding of missions.

The Five Marks is broader… more encompassing… of the Mission of Christ. Therefore, it is more encompassing of our mission (or “missions”).

Now some people would read the Five Marks are likely to say something like, “All of those are good and true, but the first two must be given priority over the latter three.” In other words, all of them are important, but discipleship is critical, and evangelism is foundationally critical. When I noted the importance of Environmental missions a few weeks ago, one person said in the comments almost that exact thing. Caring for the environment is good and important, but not as important as evangelism.

And I agree. Nevertheless, I am going to push back on that.

If I agree, why would I push back? It is because of human nature. When we create a sentence that has the structure:

“A” is TRUE, but “B” is ALSO TRUE

or perhaps

“A” is TRUE, but “B” is EVEN MORE TRUE

It is often very much human nature to interpret such statements as

“B” is TRUE while “A” really isn’t

“Yes, But…” often gets interpreted as a “No.” When someone says “Black Lives Matter, but more importantly ALL lives matter,” in theory one is affirming both statements, but it is human nature to hear it as the second statement negating the first part. “But” can be a powerful but confusion-inducing word. And frankly, it is not merely a problem of bad interpretation. Often people very intentionally use this method to confuse or manipulate. For example, some people on FB have put out canned statements that go something like this:

“I am not really a fan of , but

That sentence clearly shows that the writer is a great supporter/fan of but wanted to manipulate people by pretending to be a non-supporter/non-fan.

So when we say that the first two marks are more important or more critical than the latter three, I do agree, but I would not say it that way, since some people would interpret the statement as saying that the latter three marks are NOT important, and I might even sound like I am a person trying to undermine those latter “marks.”

So for me, If I use the “Yes, But” structure, I would want to choose my words carefully to avoid someone hearing something different than what I believe is true. Thus, here is a statement I would make about the Five Marks of Mission that I believe embraces an Evangelical prioritization without falling into the trap of Evangelical minimization of mission:

“I believe that the first two marks of the Five Marks of Mission are of higher priority than the latter three, BUT an understanding of Christian mission that rejects any of the five is sub-Biblical.”