It isn't enough just to be mission or purpose driven....

If the mission has the church, if the mission creates the church, instead of the other way around, then it matters what the mission is....

Getting churches to move from spending time trying to create a mission statement and living in mission is a good first step, but it isn't enough...

Is your church's mission to get more people to think alike? In hopes that this alone will create a beloved community? Is it to attract those who already think alike, e.g. are already religious liberals or spiritual progressives, but just don't know yet about your church, or just don't know yet about all the benefits they could receive from being a member of your faith community?

Do we want our churches to grow as echo chambers? Do we think we can best change our world by having bigger churches of the like minded religiously? Do we put our trust in an approach that thinking will lead to action, just as we do that worship will lead to mission?

Or, or, is the mission that calls our church into being more than this? Very much different from this. Not to get bigger so we can put on more programs and better worship to grow liberal minds. But instead our mission is to grow the soul of the neighborhoods and lives around us, outside of us, and as we do that, in relationship with those very different from us, we trust that what guides us and inspires us will grow too.

All of our efforts and struggles seem to come down to choosing between the kind of mission we have, not just that we have one.

And then the next question is, why do we choose one mission over the other? The same as why do we choose one location for our church over another? Do we make our decisions based on what is best for ourselves, for our churches, or for what is best for that living spirit of life that may be in and among us but also transcends us, calling us to go where we don't want to go, to love those who no one wants to love?

I came back from the recent leadership conference, and from outstanding deep conversations there, and read lots of comments from people around here pondering a church building move, and from others about minister moves, and listened to people talk about the struggles and resistance to change and various issues in their churches, and I kept coming back to these questions above: how would people answer when asked if their church should exist so people who have liberal religious beliefs can have a home, or so poor people can have a home?

This Thanksgiving, as every day, Jesus asks us: who is our family? where should we set our tables? who should we invite? This Christmas, Jesus asks us: whose birthday is it anyway we celebrate? where should our resources and gifts go? Or God asks us. Or that Transcendent Spirit of Life asks us. Or that moral center that makes us human animals human asks us. Definitely, we are being asked....