How do we cultivate Christian communities that see themselves as full-time missionaries where ever God has placed people? We have a problem in the Western church - our people do not view themselves as missionaries. This must change. A flurry of books in the last decade have been sounding the alarm about this trying to get church leaders to emphasize the need to cultivate a missionary-spirit in their people but is it helping?
I am not someone, as some people do, who sees "programs" as always a bad word but we do tend to rely to heavily on them as churches - they become the go to plan when it feels like we aren't "doing enough" as the church. But of course the reason we don't feel like we are doing enough is because often we are not seeing life transformation or conversions among us thus we need to keep the Christians we have busy and feeling like things are happening. Is the sin here a lack of trust in God that if we strip the church down to a few simple things we will loose people? Maybe.
Here is the shift I am thoroughly convinced needs to happen in the church and the present difficult situation we find ourselves in: idolatry - a good thing (Christian ministry) has become an ultimate thing (what we get our value and significance from). The problem that stems from this idol is that the Christians in the church are staying way to busy doing Christian ministry and being together and not enough (if any!) time with the unchurched. We are not hanging out with our non-Christians family and friends to show them the love of God in Jesus. We are not spending time in our communities, instead we create Christian subcultures that keep us from the culture (both the good and bad) among us.
This is a functional rejection of something central to Christian life and practice: incarnational ministry. The word Incarnation is the word to describe God becoming human in Jesus - coming to us in all our sin and ridiculousness - to love us, to call us out, to live among us, die in our place for the forgiveness of sins and rise again to save us. He became one of us - "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1.14). As C.S. Lewis said it would be like becoming a crab or slug for us. Why? Because we are more than that - we are higher beings. Such is the scandal. Do we live this out in our lives? Do we spend enough time bringing the church to the world. Living out our calling among the nations - being missional in every way? Or are we spending our time in Christian communities exclusively? Doing Christian ministry, staying busy ministering to the already saved?
One way we cultivate this in our Christian communities is to highlight, talk about/to and emphasize not only the lives of super saints like formal "full-time missionaries" to other cultures and countries but to focus on the lives and mission of the regular Joe - people in their everyday lives; nurses, teachers, business owners, pipe-fitters - the followers of Jesus who are living out their faith in the marketplace (the Agora; Acts 17). We must learn how to tell their stories so people stop waiting to "do missions" or to "begin ministry" at some point in their lives - it one way to show that such lives and mission is actually worthwhile. One of my teachers, and more importantly a respected missiologist around the world, Charles Ringma, in his book Catch the Wind, says this:
Why is not thought given to establish what church members are already doing in their neighborhood and places of work. No attempt is made, for example, to identify the medical practitioner who has changed the approach to patients by providing counseling and practical support rather than just curative care. No attempt is made to identify the local public official in the congregation who is tackling certain important quality of life social issues in the community. No attempt is made tp support the lady who is conducting an informal neighborhood Bible study group. No attempt is made to support prayerfully the teacher who has just started work in an inner-city school with many pupils from broken families. And no attempt is made to see one family's care for their disabled child as a ministry worthy of the church's support of prayers.
The mission is where God has you be it China, or an office in Vancouver or New York or even raising a family - the church must get that reaching their friends, family in their local places of life is their mission - it is their Jerusalem (Acts 1.8), their immediate place of influence and if they are not spending time in the places of normal life where regular people hang out, spend time and who are distant from Jesus than we will never be effective in our mission.
We must organize church so that we don't suck up all our people's time doing "ministry" that takes people away from these places, people and experiences - we have been sent on to reach as many as possible with the gospel of Jesus (1 Cor. 9)
