Is mission only an adjective at your church?  Seems like the only use or understanding of the word mission is to preceed other words:

  • Mission Statement
  • Mission Team
  • Mission Budget
  • Mission Trip

Mission is used throughout our culture to mean a variety of things.  The military sends teams out on missions.  Politicians talk about mission – drawing on the heart strings of Americans.  Non-profit service agencies are on a mission.  Coke and Mac have missions.  In culture mission has become synonymous with objective or goal.   The cause or mission becomes the centralizing point for the group.
Mission is taking the initiative to do something to create a change in something or someone.  Mission involves submission to something – an ideal, a country, a way of life.
But in the church … mission means to go someplace and do something to someone else.  We do service projects close by and mission trips farther away.
The missional church is all the buzz.  Of course, the missional church is really just the church being the church.  We’re on a mission to share the Good News of Jesus’ Christ with the world.  We submit to Christ and God’s will as our way.
The Cause (Christ) is our unifying point and defines what we ar to do.
Mission in culture often involves sacrifice.  If the cause if pure, then someone will step to the front of the line to continue to lead the movement no matter what the cost.
But is the American church convinced of our cause to the point of radical sacrifice?
Our churches continue to function for the most part like Holy Huddles.  Maybe we need to be proactive in using the world missional to describe the church until we remember again that we (the church) have something to do in this world.
Does the word mission have life in your church?  How do we help young people who sacrifice little to believe take hold of a faith that requires an active response?
Special thanks to the CYMT students who shaped today’s thoughts!