Several years ago, I took part in a mission trip with a youth group I was leading to Tizimin, Mexico. Tizimin had been ravaged by a hurricane a few months prior, and our crew was participating in the clean-up effort. Lacking any useful skills, I, along with our group, was assigned to paint a local church. To be honest, at the end, it looked God-awful, but the locals were appreciative. They even brought us apples for a snack. Twenty-four hours later, we all had Montezuma’s Revenge. Maybe they weren’t so appreciative.
Apart from the illness, it was an overall positive experience. However, as we travelled back to the States, I couldn’t overcome the feeling that this was not the experience I thought it would be. There was something missing, something that I had not been able to figure out, until recently.
We went on a mission trip, but never did any actual mission.
When we think of what it means to be on mission for Christ, we must think of it in terms of the advancing the Kingdom, because that is how Jesus saw it. Certainly, Jesus healed the sick, gave sight to the blind, and spent time with the oppressed and marginalized. However, His posture was towards bringing more people under the authority of the Kingdom of God. Jesus’ works were service-oriented, but His posture was discipleship-oriented.
Fostering missional passion goes beyond programs. It means building the institutional structure around what God is growing organically in the hearts of His people instead of focusing on maintenance and survival. Pursuing missional passion is a posture, not a program.
Identifying missional passion is a process of walking a disciple though a series of conversations. These conversations center around:
-How the disciple already spends his or her time: Rather then convincing someone to alter their life schedule and potentially abandon something they enjoy in favor of something they might not, why not find a way to posture what they already enjoy doing or would want to do towards mission?
-Who the disciple is already spending time with: So often we expect our people to abandon existing communities in favor of a church community. Why not explore what it would look like for missional people to engage their existing communities, earn the right to be heard, and share their faith in Christ?
-How the disciple can leverage these to be a blessing while having a posture of discipleship: Volunteerism is important and valuable, but we have so much more to offer the world then just our time and sweat. We have the Gospel of Jesus, a Gospel that saves, transforms, and renews. Why not discern what it looks like to bless others with our time and work and also with the Good News?
So many in the church have a certain view of what mission is, but it may not be a Biblical view. How would pursuing missional passion change the view of mission in your context?
RE:FORMATION 