To Neighbours and Nations: Factors Shaping Australian Evangelical Church Patterns of Mission Involvement

Australian evangelical local churches participate in mission in a variety of ways with varying levels of emphasis on local and distant mission activities. This research employs a mixed method grounded theory approach to explore and understand the factors shaping these patterns of mission involvement. A closed-question survey was completed by leaders of 205 evangelical churches in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory. Responses revealed substantial diversity of practice and indicated a relationship between local and distant mission activities suggesting that a church’s involvement in distant mission may stimulate involvement in local mission, but not vice versa. Semi-structured interviews were performed with members from ten churches surveyed which displayed high levels of involvement in local mission and either high or low levels of involvement in distant mission. Analysis of these interviews revealed widespread similarities in ecclesiological and missiological convictions, yet notable differences in organisational culture and climate between more and less globally engaged churches. The most substantial difference between these groups of churches was the presence relational networks with distant mission workers in highly engaged churches. Viewed from the perspectives of social exchange and social capital theory, these relational networks stimulate church member involvement in both local and distant mission and thereby influence the culture and climate of mission involvement. Churches displaying high levels of engagement in local and distant mission had a ‘unified participatory missiology’ which shaped church culture such that all members were personally engaged. By contrast, the churches with low levels of distant mission engagement were said to have a ‘local-focused bifurcated missiology’ with a delegatory approach to distant mission