Far too many of us are engaged in the pursuit of happiness to the exclusion of the pursuit of significance. Our mission projects and trips should remind us of what life in the Kingdom is supposed to look like. It is less about us and more about others; focused not on what we want, but upon what God needs; more interested in serving than being served; giving rather than getting.

Novelist Walker Percy often said that the trouble with most people is that they are not up to anything significant.

In his book Halftime: Moving From Success to Significance, Bob Buford suggests that many of us come to a point in our life when we realize that we have been in a futile pursuit of success, when what we desperately need is significance.

The same is often true of churches. Asking each other to sacrificially give our money, time and energy simply so that we can take care of ourselves or be bigger and more comfortable is a short road to frustration and irrelevance. It leads to a shallow notion of success.

Congregations that are self-absorbed find that they can never provide enough of anything. There is always an appetite for more programs, facilities or events that never quite satisfy our hunger for entertainment and/or nourishment. Staff are here to meet our expectations. When they do, we take great pride in them. When they do not, we critique them with brutal tactics.

I believe we are called instead to give ourselves to something of great significance.

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