The Soul Cravings Prequel has been a helpful tool for many of us in opening doors to spiritual conversations. It has given us entry points to identify with people who like us, have desires for intimacy, meaning and destiny. So what is your experience with "witness" in Abbotsford? This is a forum to share thoughts, stories and questions.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Misery, Happiness and Mission, Oh My!

How do we think about mission/outreach? Is it a program? Is it information? Is it relationships? Is it something else? Are we responsible? Are we called? Are we all called? Do we stay? Do we go? Where do we go? How do we go? How do we stay? 

There are a lot of questions and perspectives on mission and outreach. I have more questions than answers. But I will share some thoughts and things I have heard that make sense to me.

God is on mission. This is the foundation of my understanding of mission and outreach - that God is on a mission to restore all of creation, to restore goodness, to renew everything and that God is reaching out to all people to both be restored and live renewed lives, through the power of Jesus. 

God is on mission and we are called to join. My understanding is that part, perhaps event the main part, of being made in the image of God is a vocational call to represent God – to live and enact his will, his will for renewal, restoration, and reconciliation.

So yes, I believe we are all called to participate in God’s global mission and work of restoration and reconciliation.

Do we stay or go and how? I want to go. I have some Bible training, I have some video training, and I am willing to go. That what mission agencies want, right? That’s enough, right? Where do I sign up, right? I have a passionate relationship with North America. I am both reviled and seduced by our culture and society. I want to go or perhaps more accurately, I want to run away. Problem.

In my first year Intro to Missions class, Professor Bryan Born told us to pray for missions, to cultivate love and passion for other cultures, to long desperately to go, that way if God called us to stay we would be sure we weren’t just chickening out. (He didn’t phrase it quite like that) It’s not a perfect statement but it’s a challenge to comfortable Christians who claim the calling of pew sitting donors…

There is a sense in Christians sometimes, including myself, that the more horrible the idea seems, the more likely it is that it’s God’s will. If we do not want to go to Africa, God will call us to Africa. If we want to go to Africa, God will call us to stay. If we don’t want to be a pastor, we will be. If we want to be a pastor, we won’t be. Sometimes we are even afraid to verbalize our fears or thoughts as if a statement like, “I never want to go to Africa” guarantees us a one way ticket.  There is a suspicious idea in the subtext of our thoughts and speech that suggests that God wants us to be miserable. 

So how do we understand this? We can’t say God wants us to be miserable… I don’t think we can say God wants us to be happy either… I think I would be comfortable saying God desires our lives to be full, to be fulfilling… But full or fulfilling are not simple to define. Also, our ability to determine misery, happiness, or fullness prior to an experience is also open to question… Often things we do to make us happy make us miserable. 

This is my one thought on the paradoxical reality of finding oneself called where one did not intend or want to be. God’s strength is most visible in our weakness. Ambition is often a problematic part of the human condition because more often than not it is selfish and proud. I think that God’s call on our lives is explicitly a call out of selfish ambition and that often this call lived out by going places we did not think we wanted to be because it is in those places that God’s redemption is most profound, on our lives and in the lives of others. And that is what the mission is all about. Again the questions are: Will I become weak? And will I trust God?

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