What has changed through this transformation in thinking about the church is that the church can no longer be thought about apart from mission. Indeed, it can only be understood through its participation in mission. The concepts ‘mission’ and ‘church’ have converged into a new idea, something like ‘mission/church’. This shift in perspective is of great consequence for imagining what the church might be and how the mission of God might be worked out through the church as Christianity confronts its global context. (Faith Seeking Action: Mission, Social Movements, and the Church in Motion (Lanham, Maryland: The Scarecrow Press, 2007, 19)

Such an understanding is a huge, crucial step, but it does not answer the harder question – How does ‘mission/church’ look as it is danced out in the world?

There was a day when we thought the mission dance was simply giving to an annual offering, going through the seasonal promotion, and rallying behind an uncomplicated, crisp slogan.  In that day, every church could be ‘mission-involved’ or ‘mission-minded’.  Well, the simpler days of such simple (and tepid or cheap) involvement are over, and it is for the good that they are.

The church of my youth lived in the illusion that they were right in the middle of the mission endeavor, when in reality, they were barely at the margins.  Mission involvement was promoted as prayer and payment; prayer for missionaries and payment for mission.  And while prayer and funding are necessary components, they are not mission.  They may be sponsorship, assistance, support, trusteeship – but they are not mission.  The distinction is real and substantial, and must be made, if mission and church are to be truly reconnected.

Mission means doing missions, not merely funding or supporting missions and missionaries.  It means the hard, complicated, and expensive work of preparing people, raising funds for them, commissioning them, nurturing and caring for them, holding them accountable, and participating with them.  It means missions not done by a few for the whole, but the whole of the church doing missions in every location, through each relationship, and within all vocations.  It means working through difficult issues, such as appropriate witness to other faiths, financial dependency, leadership training, appropriate activities, the place of evangelism and social action, strategic involvement, etc.  Mission means doing missions, not just thinking, talking, or promoting the idea of mission.

Even though the traditional machinery that marginalized the church in mission no longer works for many, I see churches and church leaders looking for new ways of locating the church at a safe and inexpensive distance from real and costly mission involvement.  Some are waiting for new machinery to emerge that will re-establish for them, under a new name and with new language, old illusions of mission involvement.

We need to be clear and honest – ‘mission/church’ means the church exists for mission preparation, sending, implementation, and engagement.  It is no longer a question of whether these activities are what mission entails for the church.  The question is, Will the church take her place in the mission of God and do missions?  It is only through costly and complex action that mission and church converge, that they become the new idea.  For me, the answer to the ‘mission/church’ question is to be found in those courageous, pioneering churches who are innovating, doing, and dancing out mission.

Community for many is a one-dimensional affair.  This can be especially true of community that goes by the name ‘Christian’.  For many in the church, community must be, can only be, affirmation and sweetness, laughter and fun.  Absent are openness and honesty, critique and correction.  This one-dimensional, warm and friendly type of community is easily favored over community in which actions are called into question or attitudes are challenged, because … well, it is easier, nicer, more affirming.  And yet, nice and affirming, warm and cozy, one-dimensional community is less than what community could and should be, is intended to be.

If love is the crux of relationship, then community must be more than mere acceptance and affirmation.  Love includes seeking the best for the other, and seeking the best must include confronting attitudes and habits that stand in the way of growth and change.  True love offers affirmation and gives grace, but it also confronts, corrects and critiques.

Affirming-critiquing community is rare.  And yet, I believe it is possible and necessary.  While many forces work against it, this rare breed of community can occur when …

• Change is sought.  It is because most of us do not desire change that we keep community on the surface level.  We had rather maintain assumptions about ourselves and not have our actions and attitudes challenged, and thus, we want community to affirm who we are or what we project ourselves to be.
• Community is mutual.  Though critiquing, correcting and confronting love is offered, it is not always received.  Community takes two people, not just one.  Both sides must be willing to walk together in trust and love, step by step.  Without mutual trust and sharing, community cannot happen.
• Criticism is constructive.  We tend to think of judgment of one’s attitude and behavior as condemnation of the person.  While many may blast away at us in an attempt to destroy our person and reputation, the opposition is the case in true community.  The intent of criticism and correction within community is to lend a hand to a person’s growth and development, not to destroy them.
• Church is more than a spectator gathering.  The usual expectation in the modern church is that we show up, sit down, and listen to.  Church is a spectator rather than a community event.  What little bit of community that does occur is usually incidental.  Of all places on earth, church should be the best and safest place to hear the truth about ourselves and get a true picture of who we are.

All of us need a place where people love us enough to tell us the truth and where we feel free to invite others to communicate opinions concerning our attitudes and behavior.  Christian community should be the place where we are affirmed and judged; the place where we are loved and transformed.

Please, judge me.

If we fear, we live in the gray areas of pause and regret.  Fear keeps us from attempting the impossible, stepping beyond what is comfortable, choosing difficult paths, and loving in a costly manner.  The opposite of fear is faith.  To walk by faith means to believe the impossible can be reality, to live without what we think we must have, and to love without the prospect of returned love.  While fear paralyzes and debilitates, faith liberates us to believe in and hope for what might be.

Fear comes naturally for us, and thus is not a conscious choice but our gut reaction to difficulties, disappointments and rejection.  Faith, on the other hand, must be an intentional decision.  To choose faith instead of  fear is to live toward the hope of a better world, personal transformation, justice, love, etc.   While fear destroys our hope, faith is the beginning of hope.

Because I desire to live in hope, I choose faith over my fears.

Words.  Though many times words pall in light of the reality of a breathtaking scene, an abstract idea, or what can only be imagined, words are all we have.  Words have the capacity to communicate what we understand, feel or believe.  Words are able to convey and hold profound meaning.  While not reality in themselves, words serve as placeholders when reality is not at hand or in view.

Work.  In order for words to approximate and serve reality, the hard work of crafting, shaping and using words must be done.  Too often words are spoken or written without thought or effort.  Too many of us speak an avalanche of nouns, verbs and adjectives, erroneously thinking that volume equals communication.  When too little time is spent weighing what we say, words have little substance or power.  Worthwhile speech and written communication require intentionality and effort; words require work.

Wonders.  In spite of their limitation, words can truly work wonders.  Through hard work, words become wonders.  In the telling of a story, the hearer cries or laughs.  After hearing of a stirring speech, a person will make a life-defining decision or act with courage.  Through a note of appreciation or words of love, a parent, child or spouse senses that they are loved and appreciated.

Words can create, uplift, inspire, encourage, transport, or they just hang in the air.  Or worst, if spoken carelessly, they have the potential to destroy, maim, and hurt.  In this age of talk radio, unbridled social networking, and uncivil public speech, when words are tossed like grenades, wonder-working words can be a rarity.  The difference is in the crafting and speaking of our words.

As you can see, some changes have been made to mereHope.  In upgrading Wordpress, my blog gurus (Michael and Jayson) have totally reworked the banner and format.  The ‘eyes’ are gone!  What is left is a cleaner look that is hopefully easier to read.  For sure, it is a lot easier for me to manage and post.

More importantly, it is just good to change.  The worst thing for the mind, heart, or spirit is get into a rut — for things to stay the same.  Without change atrophy sets in, we perform by rote, and growth ceases to be part of our lives.  Change is good in that it challenges us to call on different skills, take another path, and think new thoughts.  Change forces us to hope for a different kind of world and to hope we might be people of change in that world.

Living in past glories and failures or looking for something, some place or someone greater in the future will cause me to miss the people, places and purposes right in front of me. The challenge is to give attention to where the journey takes me today. Will I go into the conversations I hear, enter the lives I encounter, take the opportunities that open before me, shoulder the disappointments and hurts of others, embrace the questions that present themselves, love those who appear at my door? If I walk past these, I forever forgo these, as I may never encounter these people, places, and purposes again.

The truth is that how I journey depends upon how I see God. If I see God as fully engaged in the whole of life, I will do the same. If I see him as aloof, distant, and uninvolved, I will be the same. My experience with the Divine tells me that there are no small people or small places, meaningless conversations or insignificant encounters, no one outside of his touch and love. And thus, my journey should be with hands, eyes and heart wide open to the world before me.

I journey today, living the next step, leaning into the upcoming turn, loving those in front of me – and in this journey lies ample reward.

I have to be reminded because I am so susceptible to the barrage of messages, ideas, and images that pull me this way and that. All day I am being asked to buy this, consume that, support this candidate, get behind that idea, sign up for this event, or give myself to that cause. Memory is the tether that ties my mind and heart to that which is crux or core, essential and ultimate. Without it, I easily drift to lesser stuff. Reading Scripture is a way of remembering, a way of tethering. Reading reminds me of God’s story, re-establishes faith, and restores hope.

Today, I open and read Scripture so that the Spirit might remind me, so that I might have a tether.

I am not as certain as I once was in my pronouncements about good and evil. Where once I had good and evil partitioned into distinct categories, my vision is now blurred by contradictions that I cannot explain. Where once I considered power and prestige as virtues, security and safety as essential rights, experience has taught me that sometimes the opposite is the case. Where once I assigned guilt and suffering based on circumstances, conditions, or culture, I now wince at the callousness and arrogance of such thinking.

What I have witnessed is that God shows up in the midst of terrible suffering and injustice. He cannot be relegated to one side of a dichotomy nor does he work only in particular arenas. And thus, because God demonstrates his power, and expresses his mercy, grace, and love throughout all reality, even pain and suffering, sickness and death, I cannot make simple evil/goodness declarations. If I do, I will surely miss him.

I do not believe God causes suffering, but neither can I believe is he on the outside of it looking in. I must resist and fight evil, and join the efforts to seek justice for the oppressed, care for those on the margins, and work for the liberation of those trapped in the aftermath of an earthquake. However, I must also be willing to see him in the wretchedness of life, the rubble of devastation, human suffering, and death. And more than merely observing him there, I must join him there.

Because God showed up in the midst of our evil and abusive world, suffered our shame and reproach, and died a cruel death, I can believe and hope for his goodness and grace in the worst of situations. Because I do not have an adequate explanation for hunger, human trafficking, and death, I must look for him in midst of these. This, for me, is reason to hope. Likewise, in the midst of my own rubble of greed, consumption, and evil desires, I long for him to be at work. This is my hope.