Genesis 1:27-28 says, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
2 Key Questions that Churches Need to Ask
1. What is God’s mission?
This question is a great place to start because it gets at the heart of why we are here. Starting with the why helps the church fully understand the mission of God. I've seen many churches where the members sat through meeting after meeting, committee after committee, processing what they are to do to reach the community. Churches need a process that addresses what we are called to be before discovering what we are to do.
If a baseball player shows up to a basketball game reading from the wrestling team’s playbook, chances are the game will be a very interesting one. Most likely very chaotic! Yet, in many churches, that is how it happens. People in these churches are doing things that God has not graced them to do. Once a church figures out what the heart of the Father is, they can start to process how to be involved in that mission. Our being leads to our doing.
2. What is God doing in our community?
This question will shift how the church functions because they know and see God at work around them. In the book Missional Church, Darrell Guder shares how, throughout history, there has been, “a shift from an ecclesiocentric (church-centered) view of mission to a theocentric (God-centered) one."
A church-centered model is filled with many activities of mission but not fully functioning out of the overall mission of God. I know many churches that have operated like this for 50+ years because they have an idea that frequently is modeled after what another church in town is doing, so they do that.
Yet God is at work in another way and giving the people the graces to do what He desires for them to do. Participating in what God is already doing brings about freedom in Him and not a burden.
Some churches desire to stay busy doing all kinds of things like feeding the hungry, women's ministry outings, leading amazing worship services, helping to stop human trafficking, starting a youth center, helping at the nursing home, starting a community garden, starting a clothes closet, leading backyard Bible clubs, and standing up for the rights of immigrants, but God may not have given them the graces to do them all. So they should not. It's not that any of those things are bad, but ultimately we have to function out of where we see God at work in our lives, and how He is calling us as individuals and as a church to participate.
A missional church and a missional pastor will promote partnerships among area churches. If a congregant feels a leading to do something that is already being done well in the community, maybe the best thing for them to do is to partner with other churches in the community that are already doing the work.
By learning to function in the mission of God, we learn to operate out of our being and what we do brings about lasting change. Our doing is not just another task that we have to complete but something that gives life to the community and us because God is at the heart of it.
God is on a mission, and He has a church that He desires to use to accomplish that mission. God does not have to or need to use us on His mission, but He chooses to do so because He loves His creation.
He loves His family and God has called us to image Him in everything we do.
This family-like team joined by the player/coach (God) runs out of the door, through the tunnel of angelic cheerleaders, running the plays that God designed just for us, His missional Church. “Now let’s get out there and live out that mission! Go, Team!”