our mission

The Philosophy of Mission of Westminster Biblical Missions is reflected in its own name; It is first committed to Missions in the historic Christian sense, the need to send forth the gospel and truth of Christ to the lost; it is also committed, in its understanding of that truth, to the Reformed faith and, in particular, the system of doctrine found in the Westminster Confession of Faith; finally, it is committed to a Biblical way of accomplishing this task. Our Philosophy of Mission, therefore, is evangelical, not liberal; Reformed evangelical, not Arminian evangelical; and Reformational, not ecumenical.


 This Philosophy of Mission is more explicitly stated in the board’s constitution: “The purpose of Westminster Biblical Missions shall be to glorify God by obeying Christ’s Great Commission to preach the gospel and make disciples of all nations.... Being fully committed to ... reformed doctrine ... this agency ... is committed to the task of establishing ... Bible-believing churches ... of this same doctrinal” defend the faith ... as persuasion As part of this program ... this ... board expects that its missionaries will defend as well as propagate it and ... maintain their separation from all unscriptural church movements."


So, then, our Philosophy of Mission must be evangelical. The world is lost and in need of the gospel; the world is in darkness and in need of the light of Christ. Missions must also be understood in a reformed sense. True missionary work is not essentially a human task. It is spiritual warfare--a warfare in which the risen, triumphant Christ of God goes forth in power to accomplish His will in calling out the elect and establishing His kingdom of truth and glory on earth. So, then, Christ already has a program built upon a Philosophy of Mission--His own. Our part, first and foremost, is to “glorify God” by insuring that our program fits into Christ's program. This means that if we are truly the servants of Christ our first preoccupation must be that of pleasing God and not men. Faithfulness to His message and to a Biblical way of prosecuting the work must always be paramount. There can never be any justification for compromise.


This leads us, in particular, to dwell upon this aspect of doing missions in a Biblical way. In our world today, there is a vast movement called ecumenical Christianity. This movement has not only departed from the Christian faith; it is aggressively preaching another gospel--and doing it in the name of Christ. The danger of this movement is compounded by the fact that much of evangelical Christianity is unaware of the true nature of ecumenism and, consequently, tends to fall into a measure of compromise with it. The Bible, however, calls for a sharp separation from unscriptural church movements. And, not only this, we must also--as we proclaim the truth of Christ--expose false gospels and false Christs which vie for faith on the fields to which we are called to work. In His own ministry, Christ not only healed and blessed- He also denounced sin and exposed error. The Apostle Paul also exemplified this Reformational principle by exposing false systems of faith wherever he went. For Paul, the glorious light of the gospel could not be proclaimed without, at the same time, turning its light upon and deliberately exposing to this light the anti-Christ systems of belief in his day.


It should be obvious that such a work of reformation, seriously undertaken, will not be easy or popular, yet the Word of God requires it. Closely allied to this imperative of confronting spiritual darkness by combating false teaching is the need to disciple men in the faith. Truly Biblical missions must teach men to obey the “all things whatsoever I have commanded you” of Christ. This requires us to establish and maintain schools of theology on foreign fields as a primary strategy in winning men to Christ and in planting churches. Most critically of all, however, we must locate, provide and support a missionary leadership which will, by living example, engage in this difficult work of reformation. For without reformational activity, there can be no true discipline. And without true discipline, there can be no true missionary advance.


Adopted by Westminster Biblical Missions April 25, 1992