May 26thPrioritizing “Inviting and Equipping Our Congregations and Leaders to Bear Witness to Jesus”
This is the eleventh in a series of reflections from Executive Minister Michael Pahl on our new MCM Vision & Mission Statement, approved at our 2026 Gathering.
“Evangelism” has a lot of baggage for many of us. So does “mission.” In fact, some of us seem positively allergic to these words.
The reasons are understandable, and important to understand.
“Mission” has, too often in Christian history—including Canadian Christian history—been done in service to imperial powers, as a tool of colonization. It has too often come with the imposition of one culture over another, even seeking to erase the other culture.
“Evangelism” has too often been coercive and transactional, pressuring people to convert to a particular religion, and thinking the work is done once the required transaction with God is completed. Another person saved from hell, another notch in our belt.
In other words, “evangelism” and “mission” evoke memories of violence done in the name of Jesus—physical, spiritual, and theological violence. And we’re not okay with that. We shouldn’t be okay with that.
We know, then, that this is not how evangelism and mission should be done. But we may not be able to imagine these done in any other way.
If we listen to Indigenous Christians in colonized lands, including here in Canada, we might come to appreciate these words again—or at least the ideas these words were originally intended to convey.
Repeatedly, and in recent years more urgently, we are hearing these siblings in Christ saying to us, “Don’t re-colonize us with your de-colonization!” We rightly reject the violence Christians have done in the name of Jesus under the guise of mission and evangelism, and we don’t want to repeat that violence. So we might throw out mission and evangelism entirely—and then expect those we’ve colonized in the past to follow our lead in this, re-colonizing them.
But these fellow Christians aren’t having it. They know all too well the violence of colonization and the role of the church in this, but they are grateful to have met Jesus and to be walking with him in community with each other and with us. They joyfully bear witness to Jesus, sharing the gospel and inviting people to follow Jesus, planting churches of fellow Jesus-followers walking in his way of peace—while rejecting the colonization and coercion they have experienced.
In other words, they are saying to us, “Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater!” Don’t discard a key aspect of our calling as a church even as we rightly reject the ways in which this calling has been misused and abused.
“Evangelism” comes from the Latin word evangelium, going back to the Greek New Testament word euangelion, meaning “good news” or “gospel.” And in the New Testament this gospel is essentially the story of Jesus—it’s the good news that in Jesus, through his life, teachings, death, and resurrection, God has come among us to bring about God’s reign of justice and peace and flourishing life for all people and all creation. “Evangelism,” then, is simply sharing the story of Jesus—no coercion involved.
“Mission” comes from the Latin missio, meaning “sent on a task.” It refers to the mission of the church, which can be described in various ways. Love God and love neighbour—Jesus’ greatest commandment (Matt 22:34-40). Make disciples of Jesus—not convert people to a religion, but form a people who follow Jesus’ way—Jesus’ great commission (Matt 28:18-20). Bear witness to Jesus in the power of the Spirit, attesting to his teachings, his way of life, his way of the cross, his resurrection (Acts 1:8).
The final missional priority in our new MCM Vision and Mission Statement attempts to describe for us what a healthy—and dare I say biblical—view of mission and evangelism looks like: “Invite and equip our congregations and leaders to bear witness to Jesus by sharing Jesus’ story, living lives of spiritual vitality and compassionate love, and pursuing justice, hospitality, and peace among us and beyond us.”
Mission and evangelism both boil down to this: bearing witness to Jesus. And how do we do this? By sharing Jesus’ story—the gospel—Jesus’ whole story, including his teachings, his way of life, his way of suffering love, his death-defeating resurrection by God. And by living out this gospel—both living lives of spiritual vitality and compassionate love in the way of Jesus, and pursuing justice, hospitality, and peace also in the way of Jesus.
May we re-capture this vision of mission, and even become true “evangelists” once again—sharing and living out the good news story of Jesus in a world desperate for good news.