Strategic Mission: Forget the silver bullet

Think process and place

Often when it comes to Christian mission, we are tempted to look for a quick fix.. a single event or program that will have a big impact.

Real community transformation requires an understanding that there is no one thing you can do – it will take time, and more than one idea or program.

Paul understood this, at one point he had to explain to his disciples in Corinth that sometimes one person will be called to plant and another to water:

⁵What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. ⁶I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. ⁷So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. ⁸The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor.

So when it comes to strategic mission it is important to realise that you are embarking on a process and not a program. There wont be a quick fix and you will need to find a range of strategies to help you move towards your goals.

Speaking of goals, in addition to process, it’s also important to think about place or a people .

Have you every noticed that the early churches were named after places?

That is because they were planted in, and committed to, a geographic area.

As I mentioned in the previous post, commitment is critical, but it must be commitment to a place or a people and not to a program or an idea.

Mother Theresa was committed to the poor and sick of Calcutta, John Wesley was committed to England, the organisation I work with, Fusion, was founded because of my Dad’s committment to Australian young people.

This commitment to a place or a people enables mission to be strategic and not reactive.

Once you are dealing with the real needs of real people, you will know that there is no magic bullet.

You will also discover that you are in a unique time and place. No-one will have ever faced exactly the challenges you are facing. There is no book you can read or program you can adapt that will have all that you need.

When you open yourself to process and place, you put yourself in a place where creativity is the only real option.

Wherever you look in Church history, where the church has exploded it has been addressing the real needs of real people and has taken on the unique characteristics of the people, place and time in which it finds itself.

So the questions for the start of strategic mission are:

What is the place or people you are committed to?

Are you ready to work long term, thinking process rather than program?

Are you ready to be creative?