Mission as an organising principle… I was listening to Michael Frost talk about this in the last couple of days. He was saying he has a fear of mission becoming a style thing, of it being domesticated when it should be dangerous and costly and totally reorientating. His is a vision of mission as a never-ending, surging fighting movement. It’s interesting… Jesus says to some rabbis who are critical of his eating with social outcasts, “Go and learn what this means, “I desire mercy not sacrifice”. What would happen if we allowed mission to become the focus of our churches instead of worship ?
When mission is the organising principal discipleship is key. The goal is one of maturing to the point of knowing what to do to personally grow and doing it. Disciples are even deliberately pursuing accountable relationships with people further along in the journey.
This is the vision of a church who breaks out of its building and seeps into the cracks and crevices of it’s surrounding community. It is always listening, sometimes participating in the conversations of the community, even starting some of those conversations. In mostly quiet, unassuming ways, whenever it encounters pain and violence and oppression, it offers solidarity and hope and healing.
It is the vision of a church whose edges are permeable, where sensitivity & awareness reaches out from its very middle, to the ends of the earth.
It is the vision of a church that is deliberately creating spaces for people and experiences beyond itself, allowing them to get close. This affects disciples in costly ways – including the use of their time and financial resources, even relationships. It is a church that engages in ministry enterprises and experiments that are provisional, home grown and have every possibility of failure.
What would happen if we allowed mission to become the focus of our churches instead of worship ?
