Welcome back friends to the pastor talk.
We are thrilled to have you with us here as we kick off another one of our
discussions in this series called mission musings.
And, uh, last week we talked a little bit about a mission from an
individual’s perspective and in some ways that makes a nice transition for
our conversation here today,
because there are going to be inherent
challenges for every single individual who seeks for mission to be a part of their identity,
as well as the kind of institutional communal challenges
that will come with that effort as well.
So today we turn our attention to a conversation on what we’re calling
mission barriers, and we’re looking at some of the things that might get in
the way of us seeking to live out this kind of missional,
missional identity that we have in Jesus Christ.
Yeah.
We’re hoping that maybe we are making a case that we can expand our idea of
mission, if we’ve been able to go beyond that idea that mission is giving
money to something and instead embrace that larger idea that mission is where
we participate and integrate our lives with the call of God,
not only on the church, but on each and every Christian,
the ways that we can be
involved in the mission of God in individual ways,
then we think it makes
sense to stop and ask the question,
well, what gets in the way?
What keeps us from doing that?
What are some of the challenges to embody that both as individuals and as congregations or churches,
what are the things that stop us most often?
And we’ve tried to group those into some categories.
And maybe the first is in some ways,
the most obvious fear.
We are sometimes afraid.
For instance, when it comes to something like evangelism,
the idea of talking
about our faith with friends or family or coworkers,
the idea of witnessing to
our own personal faith,
I think for many of us is terrifying because we do carry
this idea that that means preaching,
that that means confronting people,
that that means knowing a bunch of theology and Bible in a way that we could impress
people and argue with people when the truth is it doesn’t mean that at all.
But but I think that idea that we are not up to it produces in us a kind of
hesitation born of fear that keeps us sometimes from those opportunities.
Yeah.
In previous conversations, we’ve actually talked about this as a positive.
We’ve talked about the idea of being transparent and authentic with other
people and how this is a way that the church can really live out our mission
for the world to show people what is true by Jesus’s grace and not by our own strength.
But I do think that we now need to be honest about the flip side of that
is that there is a kind of fear that comes from being vulnerable and
transparent with other people.
It can sometimes be hard to admit when we miss the mark.
It can be hard to recognize both to ourselves before we even get to the topic
of that being displayed to others.
This idea that we don’t have it all put together,
that we don’t always meet the
mission of God as we are called to meet.
And that requires a kind of self-awareness,
requires a willingness to walk
through some of our own dark valleys.
It requires the willingness then,
once we’ve done that work or we’re in the
process of that work,
to display it in a healthy,
humble way, right?
That it requires the kind of sacrifice that does bring with it a kind of risk.
So fear, then,
I think is a really natural component of a natural barrier
rather to mission.
It’s a way that we individually are going to have to cope with some of the
some of the baggage that we might come into this conversation with and be
willing to grapple with it.
And that’s hard work, that soul work.
And I don’t think it should be underestimated.
Michael, you use the word risk and I think that’s one of the exact right words
to use, the idea that we will inevitably,
as we pursue mission,
find ourselves in a situation where we have to step into something that makes us slightly uncomfortable.
Maybe it’s interacting with a person or a group of people who make us nervous,
who we feel like we don’t know very well.
Maybe it’s a soup kitchen coming face to face with the ideas of poverty.
Maybe it’s expanding our horizons and admitting that there are things that we
don’t know.
Maybe it is that kind of barrier or hesitation we have to say,
“Hey, you know, would it be okay if I prayed for you about that with somebody we’ve not had
those conversations?” There is a kind of stepping into the unknown as we pursue mission.
As we seek to be faithful to God,
God will always be inviting us to take that
next step.
And that next step is generally going to be,
at least often, it’s going to be
something that might not be completely comfortable.
That’s how we grow.
We take uncomfortable steps forward.
And so I think risk is the right thing.
Where do we invest our time,
our money, our energy,
our words, our compassion,
our ministry?
And there is no way around,
I think, the fact that that’s going to involve
taking some chances that may or may not be entirely comfortable to us.
So we’ve resisted this move in these conversations to equate mission to dollars.
And part of that is because I think that’s a well-worn path,
especially within our family of faith.
But I do think there’s a very relevant illustration that comes from the
financial side of doing mission.
And that is that there is oftentimes this real fear built into this idea that,
“Well, what if I give money to a cause that’s not using that money well?”
Or, “What if I give money to people who then turn out to really not make a
difference?” We can so easily talk ourselves out of doing things that are generous.
Money is a great example of this because we don’t know exactly how it’s going to pan out.
And this is one of the really difficult lessons we receive from Jesus in the New
Testament.
We get parables like the sower who is sowing seed in ridiculous places.
He’s sowing seed on good soil.
But did you catch he’s also sowing seed on the rocks and on thistles and
difficult paved ground, right?
Places where no farmer would sow seed.
You wouldn’t cast your seed there yet.
God is so generous in God’s gift to the world that God casts this seed in all
places.
And then the seed will grow in those places that are receptive to it.
So the point that I make here is we can often become fixated on things that we can’t know,
on futures that we can’t control.
And when we begin to fear,
“Well, what will the outcome be?”
We’ve now taken over our mission to be faithful,
pointing others to Christ,
and we’ve actually taken upon ourselves the mission itself,
that we need to somehow
make it happen, that there’s an outcome that we can sort of put our weight on the
lever of and that we make it happen.
But that’s a misunderstanding of our call.
We’re called to do mission, yes.
And by that we mean we’re called to put our faith in trusting God to move us
forward, but we can’t be held back by the fear that,
“Well, what if it doesn’t go
right?” Or, “What if that’s not a good investment?”
We need to be wise,
but we can’t allow these questions to incapacitate us from
doing what we’re called to be as people of faith.
Sometimes there is significant conversation that needs to be had about the
resources of our mission.
Is this something we can afford to do?
You know, in the church, I think this probably happens more corporately than individually,
but in the church,
we would love to be able to do every good thing.
We would love to be able to do all the things we want to do here and have all
the money we could come up with to send to people who are doing things other
places, but we live in a world of fixed resources.
We live as people who have to make real choices.
And sometimes we let the fear of,
“Will we be able to do it?
Can we raise enough money?
Can we get enough volunteers?”
Sometimes we let that fear keep us from doing anything.
And I think it is a better practice to say,
“Well, we may not be able to do everything,
but that is not a license to do nothing.
We have to pursue mission.”
Now, will it be with all the success and all the resources we would like?
Probably never.
Probably,
in fact, I guarantee never.
But we have to continue to try to strive forward in regard to the things that we
feel led to do,
knowing that to some extent we have to put trust in God to
provide some of those resources.
That’s not a license to be irresponsible.
We shouldn’t jump into things that then fail regularly.
But occasionally, if we are out on the edge of challenge,
we have to risk it not
going the way that we want it to.
That is part of the journey.
And I think sometimes our worry over resources keeps us from actually doing some of the
things we would be capable of with a greater commitment or maybe with greater courage.
So one of the fears that I think we bring to this conversation,
it’s another fear of the unknown,
a fear of what might be in the future,
which of course are questions that we
can’t answer, is how will another person react if I do this mission,
if it’s a part
of my identity and other people see it,
what will it inspire in them or maybe inspires not
the right word, what will it cause for them to do or to say?
And I have what may seem like a trite illustration of what I think is a much deeper point.
I just recently had the opportunity.
Someone was going on a trip to another place that I had been at some point and there was a
place that I had eaten there that made amazing sandwiches.
I had a great experience.
And so I told them,
hey, if you’re going to be there,
I would definitely recommend you
should check out this sandwich shop.
And that person said,
yeah, okay, great.
And they put in their phone and they left and they as they were leaving the church,
I thought to myself, you know,
man, it’s been a couple of years since I was there.
I hope it’s still good.
I hope that their sandwiches live up to what I just sold.
And, you know, it’s a trite example.
I admitted that.
But that is, I think, some of the fear that does keep us from sharing a much deeper good
news.
If we are indeed beggars sharing with others where they can find bread,
if we’ve received the gift of grace in Jesus Christ,
and this is far better than sandwiches,
there is some fear.
How will they respond when they engage with that faith?
Will they be turned off by it if they did come and meet my church family or if they
engaged in a Bible study,
would they struggle with it or would they maybe think differently
of me?
How will they respond?
This is a question we can’t answer.
And if we allow that question to even subconsciously move us away from engagement with other people,
then I do think we’re,
we’re firewalling our faith.
We’re keeping some parts of our faith from access to other parts of our life.
And that is going to keep us from being able to live into this mission.
We’re called to live out as people of faith.
We see it in a small way all the time in church when someone sees someone they don’t
know and they know that in the mission of hospitality,
we should reach out to one
another.
But they’re afraid to be told,
well, I’ve been a member here for a long time or we’ve
already met.
And rather than assume that we’ll figure that out graciously,
sometimes that fear keeps
us from doing things.
And in those small ways,
we see examples of some of the larger things that we hesitate
to do.
Some of the mission things that we’re capable of that we don’t do because we can be at
times afraid of the risk,
the resources or the reaction.
So fear is, I think, a major barrier to our pursuit of mission and one that we have to
be aware of so that we can hopefully be working on overcoming.
So that then leads us to the next point that we’re going to share with you here today.
So we’ve talked about fear.
This is a major barrier for us from engaging in the mission that we’re called to as the
people of faith.
The next that we’re going to turn our attention to here today is focus.
And, you know, this is one of those really, really interesting conversations.
I think this has interested me for a very long time.
What we focus on tends to have the power to move us in very specific directions.
And maybe by way of illustration here,
I once had someone tell me that the place where
you’re looking is the place where you’re going to tend to go,
whether that be walking or driving.
And I learned that I think it was an undergrad.
Someone had told me that.
So ever since then,
now I’ve been occasionally sort of cluing into that.
And it’s funny by girls who are,
you know, they’re 11 and six years old,
nearly seven.
They they’ll be walking beside you.
And when they turn to go look at the thing happening on this side of the sidewalk,
they will run into you.
They’ll literally be bouncing off of you along the sidewalk.
And it’s it’s hilarious because the moment that they turn and look the other way,
suddenly their direction shifts.
That is, I think, an illustration of what we come to here in this conversation about barriers to mission.
What we focus on as churches has an incredible amount of power to shape and focus what we
even conceive is possible as people called to do the mission of Christ.
And and so this is it is corporate in that sense.
But I think it starts with a very sort of individual and personal frame.
What we focus on as individuals has the same amount of power for what we do and shape our
own personal faith.
So how do we focus on mission and what impact does that have?
I think that’s an important part of this barrier conversation.
I think at its simplest,
it’s a tension between inward and outward.
And that’s a conversation we’ll have later on in this series.
But if you listen to the conversations in a church and they are all about us,
what do we do?
What what do we do in here?
In other words, if those conversations are largely internal and have no external focus,
that church is likely struggling with mission.
That church is likely struggling with the in order to grasp the larger concept of what
is God calling us to do in the world?
If it’s all about how can we pay bills and what what do we want to do?
What needs done?
What what are our preferences?
Then it’s going to be very difficult to focus on that larger calling that takes us beyond
our spot.
So I think that first barrier of focus is are we too inwardly focused?
And largely this is church.
This happens to individuals certainly.
But I think by and large,
this is a tendency and a temptation for congregations.
Are we too focused on us?
And when that is true,
it becomes very difficult to engage in mission in the broader
context that we’ve tried to outline so far in this series.
It is easy, I think, for church to become a very personal experience where we come,
we worship,
we encounter our friends.
And the fellowship aspect of church should not be misunderstood or over put down.
I mean, it is important that we find our church family to be a place of nourishment and strength.
That’s what we do when we pray for one another,
when we support one another.
The the inertia of that, however,
must always be balanced with a driving force that invites
other people into that life.
So if there’s an energy and a gravity to the kind of fellowship,
self giving care, the love shared in the church family,
then that energy should not stop at the walls of the building.
It should be felt far outside those walls within the community,
within even the region
and the state, the nation.
Right. It should be felt around the world.
That’s the amazing thing about mission,
especially in a 21st century kind of context.
We live in a moment where,
regardless of where our congregation is,
regardless of where you work and live,
you do have access and ability to do good literally around the world
to support missionaries who can send updates to your family.
At the speed of light,
you can learn about things happening all around the world as
Christ’s mission is being worked out by this larger kingdom,
by this larger church.
So we as a people of faith,
if we are intentional,
can put our focus on that effort.
Yes, we must be good stewards of the love and fellowship that we have in this place.
Well, whatever, whether that’s first presence,
Spirit Lake, or whether you find your spiritual
nourishment in some other place, that’s great.
But we have to see that held intention with this,
this inner sort of genetic reality of
the church, that we don’t exist for our own ends.
We don’t exist for the furtherance of our own comfort.
We exist so that others might see the thing that we have seen,
that the light of Christ
that we have been given the grace to see might flow out of us,
that others might see the
same.
And so it requires this outward kind of focus.
If our conversations become overly fixated on the things that pertain to the people inside the circle,
and we no longer have in mind those who live outside the circle,
I think that’s a dangerous sign for congregations in the same way it is for individuals.
If you’ve ever visited a church and felt left out,
no one greeted you,
no one said hello
to you, no one engaged you,
then you’ve likely visited a church that was struggling with
an inward focus.
When we do that,
when it’s all about what we get out of it and not what
we share out of it,
then our focus is in the wrong place.
We’re going to struggle as a congregation to be engaged in mission in the real sense
of the word.
Now, we might send a lot of dollars to other places,
but in terms of sharing
ministry in Christ’s name with others in our community or when those guests and visitors show up,
we’re going to struggle with that.
I think focus is a major determining factor in determining the direction of a church.
So not only is that inward outward,
not only are these forms of focus that matter,
but we could also speak of how we look in terms of time.
Are we looking ahead or are we looking behind?
Are we looking at our history or are we imagining what might be the future?
And this all has a really interesting kind of connection because as it is with life,
right, this is one of the great struggles of living as human and living in community is that
fundamentally an over focus on any one vantage past,
present future will always lead you
down the wrong road.
You must keep them together that you can’t forsake one for two.
You can’t forsake, you know,
this whole sort of full package.
And there is a temptation in church.
I don’t know if it’s fair to say that it’s outsized in church.
I think other organizations have it as well.
But when we get overly fixated specifically on the past,
when we look back with a kind
of nostalgia about the way that things were in the church,
this often sounds like this.
You know, back in the day,
the kids were here every Sunday and they were wearing their Sunday
best or sometimes you get that idea that back in the day we had a meal and nobody missed
it or back in the day it was easier to do this or easier to do that.
There are memories and maybe some of those are factual recollections of what was.
But if you over focus your conversation on the past,
it will inhibit you from imagining
the possibilities of the future.
It might also poison the well of your understanding of what’s happening today.
Maybe today is different,
not because of time,
but because of another thing that’s shifted
in your community or in your context or another struggle that’s happening in the church.
It’s dangerous to look to the past to determine future choices alone.
Now, you’d be foolish to not look to the past.
So I want to be clear here and nuance this,
Clint.
We’re not saying that you shouldn’t look to the past,
but we are saying that you should
exercise some wisdom and discernment in how you put your focus in your application of
mission.
Am I right?
Right.
You should be conscious of your past.
You should be aware of your past,
but you should not be stuck in your past.
And I think a good number of churches struggle not to be stuck in the past.
They look back with a kind of overly optimistic view of what used to be the case,
what used to happen.
They almost paint too rosy of a picture of the “good old days” in a way that is not helpful
for either the present or the future.
And some of that is a form of grief.
Some churches are not in the places they used to be.
Things are not going as well as they remember that they used to be,
that the situations they used to have.
And there’s a certain sadness in it.
Oh, we remember the days when we had full Sunday school classes and our VBS had more
kids and this happened and that happened.
And those were great days and we missed them.
And yes, there is a grief for that as the church struggles with a new era and some new
patterns and even some decline in some areas in many congregations.
But that is not an excuse.
We can’t use that to say,
“Well, we’re just going downhill and that’s the end of it.”
No.
The question is never completely,
“What did God call us to in the past?” It is always,
“What is God calling us to now in this moment?
Where is God leading us in the future?”
Which is an act of faith.
We don’t know that.
All we can seek to do is discern what is our mission in this moment,
the here and now.
What can we learn from our past that helps us do that mission here and now?
But how can we fulfill what God is calling us to now?
And it is very unlikely that the situation of the past is going to come back if we keep
doing what we used to do.
In fact, it is far more likely that it will be increasingly ineffective.
And when we get stuck in those past patterns,
we make it very difficult to discern and practice
what might be our mission right now and right here.
And I think that often gets in the way.
Well, and these are bundled in a really interesting way.
Because if we’re connected to our mission and that fundamental understanding that as
individuals who then make up a community,
that we are together witnessing to the gospel of Jesus Christ,
then fundamentally that task lives at a very theological level.
What I mean by that is it lives deeply in who we understand ourselves to be and who
Jesus has revealed himself to be.
And so there’s this very deep core identity kind of work there.
If that is present,
if that ember is glowing,
it has a way of lighting the rest of the conversations
that surrounds it because Jesus is living in us by the power of the Spirit.
So therefore we are being transformed as people.
If we are being transformed,
then regardless of what happened in the past,
we must be mindful
to who we are called to be today.
We can look back with gratitude for the ground that Jesus has carried us.
But then if we look ahead,
we can know in the confidence of faith that he will carry
us forward, which is another reason why fear is dangerous because it forecloses on our
ability to trust the Savior to lead us into a new stage of our discipleship and faithfulness.
That we must as a church not become a slave to the practices of the past,
but rather learn from them the faithfulness of the one who lives in us today.
So all of this is connected in sort of this beautiful kind of cyclical connectivity because
fundamentally if we know that Jesus is alive and working at us,
then we know that we’re being transformed.
And if we’re being transformed,
we wouldn’t expect yesterday’s problems to be met with
the same solutions today.
We would recognize that we must continue to be discerning the role and the voice of the
Holy Spirit in our lives today.
And so the same for our institution.
So that I think connects in this really interesting,
even I might say messy sort of format.
That said,
another way that the church should be mindful of that temptation is not just
what we look at in terms of chronology yesterday,
today, future, but also how we conceive of
the things that matter.
Because if this task is fundamentally theological,
if it’s understanding who Jesus Christ has
been revealed to be and what difference that makes in our life,
then that sets a kind of
bar for what issues deserve the focus and attention of the church.
And churches are a group of people.
We are subject to all of the opinions and preferences and very important and less important
things that demand our attention.
And I think sometimes we over focus on things that are less important.
Yeah, I think one of the great struggles in congregations is that we confuse kind of church
things and kingdom things.
You know,
I have been in mission meetings where we talk about literally feeding hungry people.
And I’ve been in meetings where we talked about something like the color of carpet.
We should not conduct those meetings with the understanding that that’s of equal importance,
of equal seriousness.
And sometimes it is those smaller,
less important things that get undue attention.
What color are we going to make a room or how are we going to reallocate parking or
how are we going to fix this or address that?
It’s not that those things are unimportant,
it’s that when we treat them as if they’re monumentally important,
we get off track.
Again, that’s an inward focus.
We make those things unduly important within our circle.
And we have to admit,
I think we have to be willing to admit,
those are not kingdom things.
What color carpet, what style wallpaper,
what color sinks or how we do things,
those are sort of day-to-day management,
running the church kind of things.
They matter to people and it’s fine and we want to do them well and we want nice stuff
and all of that’s not unimportant.
But when we treat that as our mission,
when we boil down the idea that what God is calling
us to is to pick the right color carpet,
we will be laughably far from what we’re actually
being called to do.
It is likely that the color of carpet has almost nothing to do with whether we’re fulfilling
our mission in Jesus Christ.
Again,
does it matter that the carpet looks good?
Yes.
Will we have different opinions?
Will you like orange and I like green?
Sure.
But ultimately, if we think those are mission items,
we will struggle to get traction with kingdom things.
Our focus has to be much bigger than the little stuff that goes into our experience of a congregation.
Our focus has to be on the larger things to which Jesus calls us to.
How do we make a difference in the world?
How do we change reality for people?
How do we provide hope?
How do we exhibit joy?
These are the things that matter.
They have depth.
They have substance.
They’re difficult.
And when we don’t engage those because we’re too busy scrambling over how are we going
to… what kind of furnace are we going to get or who can use the kitchen.
We miss the point over and over and over again.
And I don’t want to be too negative in that,
Michael, but that happens a lot.
As our role in the Presbyterian,
we get to interact with other churches and for a while
I was on a committee that tried to help churches when there was some conflict there.
That conflict was almost never,
in fact, I will say it was never kingdom conflict.
It was always people fighting about stuff that ultimately did not matter in the scope
of our calling and mission in Jesus Christ.
It’s always the little stuff and it gets in the way.
I remember,
to say this in maybe a way that has a little bit of levity,
I remember a meeting
that I had at that sort of larger church level at the Presbyterian where there’s lots of
congregations and pastors and leaders present.
There was a conversation that happened and it just wasn’t that important of a conversation,
but man, it riled the room.
And I remember it very well because I was new and one of the leaders of the Presbyterian
came up to me afterwards and he handed me a card with a little bit of a grin.
And it was just a card about,
you know, yay big.
And he said, “Here, Michael,
this is for you.”
And I looked at the card and it said,
“I don’t think Jesus cares about this.”
He had these printed and in his wallet and occasionally he would hand them out.
And it made me smile and I think he intended it with some amount of humor.
And yet that’s true.
That is a standard that we as a church need to bring to our understanding of what we’re
doing and how we’re conducting ourselves and what we’re talking about.
Because there are some things that we attach undue importance to.
This is another way of saying we get our focus wrong.
If it’s not something that Jesus would care about,
then let’s not act like it is.
Let’s keep things in the correct ordering and hierarchy.
And I realize that this is an easy thing to say.
It does require wisdom and discernment to do because there are legitimate ways of thinking
and conceiving about that some people hold things of higher importance than others.
I understand that.
But fundamentally,
that’s not often the conversation that we have around those things.
It generally boils down to,
“Well, I think you should do this.”
I think as a church we need to make sure that we collectively and then as individuals ensure
that our focus remains on are we doing the work that Jesus Christ has called us to do.
We may have differences of how we see that working out,
but are we doing the work?
If we start there over and over and over again,
like a fundamental of any sport,
if you start with that fundamental,
it will shape everything that follows it.
And I think that’s an important aspect of this conversation.
Yeah.
I keep one of those cards in my billfold.
I literally have it with me right now.
And the reason is because it’s easy to do.
It is easy for us to believe that Jesus cares about the things I care about.
So if I care about some little nuance in church,
it is easy to think, “Well,
Jesus, that matters to Jesus.”
That’s backwards.
Our constant struggle is to say, “No,
I have to learn to care about what Jesus cares about.”
It begins with him, not me.
It begins with Jesus’ intention.
It begins with Jesus’ work.
It begins with what Jesus sends us into the world to do.
And I learn from that.
I don’t start with me,
I start with him.
And again, I don’t want to beat this into the ground,
but when the church flips that focus,
when a church spends an inordinate amount of its time conflicted over things
that aren’t very important,
that really, frankly, aren’t worth arguing about,
it is going to struggle mightily with having a bigger sense of what the mission of God is
in this place.
If we are wrapped around the axle about little stuff,
we will never find the passion,
energy,
and cooperation to tackle actual kingdom things that matter.
This is a frustration,
I think, anybody who deals with church.
And everybody has a story.
Everyone listening to this has some experience when the church got really,
really excited and really, really conflicted over something that wasn’t very important.
And people stop talking to each other,
and they argue with one another,
and there’s fight, and it gets in the way a lot.
And so I think this is a barrier that we bump into regularly in congregations.
So let’s make sure we’re all on the same page,
we’re talking today about barriers to our
ability to know ourselves as those called to do the mission of God,
and barriers to us doing that task.
So we’ve talked a little bit about fear,
talked a little bit about focus.
Now we’re going to turn our attention here to forgetfulness.
And I think that this is a really interesting frame.
I think you can explain it better than me,
why don’t you kick us off here.
Yeah, so throughout the Old Testament it’s interesting how often God uses the word “remember.”
It’s this picture that’s painted particularly in the Exodus,
that God is doing things for
the people, and they keep forgetting that God has done them,
and so then they’re afraid.
Then they won’t take the risk.
Then they’re complaining.
Then they’re grumbling.
Then they’re worried about these little things.
It’s interesting how well that serves as a sort of framework for understanding our own call to mission.
Remember God says, “Remember what I’ve done for you.
Remember that you were slaves in Egypt.
Remember how I fed you.
Remember how I led you.”
And the people keep forgetting.
And I think one of our fundamental human struggles is that we forget.
God has delivered us through some moment.
The next time we get to another moment,
we think, “Oh, I guess God isn’t with me now.
I hope God shows up.”
And we live on this constant treadmill of forgetting and remembering,
and our call as
people of faith is to remember,
to remember that God is good,
to remember that God is
faithful, to remember that we have a calling,
to remember our mission and our existence
as those who are sent to bear good news.
And when we forget those things,
obviously we’ll be disconnected with those larger callings,
we’ll be disconnected with our mission.
It happens at a personal level when we each forget and we struggle.
It happens at a corporate level when churches forget their purpose,
when churches forget who they are or what they are.
So it may not seem like a natural word.
It may seem like an odd word to put in this podcast.
But I think,
given the scriptural witness,
Michael,
the idea of forgetting is a powerful
struggle that keeps us from being who we’re called to be.
So I have a story that I think in many ways illustrates a lot of these frames,
but I think forgetfulness is a big part of it.
So we got an opportunity to go to England.
My wife and I,
we got to go and maybe it’s just the vocational temptation of the pastor,
but we went to some many churches that if we went to a community,
we would go take a
look at their church.
And one of the things that struck me was how quickly you could get a sense for what was
happening in a church.
It surprised me, to be honest with you.
We went to one little country church and when we walked in the door,
immediately inside their narthex,
right on the left,
there was a table.
On that table,
very carefully laid out were a whole series of brochures and pamphlets.
And it was interesting because you could pick up a pamphlet and it told you all about who
the architect of the church was,
how many times they remodeled,
where you could go see
this that had been donated,
this famous person attended the church.
It was informational.
It was interesting.
But let me tell you something.
There was not a thing out of order like that place was masterfully,
carefully cared for to the place that it looked like a museum.
Well just another day later,
we went to another small rural country church and when we walked
in the pews were a little unsorted.
There were toys laying on the ground.
There were pictures of kids on the wall.
It was messy.
But you know what it looked like?
It looked like people who remembered who they were.
They were living out their faith.
The one picture, that first church was for me,
people who thought of remembering as a
historian would remember.
We need to make this story,
the story.
We need to put it in a pamphlet.
We need to make it accessible to people.
In the second,
they remembered that we’re a living community.
We’re going to have some messy.
It’s okay if when people come into our house,
it’s not all perfectly put together.
Those are two very different stories to remember.
The church as a community must decide what story we’re going to tell.
I’ll tell you, as someone who visited,
the one was interesting to come to as a tourist,
but I would never go worship on a Sunday.
The other is the place where I would go that I would feel like I might find a community
and the place of worship and challenge and faith.
It’s amazing how I came to those conclusions without seeing a single person in either.
It’s tricky because the church fills lots of roles for lots of people,
and yet the church
is none of those roles.
The church is the body of Christ.
So, what do I mean by that?
I mean that church provides for people fellowship,
but it’s not a club.
Church does social work,
but it’s not a social agency.
Church teaches kids, but it’s not a school.
It is easy to get off track by any one of those things and think of the church as that thing,
instead of seeing all of those things as part of what the church is called to be.
So, what does it look like?
Well, when the church forgets that it has social ministry,
it disconnects from its community.
It doesn’t help the poor.
It’s not a benefit to the people who are struggling.
When the church forgets that it is a caretaker of theology,
it begins to chase whatever it
thinks people might be interested in,
and it disconnects from its tradition and its depth.
When the church thinks that it’s really only a fellowship organization,
it has get-togethers,
and it has gatherings,
and it has suppers and potlucks and whatever,
but it doesn’t do ministry.
So, whenever the church only pursues part of its mission,
then it loses the idea that
it’s something bigger.
And, when that happens,
I think you’re right,
Michael, you get the remnants of something.
You get sort of the echo of something,
but it’s no longer that thing,
because to be church
is to pursue all of that together, which is difficult.
But each of us, I think,
are occasionally tempted to think of the church as the one
piece we might connect with,
and sometimes maybe to the detriment of the other pieces.
Right.
And this idea of forgetting has a really interesting connection to our last point here,
because ultimately what is remembered is chosen.
You give special preference to those things that you speak,
that you name, that you emphasize.
And, what are we as a church if on some level we forget the faith that we’ve been given?
Right. And we have this built into our identity as church,
that we carry forward this long-standing
tradition of passing the faith from one generation to the next.
And, friends, it is so easy to really become burdened by our mission if we come to believe
that we must do so by our own strength.
If we begin to live our lives in such a way that we no longer trust that it is God’s mission
that God will equip us to do,
then we begin to make it about our own ability,
our own strength,
our own ability to look ahead and to see.
This is where this fear and this focus becomes so overwhelming is because we no longer have
our faith in the one who seeks to do that work through us,
and we begin to rely upon ourselves.
And this is an incredibly dangerous place to turn because it has now moved us from the
very substance of that mission to start with.
If we’re called to be witnesses to Jesus Christ,
the moment that it becomes about us
and we are tempted to lose our faith in that one,
then now it’s become about our mission
to do our work,
which then becomes self-perclamatory,
and that’s a dangerous place to be.
Yeah,
to some extent, I think that all church struggles are faith struggles,
and maybe personal struggles are to some extent as well,
faith struggles.
And faith is really the antidote to these other barriers we’ve talked about.
Faith is the cure to forgetfulness because when we forget that the church is a faith
organization and we think of it as social or we think of it as service orientation or
we think of it as a personal play,
then it is faith that reminds us of the bigger picture.
When we lose our focus,
it is faith that brings us back to focus on Jesus Christ and what
Christ calls us to do.
When we struggle with fear,
when we’re afraid to step out in risks,
it is faith that leads
us through those moments and says to us,
“Fear not.” One of the most common greetings of the Scripture.
To some extent,
faith is both the barrier and the answer to all the barriers in regards
to not just our mission,
but all of our practices.
And when we can keep faith at the center,
when we can allow faith to shape and drive
our understanding of who we are and what we’re called to do,
then clearly we’re going to
be our closest to living out our calling to be the church and we’re going to be the
closest to who we are invited to be in Jesus Christ.
So maybe just one sort of strong word here towards the end.
If we are actively practicing faith in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior,
then there is no room for the excuses that we bring to why we can’t do mission.
The person that comes to mind is Moses.
What does Moses say to God when God says, “I’ve called you,
go speak to Pharaoh.” He says,
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,
wrong person, God.
I can’t speak.” God makes it very clear,
“Hey, listen, I didn’t call you because you were the best orator
in the ancient world.
I called you because I want you to do this and I will equip you to do what needs done.”
We are so quick to say,
“We can’t do this because we don’t have the money.
We don’t have the time.
We don’t have the skill set.
We don’t have the people.”
All of these are burdens.
I’m not even saying that they’re not significant burdens.
Yes, there are challenges that the church has to work through in these times, especially.
But friends, if we stop with that,
if we make an excuse,
then we have not put our faith
and trust in the one who called us forward.
If Jesus calls to you and says,
“Put your net on this side of the boat,” and you say to Jesus,
“Hey, we fished over there.
We’re not going to do it.”
And then you fail to put your net on that side of the boat.
It is your fault that you didn’t put your faith and trust in Jesus.
Those are harsh words and I don’t mean to be critical other than to maybe jostle the
boat a little bit and say,
“We need to be mindful that faith in Jesus will call us to
go into places that may bring fear.
They may require us to shift our focus.
We may need to remember some things that we’ve forgotten.”
But if we do that,
friends, if we let some of those excuses die,
we might see the fruit
of faith at a level that we can’t even imagine.
Because fundamentally,
what’s at stake in this conversation is Jesus’ work in the world.
We can’t make it happen,
nor were we ever told that we would make it happen.
We just put our faith and trust in the one who will make it happen through us and we
bring honor and glory to him in the process.
Trying to think, Michael, and not a single instance comes to mind of a character in
Scripture who was called by God to something they wanted to do.
I cannot think of a moment where God said,
“I have a task for you.
I have something to set you toward.”
And the person said,
“That’s exactly what I was thinking.
That’s exactly what I plan to do.
That’s exactly what I wanted to do.
Nor can I think of a task that God called someone to and which they said,
“I don’t want to do that.”
And God said, “Oh, okay.
Well, what do you want to do instead?”
There’s no moment where someone is called by God and then gets out of it by saying,
“That’s not really for me.”
And I say that because in that are two important realizations.
The first is that we approach this idea of mission humbly.
It is easy to stand up and think,
“We’re doing God’s work.”
And hopefully that’s true.
Hopefully we are doing God’s work.
But as we pursue that,
we should know that inevitably that means God is going to call
us to places and to tasks that may not be our first choice.
They may not be comfortable.
It may include risk.
It may include the commitment of resources.
We are going to find ourselves in some moments uncomfortable if we’re pursuing the mission
to which God calls us.
And secondly,
there is a wonderful humility in that.
There is a wonderful sense of reliance on God that when God calls us forward,
it is going to be something that challenges us and ultimately is going to be at God’s discretion
and not our own.
And there’s freedom in that.
There’s some fear in that.
There’s some nervousness in that.
But there’s wonderful opportunity in knowing that God is going to challenge us and God
expects us to meet that challenge,
to go forward in that.
If a church or a person exists for its life cycle and then ultimately stands before God
and God says, “Did you do the things to which I called you?”
And we say instead,
“Well, no, I like these things,
so I did these things.” Instead,
there’s no other way to say it.
We will have failed at our mission,
which is, of course,
not the thing we want to do.
And so it is a humbling challenge to realize that the tasks ahead of us are large.
They might be frightening.
The barriers are formidable and challenging.
And yet,
we are called in the Spirit of Jesus Christ and the one who calls us is able to
work in us to fulfill that calling.
Yeah, so let’s just be honest.
Conversation that takes seriously the barriers to mission is going to have some challenges
built into it, but that’s the exact right word.
The ending word is encouragement,
because our faith and trust is the one who created all things,
who came and redeemed us,
who will, by his promise of the Spirit being with us,
sustain us.
Friends, this is not a task that we are called to on our own strength and our own power.
And therefore,
we are encouraged.
Therefore, we are sent out with joy and rejoicing,
because we know the one who goes with us.
And certainly, I hope that it does cause us to be honest and self-reflective about
where we need to rise to these new challenges.
On the other hand,
recognize the one who goes with us in that.
So be encouraged.
Thank you for joining us for this conversation.
We look forward to continuing this conversation about mission with you next week on Thursday.
Certainly hope that you’ll share this conversation with anyone that you think might be blessed by it.
Thanks for listening.