Vol 1:14 Vision and God's Mission (Part 3: What part of God's mission are we called to?)

So we begin to develop a sensitivity to see what God sees and in our daily openness to God we begin to notice what God is doing all around us in the lives of people – but we cannot participate in all that God is doing. So, what part of all what God is doing are we to be about doing, what part of God’s mission are we called to do?

So much of what we have been taught about church ministry has to do with seeing a need and filling it – but human need is not to drive our agenda for ministry, obedience to God and God’s call upon us is to guide our participation in what God is accomplishing.

Ray Anderson sheds light on this question for us.

“Christ’s primary ministry is to the Father for the sake of the world, not to the world for the sake of the Father. This means that the world does not set the agenda for ministry, but the Father, who loves the world and seeks its good, sets this agenda. This Christological, and actually Trinitarian, basis for ministry rules out both utilitarianism, which tends to create ministry out of needs, and pragmatism, which transforms ministry into marketing strategy” (Anderson, Theological Foundations for Ministry (1979), 8-9).

It helps us understand that because God loves the world, that our participating with God ensures that what we are about is a participation in the redemptive mission of God in the world – though we see needs all around us, we are called to respond to those people in need to whom God sends us. But is there a clue as to whom God is sending us?

I believe there is!

It has to do with who we are as the body of Christ – and the gifts and passions the Spirit bestows on members of the body. Too often we have seen gift discovery inventories as ways to find people in our churches to fill the ministry opportunities we already have within our settings. This sees people within congregations as “tools” to merely engage in ministries that are already established in which we make the people “fit” the ministries of our churches.

But what if the people, their gifts and passions are the indicators of what God wants us to be involved in?

If God sets the agenda for ministry, and if we believe that it is God who calls and gathers the community of Christ to participate in fulfilling God’s mission, and if we believe that the Spirit of God bestows gifts for ministries and passion for ministry, then a key indicator to guide our mission participation is to take notice of whom God has gathered into the body of Christ.

Our discovery of one another’s gifts and passions enables us to see how God is “resourcing” or equipping us to participate in that part of what God is doing for which God is calling us and sending us. We do not have to do all of God’s ministry – after all there are other communities of Christ around us; we are called to do the ministry for which the Spirit of God equips us.

This means that we need to take a look at one another in a very different way – not in how we can use one another in ministry – but how inherent within each one’s life, passions, and gifts is the way God wants us to be involved in God’s mission.

As new people are gathered into the community, this mission expands or changes, and as people move on to other opportunities or callings, our mission changes as well. This is a calling to notice one another – because not only is God maturing us in Christ, but in this maturing process we are also equipped for participating with God in God’s redemptive mission in the world.

A book that first helped me begin to understand this was one written in the late 70s – Unleashing the Church: Getting People Out of the Fortress and into Ministry (Tillapaugh). The church described in this book began to see ministry and mission in terms of those God was bringing into their church. Rather than making people fit the ministry, ministry was seen as fitting those God was bringing into the church.

Our participating in God’s mission requires us to love and care for the people God has gathered in a different way – they not only have gifts, they indeed are gifts the Spirit is giving in the forming of Christ communities in order for these communities to participate with God in those aspects of God’s mission for which we are uniquely equipped and called. Noticing people as gifts puts ministry in right relationship with people – ministries flow out of the gifts, passions and callings of people, rather than people being mere “tools” for the performance of ministry.

May we see each other as a gift with which God has blessed us.