I have been proud to call myself a missionary but have also seen that this term is shifting in meaning.

I think of a missionary as a person who is trying to accomplish a mission. There have been many bad missionaries, people whose mission was inappropriate or carried out in an inappropriate way. But that doesn’t mean it’s bad to have a mission and to carry it out.

In fact, when I teach at churches, I normally ask the pastor ahead of time for the mission statement of the church. Then the question becomes whether they are carrying out that mission and how.

Emotional manipulation, force, and rudeness are bad ways of carrying out any mission and in my view provide a bad witness for the kingdom.

Thanks for an interesting post.

I have been proud to call myself a missionary but have also seen that this term is shifting in meaning. There are a large number of people who simply assume that I’m a Mormon when I say I’m a missionary. Strictly speaking, “missionary” does not line up with any biblical category. And another thing I see is that the dividing line between home country and mission field is getting very hard to draw. Is the U.S. a mission field, for example? Most would say it is. So then if literally everywhere is a mission field, is that even a helpful designation?

Thankfully, I can tell people that I’m a Bible translator which up ’til now has almost entirely positive connotations. I suppose that could change in the future as well.