When someone suggested that during our series, Exponential Impact that we should issue “daily dares” that challenge people to live on mission I couldn’t help but thinK of the movie, A Christmas Story. I was laughing to myself thinking about us issuing to the whole church a “triple dog dare.” And that is exactly what we have done; we are challenging people to a 50 day adventure filled with daily dares!
The second day of these dares was sent to me via text and said this: “Share with a friend a dream you would run after if you knew failure was not an option.” I decided rather than just share it with one or two friends that I would share a new and daring dream that I have for COMMUNITY with you, my friends through this blog.
My dream is that COMMUNITY would be a church where 100% of the people are contributing to the mission of Jesus. Over the last couple years we have set a standard for each of our campuses to grow their campuses in the 3 C’s (celebrating, connecting and contributing) according to the following metrics:
- 10% of their attendance in baptisms
- 15% increase in number of people celebrating
- 75% of people connecting in small groups
- 50% of people contributing through serving.
There are two problems with the last standard of “50% of people contributing through serving.” First, we are saying that it is acceptable for someone to be a follower of Jesus and not be engaged in the mission of Jesus. This incongruence is not acceptable. Enough said. Secondly, we have primarily been measuring contributing only in terms of serving opportunities that are a part of COMMUNITY programs. Obviously, service in the mission of Jesus can (and should) happen both within and outside of COMMUNITY programming. There are people being called into mission in their workplace; community; school and every sphere of life.
My dream is that in the next two years that every COMMUNITY campus could say that the number of people engaged in serving the mission of Jesus would be 100% of their weekend celebration attendance. There you have it – my daring dream!
