Mission is not something the church does as a “department” of its total program. The church’s essence is missional, for the calling and sending action of God forms its identity. Mission is founded on the mission of God in the world, rather than the church’s efforts to extend itself

By July 28, 1787, the Constitutional Convention had been meeting for five weeks, and had arrived at a serious deadlock. The large states were insisting that congressional representation be based on population; the smaller states wanted a one-state-one-vote rule. The entire effort to create a stronger union was in jeopardy. Benjamin Franklin, by then 81 years old and quiet for most of the deliberations, then addressed the group. According to James Madison’s notes, he got up and after a few comments, he said these words before the President:

I have lived, sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth—that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable than an empire can rise without his aid?

As Christians we talk often about our belief in the sovereignty of God. Yet periodically that belief is challenged—perhaps compromised—when we fall into periods that I call “the grind time.” When you find yourself in difficult, if not impossible situations, can you still trust in the sovereignty of God to guide and to lead you to the right answer? This Sunday, we will visit this principle from Genesis 24 and see from the narrative of Isaac and Rebekah how trusting in God’s choice (sovereignty) is the only way we can find true contentment in life. I trust you will join us.

Is “church” a place or a people? That is an important question when you think about being a “missional” church. According to the authors of The Missional Church, the churches shaped by the Protestant Reformation were left with a view of the church that was not directly intended by the Reformers, but nevertheless resulted from the way that they spoke about the church. Those churches came to conceive the church as “a place where certain things happen.” The Reformers emphasized as the “marks of the true church” that such a church exists wherever the gospel is rightly preached, the sacraments rightly administered, and church discipline exercised. In their day, these emphases may have been profoundly missional since they asserted the authority of the Bible for the church’s life and proclamation as well as the importance of making that proclamation accessible to all people. But over time, these “marks” narrowed the church’s definition of itself toward a “place where” an activity was done. This understanding was not so much articulated as presumed. It was never officially stated in a formal creed but was so ingrained in the churches’ practice that it became dominant in the churches’ self-understanding.

This perception of the church gives little attention to the church as a communal entity or presence, and it stresses even less this spiritual community’s role as the bearer of missional responsibility throughout the world. “Church” is conceived in this view as the place where a group of Christians gathers for worship, and the place where the character of this group of people is cultivated. Increasingly, this view of the church as a “place where certain things happen” located the church’s self-identity in its organizational forms and its professionals (pastors and staff) who perform the church’s activities. Popular grammar caught it well—you “go to church” much the same way as you would “go to the store.” You “attend” church the way you attend a school or theater. You “belong to a church” as you would a service club with its programs and activities.

As time moved us into the twenty first century, numerous church leaders and trend analysts saw a new understanding of the church emerging—as a body of people sent on a mission. Unlike the previous notion of the church as an entity solely defined by programs and budgets, the church is reconceived as a community, a gathered people, brought together by a common calling and vocation to be a sent people. In recent years, biblical and theological foundations for such a communal and missional view of the church have blossomed. As a result, a shift from an ecclesiocentric (church-centered) view of mission to a theo-centric (God-centered) one took place. Mission as a church-centered enterprise characterized mission thinking several decades ago.

My prayer for New Hope EPC is that she as a branch of the greater bride of Christ sees herself as the PEOPLE of God spawned by the MISSION of God who is SENT by God into this dark world. Mission is not something the church does as a “department” of its total program. The church’s essence is missional, for the calling and sending action of God forms its identity. Mission is founded on the mission of God in the world, rather than the church’s efforts to extend itself.

Curt McDaniel is a Teaching Elder in the Presbyterian Church in America who is serving out of bounds as the Interim Pastor for New Hope Presbyterian Church (EPC) in Fort Myers, Florida.  This article was written for his congregation in a weekly newsletter.  Curt based his thoughts on material contained in The Missional Church, ed. Darrell Guder