why do we need to push for mission?
Wayne poses an interesting question in one of the threads and I thought it worthy of its own thread:
“I guess the question I’m really asking is about the whole push for mission at all. Whenever I hear people talking about mission, changing the world, that it’s all about “them”, being missional, I get an uneasiness in my gut. Perhaps it is just where I’m at in my journey, but I also suspect there’s something more to it.
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….”
Watcha all think?
March 23rd, 2007 at 8:41 pm
Amen to that Janet!
March 25th, 2007 at 9:35 pm
Wayne
I am interested in how you see Paul, because he ’shoulds’ a lot!
in fact Jesus ’shoulded’ quite significantly when he said to ‘go and make disciples’.
I think there is a fine line between loving people and knowing we can’t convert them and actually speaking of Jesus and seeking to lead them to him.
I unashamedly seek to lead people to Jesus and speak of him every opportunity I get. I don’t think is performance based so much as knowing that my words and engagement can potentially be the catalyst for a person’s changed life.
Toddy - maybe the answer is ‘yes’! Maybe you can do both with integrity and maybe we need people to do both. Will be down in Busso this week!
March 26th, 2007 at 4:29 pm
Hi Backyard,
Yes, you are right, there is a fine line as you say. I should love my wife, but if I love her simply because I should, I think she will see right through it and it will wear thin very quickly.
Now there are probably times that I might not feel like doing loving actions, but I do because I should. But my love for her is because of who we are and the relationship that has been forged, not just because I should.
We are talking about subtle differences, but important ones. It’s very hard to articulate, but it is more important to be a person who loves people, than loving people because we should. The same is true with mission. Better to be a person who naturally talks about Jesus because it is who they are than a person who tells people about Jesus because they should. People can see right through this. Probably better to say nothing at all.
I know that in church circles it seems that we create a greater ambition for converting people than transforming ourselves into the people God wants us to be. Something doesn’t sit right with me about this….
I think that it’s in our transformation that we actually create an environment where mission naturally happens….
March 26th, 2007 at 5:20 pm
“we create a greater ambition for converting people than transforming ourselves into the people God wants us to be. ”
Or… allowing ourselves to be transformed by submitting ourselves to God… Father, Son and Spirit.
I do think that it is always the Holy Spirit who leads people closer to Christ, so our first job is always to be open and obedient to the work of the Spirit… then He has the habit of doing His stuff.
I don’t think encouragement to mission is ALWAYS a legalism, but certainly
when “Christian faith” becomes highly legalistic we are in trouble… we’ve missed the point of the gospel, and become “religious”, akin to modern day Pharisees.
Matthew 23: 15 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are. “
March 26th, 2007 at 10:44 pm
This is an interesting dialog. Interesting because, yes mission ’should’ come out of who we are, not out of a feeling that we should be doing it. I would have to agree with Backyard in the first comment though,
“I do think we ‘push’ for it to some degree, but I imagine that is because our natural default is selfishness and laziness.
If we look at how we change ‘who we are’ I often feel it is by choosing to live differently. By doing what we know is right and good we reshape our own identity even if we find it difficult.”
If we want to change any behavour pattern, we have to make conscience decisions to stop doing that thing or do something different. After time we dont have to decide to do something different, we just do it, because it is who we are.
I would say that, in the beginning, we have to ‘push’ to do mission because it is not who we naturally are. After time though, if we are disciplined, and by the grace of God, it will become who we are and something that we just do.
It would be interestng to ask leaders of the missional church how they started. Whether mission came out of who they were or whether they did mission because they felt they ’should’ and then became who they are.
March 27th, 2007 at 8:58 am
Janet - I agree. I actually meant what you said in terms of transformation is a work of the Spirit, not something we do or strive for. Sometimes my fingers work faster than my brain….
Adsy, I can totally see what you and Backyard are talking about. There’s not much I can say other than share my journey. I have been in that place where I had an ambition for mission, and I would say it wasn’t in an unhealthy or particular driven way. However, I have found that even with what one would consider a relatively healthy ambition for mission, it still led me down a path of not being about to totally love people as I feel I am now in a better place to do.
It is so subtle and easy to get stuck in a performance mode of operation, and we don’t even know we are in it. Mission then comes partly from our egos and gets in the way of what God really wants to do through us.
I don’t think I can ever explain my journey and the difference I now feel adequately in words. All I can say is that I feel free - and free to now love, and the difference is worlds apart…….
March 27th, 2007 at 11:22 am
I don’t think God treats us all the same… Wayne has “done” a lot of mission, to the point it became somewhat “carnal” (to use the old fashioned, perhaps hopelessly quaint expression). If you’ve never “done” any mission, God might be calling you to get off your derriere.
Robert Clinton’s book on the “Making of a Leader” might be helpful reading for those into obscure books… sometimes in the early part of our lives we do a lot of “doing”… in the middle part of our lives God gives us a shake up and teaches us to “be”… and later still, our doing flows naturally out of our being. Not even convinced this is a journey that can be rushed….
March 27th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
I’ve read Robert Clinton’s book, and it is a good read. Perhaps you are right, and the thoughts that I have in this thread are a reflection of the stage in my journey. But I still have a sneaking suspicion that there is a little more to it than that in regards to the ambition for mission that we create for ourselves, and the unhealthiness of this….
March 27th, 2007 at 4:19 pm
I can see where you are coming from also Wayne, it isn’t hard to get drawn back into a performance m.o. I guess the reason for this is that, for us who were brought up in the church, this is what they tell us that ministry is, ‘doing’ stuff. We have to be reprogramed into seeing that mission or ministry should come out of who we are, and not be something that we feel we should be doing.
I guess thats why God is God. Even when our motives may not be so pure, he still uses us with all our faults. And just quietly, (because I may get crucified for saying this on this site), He even uses mainstream churches with all of thier faults, yes even hs.
March 27th, 2007 at 5:02 pm
Thanks adsy.
He’s a big God! I don’t think even Hillsong is beyond His capacity to bring about some good - despite themselves….
March 27th, 2007 at 8:31 pm
Wayne and Adsy
that just about sounds like heresy for Signposters….but I agree with you anyway.
Going with the thrust of the conversation try these verses on for size from Isaiah 50:10-11 :
Who among you fears the LORD and obeys the word of his servant? Let him who walks in the dark, who has no light, trust in the name of the LORD and rely on his God.
But now, all you who light fires and provide yourselves with flaming torches, go, walk in the light of your fires and of the torches you have set ablaze. This is what you shall receive from my hand: You will lie down in torment.
These verses are a common biblical theme and resonate strongly in my household as something to aspire to and almost antithetically “strive for”.
There is a warning and wisdom here from God that I struggle with on a daily basis that impacts on everything including how to reflecting Jesus. I’ll leave it at that - this is a deeeeeeeep topic.
Cheers
MN
March 27th, 2007 at 8:39 pm
Reference previous comments about struggling with living out of duty, coulda, woulda, shoulda, and even more should, and living out of Christ moment by moment and “doing” mission in that way. Adsy and Wayne et al you are right - God uses whatever we do for his own purposes anyway, but isn’t it also good for those of that know him that He only remembers the good stuff and not the chaff come judgement day.
Cheers
MN
March 27th, 2007 at 11:49 pm
It just about is heresy, I know. It’s one of my great frustrations, that God, in all His wisdom and grace, uses churches like hs, and works through them to further His Kingdom. I know if I was God I probably wouldn’t, I guess thats why i’m not, amongst plenty of other reasons.
Mn, you are so right, it is very comforting and somewhat sobering to know that, in the end, He only remembers the good stuff, and the rest turns to ash.
Thanks for reminding me that He truely is an awesome God!
March 29th, 2007 at 7:50 pm
It’s truly amazing, that God, in all His wisdom and grace, uses people like me, and works through them to further His Kingdom. I know if I was God I probably wouldn’t, I guess thats why I’m not, amongst plenty of other reasons.