Lausanne World Pulse – A Call to Kingdom Journalism: Rediscovering the Integral Role of Communication in Mission

By Steve Knight
October / November 2013

In my communication role for an international, inter-denominational mission organization, I have the privilege of providing communication training for new missionaries who are preparing to serve cross-culturally.

Most of the men and women I speak to are trained to do medical work, theological education, children’s ministry, etc.—only a small number are trained in communication and/or are seeking to serve in a specific media/arts-related role. Their assumption is often that the “average” missionary has only minor communication responsibilities (i.e., sending ministry updates to supporting churches and individuals) and that the rest of the work of communication is to be done by trained “professionals” (however few or far between they may be).

My desire has been to help these men and women to see communication as an integral part of mission and to see their role in it. I believe these are two of the primary challenges for the Church today as it seeks to communicate and do mission faithfully in the context of our globalized, broadband-connected, post-everything world.

Thinking Theologically about Communication
In order to think theologically about communication in mission, we first must work out our missiology, our theology of mission. We have come to understand mission as being God’s mission, the missio Dei. God is a missionary God, and we are called to be a mission-centered Church.¹

However, the reality is often very different. Many churches today are still sending people out—whether it is into the mainstream workplace on Monday morning or into a cross-cultural situation overseas—as if Jesus is in their pocket, an exclusive item they have to offer to an otherwise “godless” world. Even some of the language we are accustomed to using is indicative of this misconception: “God has chosen you to take the gospel to the unreached people living in darkness ….”

In order to think theologically about communication in mission, we first must work out our missiology, our theology of mission.

If we understand mission first and primarily as being God’s mission, then we can trust that he is already at work in the world and in the lives of those we encounter along the way. Bishop David “Zac” Niringiye of Uganda “pictures Jesus already at work in the mosque, inviting us to the mosque to make disciples there. … We are invited to participate with him.”²

So our role is simply to participate in what God is already doing, and these are the stories we are called to tell—the stories of what God is doing in our own life and what he is doing in the lives of others (e.g., our co-workers at the office, the people we are living among cross-culturally, etc.).

Communication vs. Marketing
One challenge to this understanding of communication is the fairly recent focus in our churches on marketing and promotion. Like other aspects of the evangelical Church, this model has carried over from the corporate world and been widely adopted by many churches which are seeking to be relevant in our market-driven society.

Steve Knight is international communication coordinator for SIM (Serving In Mission). He writes about communication on his Kingdom Journalism blog. He and his wife Becky have three children.