OUR MISSION
Missions Interlink’s membership is a diverse mix of organisations that send or deploy missionaries (churches and agencies respectively) , charities that support and advocate for others around the world, groups who engage in mission locally, and individuals that participate in our missions community. We also have relationships with a number of businesses who support our activities and provide benefits to our community.
Our understanding of mission is broad. It is at the same time local and global, evangelistic and social, full-time and part-time, to those without the gospel and alongside those living out the gospel in their indigenous contexts. Broadly speaking then, mission is lovingly developing disciples to extend God’s influence in the world. This incorporates all manner of means and methods expressed within our missions community and the relationships our members represent. The most important thing to remember is that the mission is not ours – it is God’s. This is expressed in the phrase, Tō mātou mihana (our mission), where mātou indicates that we are subordinate in relationship to mission – it is ours to help fulfil, in accordance with our calling, but not ours to own or control.
The Koroutahi Manifesto
In 2008, a Missions Interlink working group drafted a document that was subsequently adopted by the Missions Interlink Council at its November 2008 Annual General Meeting. This document was the Koroutahi (One Purpose) Manifesto. Mission organisations present at that meeting signed the document and more member organisations have endorsed it since. It presents the clearest theological expression of our understanding of mission to date. The Koroutahi Manifesto can be downloaded in PDF format here for your reference.
While our Statement of Faith outlines our core doctrinal non-negotiables, the Koroutahi Manifesto provides a baseline for our theology of mission and our common commitment to the mission of God from and within Aotearoa New Zealand.
Koroutahi Manifesto Full Text
Koroutahi Manifesto | Missiology
We worship God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the Creator of all, the One who is Love, the Judge of the earth. In Him we live and move and have our being in the midst of a broken and hurting world. Our mandate is that people everywhere will be invited to ‘know’ God, be transformed by His love, and see His love transform their world – for this is ‘missio Dei’ – the mission of God.
To ‘know’ God is to seek an intimate relationship with God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit; it is to love God above all else, to serve God before all else, to trust God unlike anything else, and to be influenced by no other god-like entity.
God’s desire is that He be known, through the Son, worshipped, and obeyed by people enlivened by the Spirit to do so from every ethnic group on the earth. However, there remain many yet to have access to the knowledge of God through Jesus Christ.
We believe that the mission of God is the overriding priority of God’s people – those who follow, worship and obey God through faith in the resurrected Son, Jesus Christ.
The mission of God is all inclusive of every aspect of life. It seeks to positively transform all relationships — our relationship with God, our relationship with each other, and our relationship with creation and creative activities. It seeks freedom and life without prejudice. It upholds justice and resists oppression. It provides for the needy and humbles the proud. It witnesses to the God who is revealed through the Old and New Testament Scriptures, in the Son, whom God sent, and by the Spirit within believers and at work in the world.
The mission of God is happening everywhere since God is everywhere, however it is limited where there are few or no Christ followers to help people come to know our loving God.
Koroutahi Manifesto | Commitment
Our aim is to encourage God’s people in New Zealand to become involved in the mission of God, especially amongst those with least access to the knowledge of God through Jesus Christ and those with few resources via which they may increase their knowledge of God (e.g. mature believers to reach out to, care for, and disciple them; Biblical literature, sound teaching, etc).
Our vision is to see Christ followers from New Zealand going cross-culturally to invite others to come to know, worship and obey God. We recognize this will involve multiple dimensions determined by the calling, vision, skills, talents, gifts, experience, resources and personalities of each Kiwi involved and we will seek to facilitate them accordingly.
We will meet together regularly for prayer to seek God concerning New Zealand, the witness of the people of God in New Zealand, and their involvement from New Zealand in the mission of God.
We will work together to increase awareness of ‘missio Dei’ among God’s people in New Zealand and highlight the unique contribution they can make in advancing His mission.
We will collaborate to educate and coach Christ followers from New Zealand on their journey toward active cross-cultural participation in this mission. We will do this together until an individual, couple or family, together with their sending fellowship, has identified a specific mission pathway they wish to follow longer term, at which time we will bless them and encourage the way they choose, trusting that they will be supported and journey well.
Within our network we will encourage one another, think the best of one other, maintain healthy relationships with one other, and allow one another freedom to contribute to the mobilisation ‘conversation’ equally, without either hope of preference or fear of derision. We will resource and participate in this vision to the best of our abilities, knowing that freedom exists to not be involved in a particular activity for any reason, yet agreeing to prayerfully support one another. We will be mutually accountable for activities in which we participate, freely engaging in healthy critique and evaluation.
