mission is never a matter of taking God where he hasn’t been before, and introducing him to a lot of kind strangers. In every act of mission, God is there ahead of us. But by saying, ‘Go first to the lost sheep of Israel,’ Jesus is telling us that we need always to be alert to that prior history. We need to be reminded that mission is God’s before it is ours. And in relation to our title this afternoon that seems to be of central importance.
Rowan William (Archbishop of Canterbury) - God’s Mission and Ours in the 21st century
