Tuesday, April 18, 2023
What is the mission of your church?
I spend a lot of time talking to churches about their mission. What is it that matters to your church? And I have found that it is rarely what we say it is. The real mission of your church is not seen in the "mission statement". It is most truely seen in where a church puts its time, energy, and resources.
Over time, I have become convinced there are basically four main identities/missions/motivation for churches.
One is the church whose mission is the status quo. They do not want anything to change. They like how things are and they want to keep things right where they are. Comfortable. Secure. They spend quite a bit of time and energy on making sure there is no drift away from where they are. They realize they are dying out but just cannot bear the thought of change. Even as they get older and smaller.
Some churches are almost the exact opposite. Their mission is to change. To do things the way they think things should be done. Everything is geared toward change. Toward accomplishing the mission of making the church into what they are convinced it should be. They have a hard time understanding why their is so much tension in their congregation. They have to believe the people that leave just don't get how important it is to change. They are surprised when the changes get done and they do not grow at all. In fact, they may even be smaller than they were.
Other churches see their calling and mission to take care of themselves. Put time and resources into children and youth ministry so we can keep our own. Find out the needs of our congregation and be sure they are met. They are very inward focused. And they often can maintain for decades. About the same size, treading water. But they are still there. Not necessarily growing the Kingdom, but certainly maintaining the Kingdom.
But there are a few who buy into a different mission. They see their calling and mission as making disciples. Reaching those who do not know Jesus. Helping them to grow into productive disciples who will make other disciples. They problem with this is that it is hard to find churches with similar determination to do this. And people that really are more in tune with the first three identities are not really comfortable with this idea. Much more than the other three, this model is very outward focused.
So what is the point of this for me as an individual Christian? You have to figure out what you think is the mission of the church and be part of a church community that shares that vision.
Just my thoughts and like most things, I think I am right. But if not, at least this is worth thinking about.
