Daley Ponderings

"The church exists by mission as a fire exists by burning." -- Emil Brunner

Mission very easily becomes one activity among others in church life.  It sits on the agenda alongside a list of other items bying for attention.  Or it is left to the enthusiasts to get on with it at the edge of church life.

How often have you seen a church where the evangelist is over there, and you should talk to him if you are interested in that kind of stuff.  Not that I am any better, most likely far, far worse than the average person sitting in the rows of chairs (we don't have pews), but that doesn't make it any less important.  (Just because there are always earmarks in the bills our legislature passes, doesn't make the next one right)

The church [not individuals] should be at the heart of mission.  To be a Christian is, by definitio, to be part of the community of God's people.  To be united with Christ is to be part of his body.  The assumption of the New Testament is that this always finds expression in committment to a local church.  ...  Committment to the church is easy while the church is an abstract, universal reality.  But the New Testament assumes committment to real people in real local churches with all their faults and foibles.

They talk a little about "hit and run missions", where there isn't a continuous, local presence that can continue the original work of the evangelist in discipleship and pastoring, etc.  The mission trip that I went on (and yes, I am still planning on writing that up...) while one-time, or at best short-term, for most of us who were there for that one week, is supported on a continual basis by a group of missionaries, who serve the local communities in a variety of ways.  For the one guy who we talked to one afternoon and who desired to become a Christian, we talked and prayed with him, and I gave him my Spanish-English bible, but perhaps more importantly, I emailed his name and address to one pastor/missionary so he knows that he exists, and can check in on him from time to time (I am not sure about the churches around the village - we got some strange reports from some of the natives, and the only church that we knew anything about, was too far away to attend on a regular basis - so that is something to look into for future visits - this was our first planned trip to that village, so I don't think the mission organization that we were associated with knows too much about it - they are primarily focused on Haitians living in the Dominican, amd this was a Dominican (ie. not Haitian) village.

One interesting point the authors make about the first churches that Paul and others planted was that they weren't large.  They primarily met in homes (dedicated church buildings weren't very common prior to Constantine) and so as the Church grew, church plantings were normal, and necessary, because there simply wasn't room in a particular house, so a new church was started in another home.  I think we don't even think about that as churches seek for bigger buildings, etc.  Being community-centered, I obviously favor smaller communities, and the authors point out that the first churches by necessity were close-knit communities - you didn't have an usher assigned to look out for new people (or watch video tapes of the service afterwards to try to figure out who had filled in the visitor card - as one friend used to do in a church here in Pittsburgh).

Small communities determine a size in which mutual discipleship and care can realistically take place.  They create a simplicity that militates against a maintenance mentality: there are no expensive building to maintain or complex programs to run.  They determine a style that is participatory and inclusive, mirroring the discipleship model and table fellowship of Jesus himself.