Whose Mission is it Anyway?
by Larry Hovis, CBFNC Executive Coordinator
In recent years, there has been much discussion of a change in language – from “the mission of the church,” to “the missional church.” This language shift, which is certainly much bigger than the Fellowship Movement, has nonetheless been dominant in our tribe. However, even though we’ve changed our language, we haven’t really changed our thinking. For many in CBF (and in other Christian bodies who are having this same conversation), when we hear the term, “missional church,” we tend to think of a church that is really, really strong in missions, that not only gives a lot of money to missions, but whose people engage in a high level of mission action, both locally and globally. For most of us, “missional” is a synonym for “missions,” or at least is a way of describing traditional missions “on steroids.”
In CBF of North Carolina, I’m afraid we’ve reinforced this way of thinking. In our organizational structure, we’ve assigned the responsibility for “missional church” and “missional ministries” to our Missions Council and our Missions Coordinator. Other ministry areas (Faith Development, Leadership Development, Fellowship Development or Building Community) have pretty much been left out of the missional conversation. I now realize that was a huge mistake. We’ve said that “missional” involves more than “missions.” However, we’ve acted as if they are the same. Our language and our action have failed to match up.
This was brought home to me in the clearest way yet in a statement made by a Church of England leader (quoted in The Missional Church and Denominations, edited by Craig Van Gelder):
It is not the church of God that has a mission in the world, but the God of mission that has a church
in the world. . . . God is on the move and the church is always catching up with him. We join his mission.
Our traditional way of thinking puts us human beings (individuals and churches) at the center. Yes, we’re serving God, we believe, but we use ourselves as the starting point. Therefore we can relegate “missions” (which focuses on others) to a corner of our lives, and the rest of the time feel perfectly justified in seeing the church as existing to meet our needs.
True missional theology turns that thought process upside down. We begin not with ourselves, but with God. We don’t have a mission – God has a mission! God’s mission is to reconcile the world to himself through Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 5:19). God has a church for his mission, not vice-versa. The church exists to serve, to be an expression, of God’s mission. Our purpose is not to see some part of what we do, but who we are, our essence, as an expression of God’s mission in the world. When we fail to participate in God’s mission in the world (and where we live is part of the world), to be agents of God’s effort of reconciliation, we fail to be the church.
from the March/April 2010 issue of "The Gathering"