what is mission?

This is a difficult question to answer.  There are historical, cultural, social, economic, and religious considerations that must weigh into an appropriate definition of mission.  I want to run one past you and see what you think.

First, though, Kwame Bediako, one of the smartest people I've ever been in the same room with and author of Jesus and the Gospel in Africa, offered a definition to me when I met him at the Akrofi-Christaller Center for Theology, Mission, and Culture in Ghana.  (By the way, I've just learned that he died last summer.  The Ghanains would say that he 'lives in blessed memory'.)

Bediako said that mission is 'finding what we have in common.'

I like that one.

Here's a definition I'm trying to work out and work on.  What do you think?

Mission is turning strangers into neighbors.