Either a church is missional or it is not the church
The headline comes from a statement that Peter Steinke makes in an article about “mission drift” which is the problem of existing without a clear sense of purpose and direction. It is like the statement, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.” But churches should know where they are going, why and how. Steinke writes in the article,
Considering all of the complexities and challenges facing churches, it is amazing that more of them are not on the brink of oblivion or in harm’s way. Many are not using a compass to navigate the hazy conditions created by cultural shift. When consulting with churches embroiled in conflict or paralyzed by passivity, I always ask the congregation, “Does this congregation have a clear sense of its mission?” Typical responses range from “poor sense of purpose” to “running in circles,” from “lack of vision” to “our mission is not to have a mission.” Questions like, Who are we? What is our primary focus? go begging for answers. Then when I ask individuals what they think the mission is, the answers are rote: “spread the word,” “support the church,” “love everyone,” and “preach the Bible.” No one has ever said, “Our mission is to turn the world upside-down,” or “to join God’s ongoing promise to recreate the world,” or “to let the world know that the resurrection means the world has not seen the last of Jesus Christ.” Some members believed their congregation had a sense of mission because they had a mission statement. Sad to say, few knew what it was.
Limping along without a focus is called mission drift. It is what happens when people come together to support an objective but forget what the objective is. People lose their reason for being, even though they go through the motions. Many things contribute to the sidetracking, such as compromising ideals in succumbing to a pressure group, searching for instant viability or solutions, grasping for saviors, fooling themselves that they are vital or viable simply because they endure, preoccupying themselves with nonessentials, exchanging their core beliefs for more marketable ideas, or failing to attend to what God is calling them to do in their little corner of the world.
Steinke says,
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Mission is the expression of the church’s deep, abiding beliefs. Mission provides the major standard against which all activities, services, and decisions are evaluated. Mission is the preserver of congregational integrity. It is about God’s love for the world, not about what I like or don’t like about my church. A major function of the congregation’s stewards is to be the creators and guardians of the mission. They defend the mission against resistant forces that would threaten or destroy it. They oversee the mission’s implementation. They keep the mission alive.
The full text of his article for the Alban Institute is here: Avoiding Mission Drift. It is adapted from his book A Door Set Open: Grounding Change in Mission and Hope.
While I have not read this newer book, I have benefitted a good deal from the insights he offers in Congregational Leadership in Anxious Times: Being Calm and Courageous No Matter What . A sample from that earlier book is online as Twenty Observations about Troubled Congregations which is a helpful treatment of the topic in brief.
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