The mission of God seems to change. Does the mission change or do we understand it in new ways?
Here is the second part of three. Part 1 is here
Settling in.
The church was born.
In time the movement developed systems to transfer their vision, songs and creeds gave language to basic theology. Buildings and teachers reinforced the message. Slowly the movement became a community and then an institution.
The first believers faced anger and mistrust, many were killed, others recanted, some ran.
Everyplace they ended up, the followers of Christ would dream dangerous dreams. They dared to ask what the world could look like if everyone made everyday decisions between the kingdom of God or the kingdom of Caesar.
Ebb and Flow
The historical story of this body reveals moments of wild success as well as dramatic failure in their mission, often at the same time.
Great social oppression as well as great political acceptance each carried painful compromises. The problem came from within. Our mission at times ignored and forgotten.
Its leaders grasped for power in the name of the kingdom, the church made horrific mistakes, and blamed it on others.
Movement
Still it stumbled along, voices from the centre called out to the margins.
Power was laid down.
Everyday people made the little choices that would reject Caesar and attempt to live the new kind of kingdom. The mission carried on: people believed in the dream of the kingdom enough to act as though it exists, and continue to find others peculiar enough to join the movement.
The cycle of passion, settling in, discontent and then renewal continued and still carries the Mission forward.
Mission becomes Program.
At times the mission gets sidelined and rather than existing as the purpose of the church, it becomes a program of the church.
It sits alongside the youth or kids club as a line item on the budget.
When “Personal Spiritual Development” became the Mission of the church, missions became mere activity.
Noble and Excit!ng opportunities for Western Christians to practice and perfect their personal spiritual growth. In subtle as well as significant ways, The Mission of God is reduced into a tool for pastors to use in promoting lordship development in parish members – the problem is the tool works too well!
It is natural, reasonable and even commendable thing to value and promote the spiritual development and care of people. This goal is understandable. But Mission as Program poses a problem.
The Mission of God Looks Outward
This “missions for the benefit of me”, forgets that a mission must look outward. developing your team is great! but only so long as you build a team to accomplish a goal.
This lack of a focused set of goalposts has lead to the critique that the majority of missions dollars we spend is actually money spent on ourselves.
There are legitimate concerns of our ethical responsibility of naming this ‘tourism with a purpose’ as the mission of the church.
Is it about us?
Mark Crocker
Here is the third and final section. Thanks for your thoughts!