Mission is the Essence of the Church

So many ecclesiologists (theologians who study the church) consider mission to be central to the identity of the church. Some go beyond centrality to say that it forms the very essence of the church, and that the church is nothing without mission. And yet, so many pastors read this, acknowledge it, and respond by making mission one of the programs of their church. They put somebody over the "Missions Department" and extol the virtues of the program that they've created. Missions IS the very identity of the church, not a program added to the identity of a church! In order to be missional in the way that ecclesiologists consider that it should be, a church must be completely transformed from the inside out and every pattern and form of the church re-evaluated in light of a missional calling.

Deeper Communication

I occasionally stop to think about communication more deeply, and I'm always blessed when I do. My life would by a lot different if I considered my own communication more deeply before I acted, but alas, that's rare. I'm much more apt to speak or act about a nanosecond after my mind comes up with a thought. The human mind can process and analyze quickly, but not that quickly.

I was just thinking about how what we do and say often communicates more than we intend. For example, what does it communicate when an athlete proudly gives thanks to God after a big sports win? Most Christians get really excited when they see this, as if it's "another win for the good guys in the world!" I fear, however, that what is really being communicated is "God was clearly on our side, and He gave us this win." What would we do if one day we heard an athlete say, "This was all fun, thanks so much for watching. But it was just a game, and I hope that today God gets the glory for the skills and abilities He's given everyone on both teams!"

We could carry this much further. What does it communicate when a big church builds a Christian school? That the church is trying to protect its children from the world? What if the church trained its families and then encouraged the children to go into public schools? Or, what are we really communicating when we talk in public using words like "ministry," "the lost," "unchurched," or "target groups"?

I'm curious about whether we're missing the point. Maybe we could learn a lot from a seminar that I heard somebody teach back in college entitled, "How to share the Gospel without being weird."