The Mission of God and the Renewal of Wonder
Engaging the World with Both Sides of the Brain
Do you remember the Mac vs. PC commercials from the early 2000s?
Two characters stood in contrast: “Mac,” the casual and creative one, and “PC,” the suit-wearing, slightly rigid one. It was a marketable way of naming something we instinctively recognize—that there are different ways of engaging the world around us.
In recent years, conversations about the brain have helped refine this intuition. While it’s common to speak of “left-brained” and “right-brained” people, the reality is more integrated than that. Both hemispheres are constantly working together. But some have suggested that they represent different ways of “attending to the world”—one that tends to focus on analysis, logic, and problem-solving, and another that is more open to intuition, creativity, and wonder.
Over time, individuals—and even cultures—can begin to favor one way of attending over the other. Curt Thompson, drawing on this line of thought, suggests that since the Enlightenment much of Western culture has come to view the world more predominantly as a problem to be solved than beauty to be received and cultivated.1
If that’s true more broadly, it’s worth asking whether it has also shaped the way we approach missiology.
Is it possible that—without realizing it—we sometimes engage God’s mission less with the curiosity of joining him in the beautiful things he is doing, and more with the anxiety of trying to solve the world’s problems for him?
When that happens, our starting point unknowingly shifts. Mission begins to feel like a response to a problem, rather than also participation in a story.
But our story does not begin in Genesis 3.
The Blessing Before the Breaking
The prologue of the gospel is not sinful humanity but a good Creator.
God did not simply place Adam and Eve in a garden paradise to preserve it. He sent them into the world with a calling: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1:28). From the beginning, humanity was invited into a whole-person, whole-world vision of flourishing that was meant to unfold through God’s ever-growing global family.
There is no anxiety in Genesis 1 and 2. No micromanagement. No frantic striving.
Within the responsibility to be fruitful and multiply, God gave humanity the freedom to explore, cultivate, create, and discover fruitfulness alongside him. What has been called the Great Mandate was not merely a task to accomplish, but an invitation to participate in the goodness of God’s world.
Of course, sin introduced a terminal problem to be solved. The world became fractured by rebellion, violence, and death. Yet even then, God’s response was not merely the solving of a problem, but the beginning of a restoration. The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ were not only for rescue from sin, but toward the renewal of all creation itself.
That’s part of why Mark’s version of the Great Commission feels so expansive: “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation” (Mark 16:15, emphasis mine).
Paul echoes this same vision in Colossians when he describes the gospel “bearing fruit and increasing” throughout the whole world (Colossians 1:5–6). Something transactional is happening, certainly. But something beautiful is also being formed.
The gospel is not only about what God saves us from, but also what he is restoring us for. And perhaps recovering that larger story is part of what helps us learn to attend to God’s mission with wonder again.
The Beauty Already Breaking In
To see God’s mission in this way makes room for both sorrow and joy.
Yes, we are rightly troubled by a world still marked by injustice and bondage. But we are also invited into wonder. The very existence of Christians is part of a global phenomenon unfolding across centuries and cultures: God gathering a redeemed family from every nation, language, and people.
And in many ways, that story is accelerating before our eyes:
In recent decades, more Muslims have come to faith in Christ than at any other known period in history.2
Christianity continues to grow rapidly across Africa, now home to the largest Christian population in the world.3
By 2050, over half of Christians worldwide are expected to live in nations once considered part of the “mission field.”4
None of this removes the reality that many still need to hear the gospel. Nor does it lessen Christ’s call to make disciples at all times and in all places. But it does remind us that mission was never intended to be driven exclusively by scarcity and urgency. Within Christian obedience, God has renewed his offer of freedom to explore, cultivate, and discover fruitfulness alongside his ever-growing global family.
Learning to Attend to the World Differently
For many of us shaped by Western culture, it’s natural for mission to be framed as a problem to be solved. But human beings are not moved exclusively by solutions. We are made to also be compelled by beauty.
Yes, the newborn is nourished in her suckling. But her eyes reveal soulful wonder when they meet her mother’s gaze.
Recovering a more whole way of attending to missiology may begin with learning to slow down enough to notice where our attention has narrowed.
Sometimes that simply means returning to creation itself.
Research increasingly suggests that encounters with nature help restore attentiveness, creativity, and cognitive integration.5 It’s striking how often Jesus withdrew into quiet places, drawing attention to sparrows, seeds, fig trees, and lilies. Perhaps part of faithful missional formation is learning to see the world again not merely as something to discard, but as something alive with the presence and activity of the Creator, eagerly awaiting redemptive rule.
It may also mean learning to delight more deeply in the global family of Christ.
It’s tempting for Christians to individualize the weight of “finishing the task” as though the future of mission depends entirely upon their generation. But the kingdom of God has always been larger than any one people, nation, or moment in time. Across the world, believers are worshiping, suffering, persevering, and bearing witness together. There is relief in remembering that we belong to a family, not merely an assignment.
And finally, perhaps this whole-brain missiology means recovering curiosity about our own fruitfulness as sent people.
Not everyone is responsible to cross cultures vocationally or permanently. Yet as recipients of a shared commission, all Christians are sent into the ordinary places of their lives as living proof of the global kingdom of God. Homes, neighborhoods, classrooms, workplaces, churches—all become places where the life of Christ can be embodied and shared.
The invitation is not simply to accomplish something for God, but to participate with him in the renewal of all things. And often, it is in those ordinary places of participation that wonder returns to the mission again.6
Curt Thompson and Pepper Sweeney, “You’re Right. You’re Left. And In That Order,” The Being Known Podcast, July 6, 2021, https://thebeingknownpodcast.podbean.com/e/you-re-right-you-re-left-and-in-that-order/
Daniel Pipes, “More Muslims Convert to Christianity Than Ever Before,” July 14, 2021, Organiser, https://organiser.org/2021/07/14/22715/bharat/islam/
Gina A. Zurlo, Global Christianity: A Guide to the World’s Largest Religion from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2022)
Aaron Earls, “7 Encouraging Trends of Global Christianity in 2022,” January 31, 2022, Lifeway Research, https://research.lifeway.com/2022/01/31/7-encouraging-trends-of-global-christianity-in-2022/
Curt Thompson and Pepper Sweeney, “You’re Right. You’re Left. And In That Order,” The Being Known Podcast, July 6, 2021, https://thebeingknownpodcast.podbean.com/e/you-re-right-you-re-left-and-in-that-order/
This essay is adapted from an article originally published by A Life Overseas.