10/31: Mission
October 30, 2009
Mission
We have crested the six month hill with First Serve and the road stretches out before us. God is clearly working in our church and in the lives of his people in Bend. So now what? Do we coast? I would like to.
But God has challenged me not to. In fact, it has been impossible to coast. And when I hear about lost jobs, lost health, lost life, I don’t want to. I want to do whatever I can to bring comfort, hope and purpose. I know you feel the same. You feel the call.
I have learned, however, not to do too much planning. Instead to do more praying. For clarity to see where God is working and courage to join him in that work. Then communication with others to see if they are receiving a nudge in the same direction for our community.
So has the past month been. Clarity that much of my time and energy in furthering kingdom work is being used instead to negotiate methodology and explain theology…courage to look for God’s mission for us here and now. Clarity that the work of God begins with my letting go of power, position, and planning…courage to know he has made me his child and that is enough. Clarity that God’s plan is always bigger than my own plan and that he rarely shows me more than just the very next step to take…courage to take that step in faith.
My challenge to ConneXions/First Serve is, what is our Mission? Share with me your vision and how you sense God is nudging us with his Mission for us as a community.
If you enjoyed this post, be sure to read the rest from this author. Craigan Griffin is a local doctor and outdoorsman, who loves his family and living in Bend. He is a lay leader in ConneXions and has a passion for exploring the Word and pursuing the Way. 
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Craigan. Thanks so much for challenging us to think about our mission more broadly. I think we’ve done a great job so far in ConneXions with InReach, but you’re right, OutReach has not really come into focus for us yet.
I know you and I and many others share a burden for taking the Gospel to the secular postmodern world. But it’s hard to know what that looks like, or where to start. Thankfully, the folks at ReFRAME have been there and are doing that already. With success.
You challenged us to brainstorm ways to implement the Great Commission here in Bend. May I suggest we start by examining ReFRAME’s websites and materials. ConneXions has already been featured once on ReFRAME’s website (see below). It’s time to make good on that exposure, and really go out to all the world, rather than waiting for the world to come to us.
http://www.reframe.info/
http://www.reframe.info/about/142/
See the ReFRAME approach in action at LIFEdevelopment.info. You will see an inductive approach to evangelism, which does not begin with statements of faith that need to be defended, but instead begins by opening up dialog on universal topics of concern to the human race: justice, meaning, suffering, death, rest, etc. And allowing these conversations to flourish in the context of relationships for a long time before trying to convert someone to your point of view.
http://lifedevelopment.info/
Note: the “Forum” and “Meet People” sections of the lifedevelopment site are useless and poorly moderated. What is good about the site is its approach to topics. Watch the videos and click on the [watch more] links.
Just a word of caution or should I say “advice.” I’m not someone who should be giving advice but this time I can’t resist.
“… flourish in the context of relationships for a long time before trying to convert someone to your point of view.”
There are people in the secular modern world, and probably have been people in all of time, who do not want to be “coverted to someone else’s point of view.” However, there are people who are happy to discuss justice, meaning, suffering, death, rest, etc., for the purose of learning and/or sharing. IMO it would be a mistake to use this to lure the fish to bait with the intent to hook it. Instead, invite them to dinner and let them enjoy the food if they wish to eat it. Hopefully, you can follow my analogy.
I don’t believe you can change people and I don’t think it is healthy to try. I believe they can change themselves if they have the desire and the information needed to do so.
Excerpt from An Emergent Manifesto of Hope edited by Doug Pagitt and Tony Jones; chapter by Heather Kirk-Davidoff, entitled “Meeting Jesus at the Bar: or how I learned to stop worrying and love evangelism.”
“It became my regular practice to go to the bar once or twice a week and have conversations with people I didn’t know. I was astonished by how easy it was to talk about “spiritual” issues. People told me about their hopes and their fears, their relationships and their identity struggles. It was hard to explain to my congregation (and my family) what I was doing, so I started inviting them to come along with me. I STOPPED WONDERING HOW TO DRAW YOUNG ADULTS INTO MY CHURCH, AND STARTED FOCUSING ON HOW TO DRAW MY CONGREGATION OUT OF ITS BUILDING AND INTO THE WORLD OUTSIDE ITS DOORS. In short, I became something that I had never dreamed of being–an evangeslist.”
Where is your “bar?” The PTA meeting? The health club? The break room at your office? The Bend Winterfest? The concert at the Tower Theater?
I totally agree Bill. Part of the difficult y in talking about “mission” at all is that it is teleological, that is, it’s a goal-oriented term. You are absolutely right about guarding against the subtle influence of language like this.
We want to count conversations, not conversions. That is our widest possible mission, but of course, it’s hard to get excited about having conversations about just any old subject, which is where the act of intentionally putting forward meaninful topics comes in–and this is where inescapable points of view emerge. There will always be tension and paradox here. God grant that we never fall into a “conveyor belt” kind of Christianity, where we place every person we meet on a mechanized journey toward our way of thinking. That would be ghastly.