Mission and Vision
There’s a well-known saying, apparently from William Shakespeare, that goes like this: “the meaning of life is to find your gift; the purpose of life is to give it away”.
Have you ever made a list of all the things you want to do, the places you want to travel and how you’re going to set about it? Have you set out with a vision and a determination to make your dream come true, no matter how far away it might seem under the present circumstances? Many of us have a dream that we know will take a miracle to happen, but we keep on believing, hoping and praying that one day that dream will come true.
We can spend a lifetime making ends meet, scrimping and saving, carving a niche in a company or working our way up the ladder but there comes a time when we ask what’s it all about? The hard work, the striving to achieve, all for the ultimate prize is to have a dream and see it realised.
Nowadays just about every organisation, including churches, have something called a Mission Statement. Something that defines the organisation, what their purpose is and what they aim to achieve in the future. This is all well and good and part and parcel of defining roles and responsibilities, having targets and keeping a vision alive and current. We’re told that it's important to have goals and targets, to have a purpose in life, a dream to strive for and this, I think, is a characteristic of our western culture. It keeps us motivated, it helps us to rise above the mundaneness of every day life and gives us a focus, looking forward to a time when we can do what we really want to do. After all, the Bible does say “where there is no vision, the people perish”. (Proverbs 29:18)
When it comes to Christianity, I wonder have we as "the Church" lost the plot? Have we lost the true mission and vision of what Christianity is about? Does Christianity even have a mission and does the fear of 'mission' put people off giving their life to Christ?
In order to find out, we need to go back to basics. What was Jesus’ aim? If He was asked to make a Mission and Vision statement when he was baptised by John at the beginning of His ministry, I wonder what it would have been?
Mission: “Bringing help to God’s lost sheep, the people of Israel”.
Vision: “To make disciples of all the nations”.
Or maybe
Mission: “To represent God in the World.”
Vision: “To take away the sins of the world”.
For churches, mission and vision statements can incorporate anything from providing a community space for worship and prayer, to empowering people to be good leaders. Statements about the preservation of church buildings, being mindful of wildlife and the environment are also very worthy goals and aims. Without these sensible and very worthwhile statements, a church will find it very difficult to gain the financial help and assistance from higher levels to move forward and keep current. We, the body of Christ, genuinely want to improve the perception that people have of us and we genuinely want to help people learn and live the Gospel every day. If only we could persuade people to realise how warm-hearted and loving we Christians really are and that coming to Church is actually really wonderful and nothing to be afraid of....
The church, as a building, has always been the centre of the community, an historic landmark, a place for visitors to come and admire, to celebrate weddings and baptisms, to bury our dead, trace deceased ancestors and of course a place to come together and worship God every week. Sadly churches around the world are closing down due to lack of funds, lack of bottoms on seats and general lack of interest. What can we do? How can we get people to notice us in a positive way and how can we make more disciples if people are just not interested? How can we preserve these beautiful buildings and ask people to give their hard earned cash to help a church that is in effect dying? What difference does it make for a church to have a mission and vision statement anyway?
Jeremy Myers in his mammoth tome “Close your Church for Good” tackles this subject head on and before you start to spit and balk at the title of the book, please hear me out!
He suggests that perhaps these questions are not the questions we should be asking. Perhaps we should be looking more closely at some different questions such as “What is the Church?” Well, the answer to that question is pretty simple. The Church is not a building nor is it the views and opinions of Archbishops, Synods and Bishops. It’s the Body of Christ - the family of God. The people who follow Christ. We all know that. Yet people talk about 'The Church' as if it is referring to the denominational hierarchy, the magnificent buildings and the powers that influence doctrines and theology.
Another question he says we need to ask is what does the Church do? The Church, as the Body of Christ, is to do what Jesus did and go where Jesus went. We can’t expect to make disciples by hoping they will flock into the church buildings, sit down and ask for help. Jesus went to the lost, into the places where it was considered unsafe, where there was darkness, chaos and danger. He would run into the flames, not away from them. This makes church-going Christians rather nervous. It seems to me that it would put off those who already attend church and that would leave it with even less members! But is filling our churches with church-goers really the objective?
As a boy Jesus could be found in the Temple listening, talking and asking questions. He seemed surprised that his parents didn’t realise that should be the first place they should look for him. Jewish life revolved around the Temple. The usual way of approaching God required daily sacrifices. Trade to provide these sacrifices started to become obsessive, manipulative and extortionate. Later on during His Ministry, Jesus declared the temple to be a den of thieves, driving out those who traded there and overturning their tables (Matthew 21:13). If you wanted to find Jesus, he was no longer to be found sitting in the Temple with the rabbis and teachers but mixing with those outside the Temple, with the down and outs, with the blind and the crippled and with the people who suffered at the expense of the extortion. If you wanted to know where He was, He was busy loving the unloved, with those who were at the end of their rope, those who had lost what was dearest to them and those who were full of anxiety and cares. Ultimately of course we find Jesus hanging on the Cross, dying a death that was synonymous with someone who had committed a great crime, unjustly accused, forsaken, rejected, diseased, wounded and full of sin. Our sin. Not many follow Him here.
As Jesus grew up He became aware of who He was and what He was called to do. He understood gradually that His calling, His divine mission was to die for mankind. He also realised that the rabbis and scribes in the Temple who had marvelled at this young boy’s knowledge of God and the Scriptures, were the very ones who rejected Him in adulthood and His mission then reached out to the lonely, the sick and the outcasts.
So what if His Mission and Vision statement then said this:
Mission: To spend time with sinners, eat with them, drink with them, love them and then die for them.
Vision: For God's Kingdom in Heaven to be replicated on earth.
Might this Mission and Vision statement encapsulate who and what Jesus was and what His goal was? I think it does. Would it encourage people to come to church if we made a similar statement? Would you spend time with sinners, eat with them, drink with them, love them and then die for them?
In his book, Jeremy Myers continues that “the message of the Gospel must guide the methods that are used to spread the gospel. The message of the Church as the body of Christ must be identical to the message of Jesus." 1 John 4:17 says “As Jesus is, so are we in this world”. The message translation says it this way and continues: “God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we’re free of worry on Judgement Day – our standing in the world is identical with Christ’s. There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life – fear of death, fear of judgement – is one not yet fully formed in love.”
'Our standing in the world is to be identical with Christ’s standing' – what an awesome thought!
Who do you say that Jesus is? A teacher? A philosopher? A Jewish Rabbi? Matthew records an encounter that he and the other disciples had with Jesus when He asked them "Who do you say that I am" (Matthew 16:15). Some of them replied that people were saying He was John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah or one of the other prophets. But outspoken, coarse and 'rough' Peter blurted out "You're the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the living God". So Jesus's identity had been rumbled by an uneducated, low-class fisherman, usually known as 'Andrew's brother' who had received this revelation not from books or from teachers, but from from God Himself. He was feeling pretty pleased with himself.
What had the Messiah come to do?
"From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life." (Matthew 16:21)
God forbid that Jesus should be killed - that would never do! Peter blurted out again, protesting this was not the way he had in mind for the Kingdom to come.
But that was the plan. That was the mission statement and woe betide anyone who stood against it. Something huge was at stake here - satan himself was trying to tempt Jesus away from His mission. It was a divine mission and the only way for the Kingdom to come on to this earth as it is in heaven. As Andrew Ollerton says in his essential read 'The Bible. A story that makes sense of life', "To mess with this is to interfere with the most determined plan in the universe. As Peter learned the hard way, it's not our job to coach or manage the Messiah. We are invited to follow Him ('get behind me'), not to lead Him."
God loves the world so much that despite our sin of rejecting Him, He still wants to be intimately involved in our lives and be with us – this was Jesus’ message. He showed through His actions what a life under the rule and authority of God looked like. It wasn’t a life of control and manipulation as people generally recognise rule and authority. It was a life that was filled with love, compassion, mercy, forgiveness and yes, death!
Because Jesus went to the Cross in our place, we can approach God freely without any guilt, fear or condemnation because Jesus bore it all for us. It should have been us on the cross because we deserved the punishment of guilt, fear and condemnation. He did it for us so we don't have to. Jesus chose the way of the cross and bore our deepest terrors. Anyone, absolutely anyone can approach God freely, but they must die first. They must die to themselves and die to the old life they lived without Christ. It means death to our selfish wants and desires. Death to the fleshy, feel-good factor of putting ourselves (or others/things) in the place of headship. Death to the idea that going to Church (the building) somehow makes us ‘fit’ for this life and yes, sometimes death to our dreams and vision for the future.
The word incarnation literally means “in the meat” – or more appropriately, “in the flesh”. Jesus could have lived His life with the Father in Heaven, in the Glory and in Majesty forever. But He didn’t. He gave that life up to come and live with us, as a human being. He came to live a life under the rule and authority of His Father instead of being the rule and authority. He did this not to improve the image of the Trinity nor to give us a set of rules to live by. He did this to show us what God is like and to show how much He loves us and desires to be with us - just as we are, not when we get cleaned up and become perfect. He experienced shame, rejection, hatred, pain and death and offered us in exchange forgiveness, mercy and right standing with God the Father. He gave up His life in the Glory to show us that the Father loves us so much that He was willing to give everything up to live with and among us.
Death for Jesus was not the end. It was just the beginning. Although His last cry was “It is finished”, that wasn’t because He was finished, or that his death was the end of everything. "It is finished" meant that His first Mission statement (to die and defeat sin) was complete. The first half of Daniel’s 70th week prophecy concerning the Messiah had been fulfilled. There was more to come. Much more! But the vision was to be sealed up for the time being, only to reappear at the time of the end.
Through his death and resurrection, Jesus brought in a new way to worship God - in spirit and in truth. The precious blood of Jesus paid the price for the sin that separated us from God the Father and promised that after death the believer would be with Him in Paradise, never to be parted again. Sinfulness (the desire to walk away from God) would still be in the world, lurking at the door, creeping around like a lion after it’s prey until the time of the end when God's judgement on sin will finally take place, but every person who acknowledges and receives the greatest gift of Jesus' sacrifice can truly live with Him in Glory. It's our choice while we are here on earth.
What sin doesn’t understand is that those who follow Christ, no matter what their background is, will never experience separation from God ever again. The moment we accept Christ we are forever connected to the source of everlasting life and that gives the believer confidence to go out into the world and tell others how they too can draw living water from the eternal Spring of Life. It gives us confidence to stand in His presence on judgement day and it gives us confidence that His promise of everlasting life is true.
Just as Jesus was God in the flesh, so the church (the body of Christ) is the incarnation of God. We are His representatives here in the flesh and we are to continue the vision until the end, even if it means the end of our personal wishes and dreams. There are many people who have lost loved ones along life's journey. The pain and separation this brings means that the hopes and dreams we had of sharing and enjoying time together here have to be laid aside. God knows the pain that separation from loved ones brings. His comfort and strength carry us in our darkest hours.
So how can we as the church go into the place of sinners and trouble, darkness and danger? Many of the body of Christ are not equipped spiritually nor physically to go into these places to spread the gospel and lead people to Christ. Many of us are not equipped to go into the mission field. God knows this! He knows where you are and what you can and can’t do. He knows everything about you! He knows your gifts and He will show them to you so that you are able to give them away freely and with great joy.
So what do we have that will benefit the Kingdom? Well, for you and me, that’s family and friends! It’s mothers, fathers, children, brothers, sisters, cousins, grandchildren, aunts and uncles. It’s friends and neighbours, colleagues and acquaintances - even strangers. All are welcome into the Kingdom – all are invited. All of us have gifts to share with each other. People we meet by chance, in the street, in the shops, down the road, in the schools and universities. Remember that Jesus mixed with everyone. He was not noticeable. He blended in. So much so that he was accused of being a wine bibber and a glutton (Luke 7:34). He used the everyday, mundane occasion of mealtimes to identify with people’s problems, their pain and their suffering. People were drawn to Him because of His loving acceptance of hurting people and His willingness to be where they were and eat and drink what they ate and drank. As far as He was concerned there were no outcasts, no exclusions and no rejections. He became so much like one of them that they felt more comfortable in His presence than the religious leaders did! You could say that Christians have things the other way round. We’ve made religious people comfortable in church and sinners not.
This is what Jesus meant when He said we are in the world but not of it. There’s a very fine line here. We need to be careful not to be ‘of’ this world. The goals, the vision, the principles and the ideas that this world has are not God’s Kingdom goals, principles and vision. His Kingdom comes, His will shall be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Identification with the fear and the rejection, the sorrow and pain that people in the world without God have is what is required of us. This is His Kingdom and His will being done here on earth.
In order to express this identification, we have to die. Not physically of course, but die to our own wants and desires. We have to put aside the dreams and aspirations to do better for ourselves, seek promotion and build our family empires. Those things are not wrong in themselves, and they won’t exclude you from knowing God, nor are they sinful. But the ultimate goal of the believer is to create a space around them that seeks out those who need Christ's love and acceptance and embrace those they come into contact with on a daily basis, sharing the truth that God already loves them and wants to show that love through you and me. Sometimes in the process of acquiring those dreams and aspirations we meet people along the way that we can share our testimonies and our own struggles to encourage them. What better way than to start with our own families and friends? What better way to start a new mission and vision than to begin at home with our own households? We can encourage and activate our presence in this world by starting at this foundational level and working outwards as we are led by the Spirit of God.
Imagine now if all the churches were closed down. Imagine there were no clergy and no denominations. What would Christians do? How would the church exist? The church – the body of Christ – would have to survive house to house. Home to home, family to family, work place to work place, neighbour to neighbour. We would have to revert to a kind of church that existed at the time of Paul, when early Christianity took root. The ancient buildings, the beautiful artwork and architecture we have today are all symbols of a wealth and a vision that Christians had many years ago, but not today and not in early church times. That vision was misplaced because it involved wealth, grandeur, power and control and that never reflects God’s true nature.
As beautiful as they are, and as important and worthwhile as it is to be good stewards of these buildings while we can, these symbols of Christianity are not what God has in mind as His Mission and Vision for His church. Sure, they can be used and facilitated by us to celebrate our marriages, baptise our children, bury our dead, and find a peaceful spot to pray. On these occasions we do our best to involve family and friends, but generally they are not the place to bring lost souls to Christ. His business of salvation begins in the home and spreads out into the world in which we operate and if that’s His business, it should be ours too. Not to supress people’s beliefs and ideals with our own but to reflect Christ and live out our Christian lives in full view of the world and unashamedly. Not to terrorize people into accepting Christ in order to escape Hell, but to be living examples of Christ’s love, mercy and acceptance, day by day.
Jesus gave us our Mission statement:
“Go out and train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life, marking them by baptism in the threefold name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Then instruct them in the practice of all I have commanded you." (Matthew 28: 18-19 Message)
And the vision?
"I will be with you as you do this, day after day after day, right up to the end of the age". (Matthew 28:20 Message)
So as you start your week ahead, don’t wait to speak and hear about Jesus next Sunday in Church. Hearing and speaking about Him is no substitute for relating to Him directly every day. As you live and move in this world, don’t be afraid nor be ashamed of the Gospel, the Good News, nor be ashamed to live and move in Him while you are in this world. Christ is as close to you as your tongue is in your mouth and your heart is in your chest. He knows where you are in your faith and in your love for others. Allow Him to work through you just where you are and make it your mission to let your light shine among those you encounter and make your vision to do it every day.