I suppose in ministry I come from the place of helping people to see what God has uniquely gifted them in and has made them passionate about… this may be mission, or prayer, or working with children, or helping people who’ve been through life crisis, or cross cultural work, or humanitarian work, or church leadership… whatever it is… to identify what they are called to do, equip them to do it, work on any blocks to their doing it.

Just as much… and more importantly… to help them in who they are called to be… how God is at work deep in their hearts… to draw them closer into his love.

But I’m a chick, not some macho missional leader… (God bless them). Maybe part of your disquiet is what God has shown you about yourself and what your “driver” may have been for a time. Maybe part of it is prophetic about others. I don’t know.

Why do we feel the need to push mission? Why do we even create an ambition for it? And before people start throwing verses at me, I am well aware of the great commission, etc… But somehow I think in our culture we are missing the point with mission. Mission isn’t something we need to strive for, it is an expression of who we are….

I seem to recall Daryl Gardinder having a stab… he reckons when we’re newish Christians we might think we’re giving our all for Jesus… in Daryl’s opinion though it’s really about 10% for Jesus and 90 % for ourselves. As we truly grow in grace and Christian maturity there’s more motivation for Jesus and less for ourselves… but let us not kid ourselves and think our egos aren’t mixed in with what we do. All the more reason for grace to abound. And I do think God is incredibly gracious and patient with us, and that God even uses our ego-driven imperfect efforts and can grace them and bless them for a season. Eventually, however, we’re asked to grow up. Ouch.

How much do you think that the concept of mission and missional thinking in our churches is motivated by the doing and satisfying our egos?

I guess our example (as always!) is Jesus. He spent a lot of years working with wood… not doing any “ministry” that we know of. He didn’t “need” a ministry to make him fulfilled. But at the right time, he was led by the Holy Spirit into “doing”… healing the sick, preaching and teaching casting out demons, and eating.

I find these are powerful words:

John 8: 28

I do nothing of Myself (of My own accord or on My own authority), but I say [exactly] what My Father has taught Me.

29And He Who sent Me is ever with Me; My Father has not left Me alone, for I always do what pleases Him.

Out of Jesus “being” His Father sometimes led him to “doing”… but the inner work had been done: it was done only to please the Father, and not to please Himself.

Blessed are you that you’ve seen this about yourself! You might need to “detox” from “doing” for a while… but not from loving Christ or submitting to the Holy Spirit. One day you may be called to “do” something by your Father… but it will come from a different place.

My reflections are leading me toward being rather than doing.

I think some wisdom from the episode of the Simpsons called “Bart’s Inner Child” would be of service in this situation - (Brad Goodman is the self help guru - a take off of a guy who was popular a while ago named John Bradshaw:

Brad Goodman: You see, folks, we’re all trying to please someone else. And as soon as you’re not a human be-ing, you’re a human do-ing. Then what comes next?
Bart: A human go-ing! [gets up to leave]

I think there’s something in that for all of us - in closing may I just point out:

Brad: We can all learn a lot from this young man here, this, this –
Bart: Rudiger.
Brad: — Rudiger. And if we can all be more like little Rudiger –
Marge: His name is Bart.
Brad: [snaps] His name isn’t important! What’s important here is that
this lad has fully developed ego integrity with well-defined
boundaries.
Bart: [snoring noises]
[Audience laughs]

I have been very disillusioned of late about the whole concept of mission and striving to be “missional” and the whole missional church thing. I have been a church planter, started “missional” communities, and been very involved with Forge. So I have been immersed in the whole missional thinking.

My unrest though lies in the ambition that I know I have strived for, and how I see the church at large striving for in relation to mission. It feels like it is something we have to achieve, another performance hoop that we have to jump through. I actually feel like the ambition that we tend to create towards mission and being missional is pandering to our ego, our false self. It is an invention to keep our egos feeling like we really are making a difference and our self-esteem, security and sense of significance is bolstered. It is a futile attempt at satisfying our ego.

My reflections are leading me toward being rather than doing. The most effective way to make any difference in this world is to change our selves - our being. When we change and truly transform, it is then that we actually touch and change those around us and make a true difference. (And true transformation tends to only come through dieing to ourselves, our ego, our false self, the self that wants significance, success, security, etc…, and this dieing process is incredibly painful).

I am feeling like our ambition for mission is futile and is merely an invention of our ego. True and effective mission comes when we die to ourselves and in the process of doing so we experience true transformation and so become an expression of mission without even trying….

Any thoughts?…..