Celebrating
the freeing, supportive presence of God. So your experience of God may
become your experience of life. It is wonderful what God can do!
“Preparations For Our Future”
PART II
September 10, 2006
What is our mission? What is the reason that our church exists? For what purpose are we here? I believe that looking at these basic questions is essential as we celebrate our past and make “preparations for our future.”
Last week we examined where we, as a congregation, had been—what we had learned and experienced in our history and how it had affected our collective life as a congregation. Past experience is always important in looking to the future.
This week we want to examine our purpose. In order to be fully effective in anything we do, I believe we must have a clearly known and clearly stated meaning and purpose for all our work together.
A mission is more than a group of tasks or goals. A mission is an over riding purpose and a methodology for accomplishing regular tasks and goals.
The business community has the over riding purpose of making a profit, and the methodology is having the product or the service please the customer. Without this purpose and methodology, the business will not be successful.
The universal church’s over riding purpose is to prepare people for the kingdom of God both in this world and the next. The universal church’s methodology is through the spoken word, the various means of grace, and the living examples and work of its disciples.
The church is usually, however, in a more precarious position. It exists to please God and to serve the people outside of itself. But because the universal church is so very, very human, we awake to the realization that we are serving ourselves usually before anyone else.
The ancient church took collections but had no buildings. They met in homes or underground public places. So the question arises, if they had no building expenses, why was there a need for collections?
Our Scripture tells us that they took collections to provide food for the hungry, resources for the poverty stricken, and help for less fortunate congregations who were unable to support the poverty in their communities.
If we were to turn to the ancient church for advice on formulating a mission statement, it appears that their mission was, in fact, to please God, and to serve those in need of service. Of course, they gathered to pray, to preach, to eat and drink the Eucharist, and to sing hymns. But all of that was designed to inspire and strengthen them to go back out to serve God and others.
If we were to turn to Micah, the sheep herder turned prophet and ask him what our mission should be, he would say as he has before, “God has told you what is good and what the Lord requires of you … and that is: to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.”
The more I thought about these words from Micah, the more I came to believe that most all of the work of the Church of Jesus Christ could fall into one of these three categories—justice, kindness, humility with God. It also caused me to ask myself, what have I done lately for the cause of justice? I am more inclined to be about the ministries of kindness and humility than those of justice. And yet Micah tells me that the Lord requires me also to be in the ministry of justice. Apparently, our mission must include looking out for those who are unjustly treated and helping them to receive justice. Wow! This could get involved! This could take some time!
As I then went to the Gospel of Mark to recall the teachings of Jesus, I came across this rather hard teaching that caused me to re-evaluate my life commitment to God. This is that teaching from Jesus: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?”
Understanding the mission that God has for us can very often be challenging. We may actually wind up being reminded what the Lord really does require of us, as opposed to that which has become comfortable for us.
Well I already know that the Jewish Scripture (our Old Testament) makes it very plain that God has a priority placed on women and children, specifically, widows and orphans. God tells us that we are to “care” for them. Hmmm, sounds like it holds potential to turn into that time consuming justice thing that the Scriptures also speak of regularly.
Anyhow, I moved to the Gospel of Matthew whose writing usually does a good job of combining the understandings of the old with that of the new. When I say “new” I mean the teachings of Christ. This is the passage that always strikes me as the one most helpful for a mission statement:
“When the disciples saw Jesus, they worshiped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’”
So according to Jesus’ teaching, worship is important, doubt is acceptable, and Jesus has dual authority from God. Then comes the portion that could be interpreted as the mission from Christ—go and make disciples of all nations, baptize, and teach obedience to everything that Christ has commanded you. Call it a mission or call it marching orders, but it has been clearly stated.
But how are we to be about the mission of disciple-ing the world? Must we each volunteer to serve in overseas spiritual work? Well, God does still call persons to be missionaries and to work in diverse places throughout the world, but God also calls us to have both a heart and take responsibility for missionaries and those that they serve. Apparently we must ask, “What is it that you and I can do in the mission of making disciples of all nations?”
It is at this point that I am very grateful to be a part of the world wide Methodist church. Our connections with other United Methodist churches, Districts, and Conferences, provide the opportunity of pooling together our resources for the good of those in need locally, regionally, nationally, and throughout the world. The United Methodist Church is one of the first on the scene at major disasters. Paying our fair share apportionment to our Conference and our District monthly ensures that the part that you and I play in fulfilling this instruction from Christ will always be met. We can then continue to say that part of our mission here in Perry is making disciples of all nations through our connections in the United Methodist Church. Cool, isn’t it?
OK, it’s time to pull this thing all together. Our mission is our purpose for being. We should come to know our mission well—it then will keep us focused and on track, motivated and strengthened to carry it out.
I challenge you to consider what God is calling us to do in this time, in this place, and in this community. As we identify our callings, we will be more prepared to understand our mission and to begin the process of putting words to it.
Next week we will be looking at the third and final element in “preparing for our future”—what is vision and what might our vision be for our next one hundred years?
