Becoming a Mission-Focused Church

by Heidi Unruh, Phil Olson, and Ron Sider

What does it take to become a mission-focused church--a church that shares God's self-sacrificial love for the lost, lonely, and broken, and cultivates a commitment toward community transformation as an expression of worship?

Despite an outreach activity here and there, many churches are not really outreach-focused churches. They might give out holiday gift baskets to needy families, or sponsor an annual Bring-a-Friend-to-Church day, or raise money to support the local homeless shelter. But their ministries flow more from skin-deep compassion ("Those poor homeless people") or superficial obligation ("There, that takes care of that!") than a genuine longing to see God's will be done in their community and world as it is in heaven. The dominant understanding is that the church exists to serve the needs--spiritual, social, and relational--of the membership.

From observing where many churches spend their energy, money, and time, said Christian activist Harold Frey, one would think that John 3:16 read: "God so loved the church that He gave His only Son." What does the text really say? "God so loved the WORLD that He gave His only Son"! Church leaders do have a significant responsibility toward the members of the church, but one key dimension of this responsibility "is to lead them into their vocation (mission) in the world, which God loves, and for which Christ died."

Rev. Tom Theriault is mission pastor at a wonderful holistic congregation, Solana Beach Presbyterian Church. He writes about the tension between "in-reach" and "outreach":

I've gotten a lot of mileage from my M & M soap box...the "More and More for Me and Mine" Syndrome, the "What-can-you-do-for-me-today,-God?" Gospel. As in the time of Jesus, many are looking for an M & M Messiah, a savior who will deliver us from all manner of oppressions. As with Jesus' contemporaries, we are frustrated, if not infuriated (Luke 4:30f), by a savior who is for the world. When He turns the "M & M's" right-side-up and into "W-W's"--a "We-are-for-the-World" Gospel, we have trouble.

To be sure, ours is a delivering God. But He delivers for a purpose. He delivers us out of our dead-end obsession with self and into the mainstream of His life-giving water that is destined for the nations (Rev 22:2). We want a "sit-and-soak Savior," One who fills our little hot tubs up with all kinds of soothing blessings. What we really have is a "Get up and GO God," One who soothes and saves so that He can launch us out (the root of the word for "mission" is the same as for "missile") into His Kingdom purposes to sooth and save the world. Hot tubs are great, but if you spend too much time in one you shrivel up and get sick. Same is true for the bath of blessings that our wonderful Savior provides for us. If we stop with merely basking in the blessings of salvation, we, our families, our churches, will shrivel up and get sick. A body needs exercise, and so does the Body of Christ.

Continuing Tom's metaphor, to prescribe the proper exercise for a human body, trainers have to know what the body is designed to do. Internally focused churches are busily doing an incomplete set of exercises, because they have a flawed understanding of what the church body is designed to do. So what is the church designed to do? What is the church's mission?

Say "mission," and many think of what some Christians do "over there." The word has come to be identified with special projects and trips. But mission has more to do with the church's purpose than its programs. As theologian David Bosch explains, "There is church because there is mission, not vice versa." The external mission of the church is to express God's character and saving actions in the world.

Overcoming an inward focus means changing the paradigm from "going to church" to "being the church" in mission. "Going to church" is only part of the purpose for the church's existence. A lay leader at Cookman United Methodist Church puts it this way:

"Being a place where people can just come and worship on Sunday does not make you a church. You have to be in service to one another to be a servant to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. You need to just be there for the people. A lighthouse isn't just out there sometimes. It's always out there. The light is always on. And that's what we need to do as a church."

Churches like Cookman with a mission to share God's redemptive love in the world are beacons of hope and healing, attracting people to God's kingdom. The harvest is slow, but steady.