The healthy church has a fundamental orientation: outward.

Leaders don’t ask, “What do our members want?” Instead, they ask, “What does the world around us need?”

Leaders understand that a missional mindset is the heart of all church development. New constituents, for example, are rarely attracted by better and better worship. They want to know what a congregation stands for and what it is doing in the world for others.

Transformative leaders aren’t necessarily more adept at reading the signs of insider moods and keeping people satisfied. They are focused on sending constituents into the world, where they will transform the world and, in the process, be transformed themselves.

Spiritual development leads inexorably to mission, not to deeper and deeper conversations within the body. Jesus sent disciples out to serve. Stewardship development springs from crossing the wilderness, not from reading a clever slogan. People give to mission, not to facilities or salaries.

Younger adult ministries aren’t centered in worship, but in building houses, doing mission, putting lives on the line.

Mission isn’t a line item in the budget. Mission is people going out into the world to serve others. To do that mission, leaders and constituents need to engage with the world as it is and to give what they have to give.

Engagement happens in several ways. The pastor and key leaders need to be studying the community, reading about need factors such as poverty, hunger, sexual abuse, domestic violence, and addiction, and talking with those who are already out there helping. Asking what help they need, and asking what needs remain inadequately addressed. You don’t start by asking constituents whether they want to serve food or rent space to Alcoholics Anonymous. You start by asking, who’s hungry, who’s broken, what Godly help do the people around us actually need. If that need is, say, affordable housing for seniors, then you build housing, whether or not it was something you started out wanting to do.

Engagement comes also from intentional conversations that show leaders what community needs look like and sound like. A focus group, for example, can bring outside voices into the faith community – not to ask what will draw people to church, but to ask what will draw church people outside the walls.

Mission Development understands that constituents are diverse, and what they will do in mission needs to be diverse, as well. The healthy church does several missions, not just one signature mission. Leaders also understand that, while some mission can deploy church facilities, most useful mission happens out there, beyond the walls, beyond the familiar and comfortable confines. A church can’t justify its facilities by using them in mission. It can justify its existence as a faith community.

Mission planners will always feel overwhelmed. They will ask what David asked when he went up against Goliath, what the Israelites asked when they went up against fearsome foes in Jericho, what the disciples of Jesus asked when he showed them glimpses of the fullness of God’s mind for them. The first reactions to mission will be hesitant, often negative. This is a crisis of faith, for it asks whether God will go with those whom God will send.

Money won’t be the limiting factor; it will be heart, courage, self-denial and faith that seem to fall short. And yet, as we surely must learn from countless missionaries who have gone before, when we serve the least of these, we will find plenty of heart, courage, self-denial and faith.

Some mission plans will of necessity be large. Starting a day school to help under-privileged children catch up with others, for example, is expensive. So is building affordable housing for seniors. Being stretched is a good thing, far better than holding back and doing only small things in order to avoid going broke.

Finally, attitude must change. Too often the privileged and prosperous give to others out of noblesse oblige. That is a satisfying place to be. But mission is best when it is done in partnership, in a sense of shared humanity and shared struggle.
 

About the Author

Tom Ehrich is a writer, church consultant and Episcopal priest based in New York. He is the publisher of Fresh Day online magazine, author of On a Journey and two national newspaper columns. His website is Church Wellness – Morning Walk Media