Quality of life and mission

Abstract

Missions activities often include efforts aimed at improving the physical well-being of others. These efforts have gained additional emphasis in recent years as North American Protestants have focused on missions activities that have tangible impacts on people’s well-being in contrast to activities with more spiritual impacts. This article uses the idea of “quality of life” to review the relationship of Christian mission to improving the physical well-being of others. Offering a brief sketch of missional activities undertaken in the New Testament, during the Roman Empire, through monasticism, by Anglo-American Reformers, and by 19th- and 20th-century North American missionaries, it concludes that the improvement of people’s quality of life shifted dramatically in reference to the church’s understanding of mission. Specifically, Christians changed from seeing the improvement of others’ quality of life as a means of people sharing in the salvation of Christ to that improvement as one of the chief ends of Christ’s salvific work.