Our Mission Handbook is full of community-oriented language and images. It takes its lead in this regard from the New Testament.
We began our life together nearly a century ago as “a band… joined together in prayer” (¶6). We were “a prayer league of supporting friends” called together in world mission (¶8). We still are.
New Testament disciples were a band as well, joined together in common service to their most uncommon Lord. They were a “league” of disciples, you might say. They were a community in mission.
“You were all called to travel on the same road and in the same direction,” St. Paul reminded them. “You have one Master, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who rules over all, works through all, and is present in all” (Ephesians 4:4-6, The Message). “Live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ,” he went on, “…standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel” (Philippians 1:27).
“We believe that the mission of God has enlisted our entire community together,” our Handbook affirms. “It is our aim to ‘stir one another toward love and good works,’ at home and abroad, at work and at play, praying members in local fellowships and members in service around the world (Hebrews 10:24). Each part has a role to play. Each must find its complementary service in the wide-ranging mission of God” (¶37).
We are part of a larger community, too – the Church of Jesus Christ around the world. “We believe that God has called all Christians everywhere to involvement in his mission” (¶71).
Across this entire broad fellowship, we hope to “catalyze wider missionary vision, deeper missionary surrender, greater and more adventurous missionary service everywhere. The mission of God is the domain of every community of believers” (¶197). We will “pursue our calling in community with our Christian sisters and brothers, whenever we have the opportunity” (¶220).
Our Mission Statement captures this commitment in its last sentence. We are to… “encourage Christians everywhere” in the global task of mission (¶12d).
The task of Christian mission is not “ours” in some unique way – as if it were the special domain of western peoples in western lands, in service to the rest of the world. The task of Christian mission is God’s task, first of all. God directs his mission in the world, and enlists whomever he will. The mission of God commands the entire church of Jesus Christ around the world.
The only reasonable way to participate in such a reality is shoulder-to-shoulder with our sisters and brothers everywhere. We share the task of Christian mission with the entire Christian church. “Wherever possible,” our Handbook advises, “we will advocate interrelationship, interdependence, and creative partnership in the cause of the gospel around the world” (¶14). “We do not live or work alone” (¶193).
This kind of interdependent missional community is one of the core aims of our mission statement, and indeed our entire Mission Handbook. Yet it is important to notice that it is not something that we “do,” precisely. Like all of the deepest spiritual realities, community in the mission of God is a gift to us. It is not something that we “build,” exactly. It is certainly not something that we merit – perhaps by our special sensitivity or dedication. It is received, simply, by grace through faith.
This is one of the core insights of Life Together, by the great Dietrich Bonhoeffer. “Christian community is not an ideal we have to realize,” Bonhoeffer said, “but rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate.” We are made members of a heavenly family by the operation of heavenly grace. We are enlisted in a common cause by the initiative and mercy of our One Lord Jesus. We receive these things: we do not create them.
St. Paul, it is true, urged the Philippians to strive “side by side… for the faith of the gospel” (Phil. 1:27). It would seem to be something they “do.” But they are not striving by their own power or merit. “This is God’s doing,” Paul concludes in the very next verse (1:28). The Philippians are to work – yes, even to “redouble [their] efforts” (2:12). Yet their energy is God’s energy – “God himself willing and working at what will give him the most pleasure” (2:13, The Message).
This grace-infused reality empowers everything we do, and every chapter and paragraph of our Mission Handbook. God makes us his children by grace through faith. He makes us his ambassadors by the very same design (cf. Colossians 2:6-7).
Other posts in this Introducing the Mission Handbook series: