Mission in Scripture is rooted in the missio Dei — the sending activity of God Himself. The Father sends the Son (John 3:17; 20:21); the Son sends the Spirit (John 15:26); the Father and Son together send the Church (John 20:21). Mission is not a program the church invented — it is the church's participation in God's own sending nature. The Great Commission (Matt 28:18–20) does not merely call believers to evangelism but to comprehensive disciple-making among all nations, grounded in Christ's cosmic authority. Isaiah's "Here am I; send me!" (Isa 6:8) becomes the model response to divine call. Mission encompasses proclamation (kerygma), service (diakonia), community (koinonia), and worship (leitourgia) — it is the full-orbed witness of the people of God to the watching world that God is reconciling all things to Himself in Christ (2 Cor 5:19).
MISSION, n. [Latin missio, from mitto, to send.] The act of sending, or the state of being sent; a sending; commission. A body of persons sent by authority to perform some special service; particularly, persons sent to propagate religion, or to perform the offices of religion in destitute regions. The act of sending the Son of God into the world for the redemption of mankind; also the sending of the Holy Spirit. The duty or business for which a person is sent.
Mission has been corrupted by reduction and expansion in equal measure. Reductionism collapses mission to individual soul-winning alone, ignoring Jesus' teaching on justice, mercy, and the comprehensive restoration of all things. "Expansionism" — common in social justice evangelicalism — absorbs mission entirely into humanitarian work, treating the proclamation of the gospel as optional or even offensive. The biblical mission holds both in tension: word and deed, vertical reconciliation (to God) and horizontal transformation (society, creation). A second corruption: mission has become a branded identity project — corporate "mission statements" have colonized the word, stripping it of its divine source and cost. Biblical mission flows from being sent; modern mission is about going on your own terms. Only the sent can truly be missionaries.
• John 20:21 — "As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you."
• Matthew 28:18–20 — "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations… teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you."
• Isaiah 6:8 — "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then I said, 'Here am I! Send me.'"
• 2 Corinthians 5:18–19 — "God… gave us the ministry of reconciliation… entrusting to us the message of reconciliation."
• Romans 10:14–15 — "How are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent?"