About

Mission Central hosts three annual conferences: GROW, CREATE, and SERVE.

  • GROW helps people grow as missional disciples in the context of community.
  • CREATE helps creatives grow in their art and as missional disciples.
  • SERVE helps us get a glimpse of Jesus' Kingdom activity in the world and invites us to join him.

Our conferences fit into the larger Mission Central mandate described below:

Mission

Mission Central grows missional disciples through collaboration, education, inspiration, and prayer.

Vision

A world transformed by the power of Christ at work through His people in every sphere of society.

Definition of Mission

Missio = Send

We define mission as a work of God through Christ, a work we are invited into, to redeem and reconcile all creation to God and bring flourishing, fullness and peace to the earth.

What We Do

In our writing, conversations, seminars and conferences we raise the centrality of Christ and his Kingdom in the life of every believer; and by extension we raise up the importance of forming every disciple in Christ's image, with his mission.

Decoration image for quotation

“the telos (end) of Christian mission is thus human beings becoming humans fully alive."

Ross Hastings, Missional God, Missional Church

Theological Values

As a non-profit Christian organization we desire that all that we do be Christ centered.  We believe that “‘mission by us’ in Christ is a continuation of ‘mission by Christ’ in the Father.”[1] Thus through the Spirit we are enlivened to, by word and deed, minister compassion, justice and forgiveness and to disciple others in a journey towards Christlikeness.  Essential to this ministry is the truth that our usefulness in the “expansion” of mission (width) is dependent on “the extent to which” we live “into the depth of the triune communion of love by the Spirit.”[2]

The implication of this is that while our predominate interest is in activities that support the accomplishment of the ‘Great Commission’ we need to be diligent to actively acknowledge God’s mission in the broadest possible sense of bringing his shalom to all of creation.  Our goal, as Ross Hastings notes is that “the telos (end) of Christian mission is thus human beings becoming humans fully alive.  However this equally asserts the ecclesial nature of the new humanity.  God’s mission was to be carried out by the church – the church as a signal of the new humanity, the church as the sign and servant of the kingdom of God, for the re-creation of the cosmos.”[3] Because the church is central to mission our goal is to make the church a key partner in Mission Central, the key beneficiary of the work that we do. We need to reflect the interest of the local church in mission and meet needs relationally and through partnership.

[1] Hastings, Ross; Missional God, Missional Church, p. 249
[2] Ibid, p. 272
[3] Ibid, p. 31

Philosophical Values

Mission Central believes that the mandate for mission rests on the people of God who make up the Church. The Church as an organism needs to be engaged through relationship and partnership, not just programs and structure.  If we, at Mission Central, exist to be a reflection of the local churches’ interest in mission then we need to be advocates for relationship and partnership between the local church, communities and agencies. A conscious decision needs to be made to avoid promotion of a consumeristic relationship between attendees and agencies. We need to be advocates of a servant posture with agencies so that when they engage the local churches that they come to listen to the stirrings that the Holy Spirit has placed in the heart of the church as much as we (attendees) come to hear about what God is doing in the world.