Church #1: Inviting people into the unexpected joy of desperate dependence on Jesus.
Church #2: Rescuing one another from cultural Christianity to follow Jesus every day.
Church #3: Calling the Christian-ish to become passionate servants of Christ.
Each one of these churches has a mission that reflects:
- Aspects of denominational heritage (Bible, Baptist and Methodist, respectively).
- Clues to their corporate strengths and passion as a congregation.
- Nuances guided by their location and facility assets within Dallas.
- An outward posture based on engaging the Dallas culture.
Last week, I had a follow-up visit with two of the churches. Here are exact quotes from their staff:
- “We are not the same church we used to be.”
- “Everyone in our church ‘gets it.’ They know who we are and what we are about, and this creates powerful synergy.”
- “As a result of our focus with leaders in the body, we gave $550,000 more than we ever have to a one-time missions offering (50 percent increase in giving).”
- “Our greatest challenge is a willing readiness of our people to do more!”
More energy. Greater resources. Better synergy.
Would you like to have that right now at your church? Sure you would.
Would you have guessed that the first step toward this “more” is defining for the first time what your specific mission is as a church? Probably not.
And that’s my point.
As a result of your generic mission, you are most likely operating at less than 50 percent of what you could be. If you don’t know your mission, you certainly don’t have a culture of mission.
And if you don’t have a culture of mission, than what are people in your church really doing? Why are they there?
