Following up on my last post…
I hate the word “missional.” I also hate the words “attractional, invitational, and incarnational.” Alright. I don’t hate them. I just think they are unnecessary. It’s like a bunch of Christians got in a room together and said “Ending words with ‘-ism’ is so passé. Let’s change it up a bit and use something that sounds more hip. How about we create buzzwords with “-al” at the end?” I apologize for being facetious. But I do find the jargon bandwagon a little cramped these days. So, how about I don’t get on.
I had coffee with a friend last week and we were talking about Christians finding practical ways to serve their communities. Buzzwords ( ending in “-al”) make little impact. Sharing with and serving others is difficult for church people. We often lack the faith required to put action to our beliefs. So, we find convenient ways to serve or give or love. Because we are obsessed with materialism, we usually throw money at a problem…in the form of an offering or a purchased item that seems to be lacking in someone’s life. In our economy, giving money to a problem (whether it’s abroad or in our backyard) is not as easy as it used to be. But it is still fairly easy. So, when we raise money to build a building in another country we are honestly doing the least mount of work. And if we send a group to do international missions, we are still leaving behind the majority of people in our churches who feel they have done their work by dropping a small offering in the offering plate. Don’t get me wrong – I’m a fan of mission trips (we have some excellent missions work going on right now at our church)…but it only involves a few people. It rarely involves the whole church. I place the blame for this at the feet of ministers just like me. We tell people what to support, what to publicize, and what ideas to champion. When we do, we create a bunch of bobble-heads with wallets…
I believe there’s a missing element to faith in our churches today. That element is creativity. When thinking of ways to impact the world around them, people no longer think for themselves. That’s why I believe creativity is the largest barrier to faith. Rather than being led by the Holy Spirit to find unique ways to further the kingdom of God, we fall back on conventional methods of programming that impact many but often involve few. The most creative ways Christians are living out their faith usually involve little money and are extremely simple ideas. But these ideas are their own. Things get complex when we create programs to do what people who love God do naturally: meet each other’s needs in simple, effective, and inexpensive ways.
The church doesn’t need more money or publicity. It needs to free people to be creative in how they express their faith to others. Creativity creates ownership and a sense of purpose. People are already “missional.” We need to spend less time convincing them of that and more time creating a culture where no idea is off limits regardless of how small, inexpensive, or insignificant it may seem. It’s in those small details that that church will continue to grow. Mustard seeds grow into something much larger.
I’m still thinking through all of this. What do you think about it?
