Which would you choose to do mission?
- Being outfitted with a “program”? (there are lots of them)
- Or BEING the “Mission Program” yourself?
My guess is that a lot of us would reach for the program!
Ironically…
Our trust in fitting into a program tends to run higher than our trust in God fitting us into His mission.
In Luke 10 we see this:
The Lord appointed 72…sent them out two by two (not alone!)… “Ask the Lord of the harvest…to send out workers…into his harvest field. Go! I’m sending you out like lambs among wolves. No purse or bag or sandals….”
By the way, the 72 returned with joy (verse 17).
Joy!
It’s His mission, with us totally dependent for:
- Provision
- Protection
- Open Doors
If we lived as if that were true, we’d likely be more focused on developing people as disciples who could trust God for:
- Provision – “Give us…daily bread.”
- Protection – “Deliver us from evil.”
- Open Doors – “Thy kingdom come.”
We considered this concept at a leadership retreat some years ago in the congregation I led. We abandoned the idea! It would be too slow, too small, and have limited results for what we wanted to accomplish.
We chose a program, dare I say, because we felt we could improve on Jesus’ model and get better, quicker, more expansive results.
Now, out of fairness to me (and maybe you?), to “be” the mission program is pretty simple; it’s just not easy.
Jesus invested in the disciples for several years, plus Pentecost, before they became the “mission program”!
So, don’t abandon the programs that are working at your church, right?
But, what would it look like to be equipped to “go first” and “be the mission” into the pockets and places of your community, where the programs won’t go?
And then take a few others with you.
Discipleship to Missional Community helps you develop people in a reproducible manner for the mission. Contact Raechel to learn more.
Your gift today of any amount invests in leaders for the field of mission.
Interestingly, it seems most programs stay within the church walls expecting the mission field to come in. So we set ourselves up in programs and end up ‘playing church’! Ouch, that sounds harsh!
When we become the mission we have to leave the walls to go out, get dirty, be real, & risk. But it’s here, going out with nothing in our hands but Jesus that we finally share Jesus. Perhaps when all we have left to share is Christ is when we finally learn to share Christ!