The small group meeting at Diocesan Headquarters discussed expectations for churches. It was a committee of the Congregational Development Commission, and our job was to establish guidelines for struggling congregations – to help them grow. “First, they need to come to grips with why they exist,” one of the members of the group said, “to recognize their mission.”

According to St. Luke’s Gospel (4:18ff.), Jesus kicked off His exploits in preaching, teaching and miracle working at his hometown of Nazareth. You may recall the story. He went to the local synagogue – the one in which, no doubt, He’d been raised. Invited to offer the reading, that day, He unrolled the scroll and read from that portion of the Book of Isaiah, which said, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." Then He said, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." That was Jesus’ personal mission statement. Rather than embarking on a random series of efforts to do good, Jesus focused on a vision for His purpose and role within the world in which He found Himself. That mission statement defined the parameters of His work. It gave His work incentive, meaning and direction. That’s the point of mission statements – to clarify vision, to articulate purpose and ultimate goals, to define the parameters of the work, and to provide guidance for the efforts that go into it.

During the past 20 years or so, mission statements have grown in popularity and use among all sorts of organizations. Charitable organizations and schools, even businesses and government agencies, use them to focus their work. They’ve all found that mission statements can be very helpful to focus their efforts and make their work more effective.

It’s ironic, then, that many churches seem to have had a hard time clearly articulating their mission. I say ironic because the Church was born of mission and gave the concept its original meaning. Of course churches haven’t always had difficulty with it. The disciples didn’t find it hard to define their mission. It was simple. They simply followed Jesus’ lead and adopted His mission. Later, the Apostolic Church simply went wherever they had the opportunity to proclaim the Good News that Jesus came to reconcile people to God, and when people believed, they encouraged them to form communities that would help them to live by that faith. The Church before Constantine quietly spread the faith in Christ and helped believers to endure the hardships of persecution. The Church during the Holy Roman Empire made sure that everyone within the scope of the Church’s reach believed the Faith rightly and lived rightly, too. The Medieval Church had its mission in carefully, if not over-protectively, parenting believers from cradle to grave. The Reformation Church (and Counter-Reformation, too) focused on right beliefs and counteracting wrong ones. The Church during the Age of Discovery in the 17th through early 20th centuries focused on converting peoples outside Western Civilization (in the New World, Africa and Asia). But during the past few generations, many Churches have found it far more difficult to define their missions, that is, except for conservative Churches, which are clearer than ever that souls need saving.

And therein lies the rub. A profound difference has emerged within the Church during the past few generations on the ultimate nature of the mission of the Church. Does the Church exist to save people’s souls or their bodies? Put differently, does the Church exist to save people out of this world or within it? Is the Church’s mission to relieve people’s lot in this world or in the world to come? The beauty of Jesus’ mission statement was that it could be understood to encompass both. His mission was to reconcile people with God so that, after this life, they would live with God in Heaven forever, and along the way He relieved their physical needs, too.

Every organization, and that includes every church, needs to have a clear sense of the urgency of its mission – of its reason for being and the difference it makes. What’s ours? We can do no better than adopting the mission of the One we follow. When it came time for Jesus to leave His disciples, He didn’t leave it up to them to surmise what their mission would be. He defined it for them again. It has been called The Great Commission.At the end of each Gospel, each one stated it in slightly different words, of course. Matthew wrote, “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” Mark put it this way: “Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation. The one who believes and is baptized will be saved.” Luke wrote, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you; and you will be my witnesses… to the ends of the earth.”

The Church has an urgent purpose. Our mission is nothing less than to communicate that Jesus came to unite us with God and to forgive our sins so that people will believe Him and live in the power of God’s love. In the process we are intended to make disciples by teaching people how to follow Christ and, within community, encouraging them to do so by materially helping those in need in honor of Him. Our mission includes both – relieving people’s needs in this life and in the life hereafter. It’s the most important mission there is, and we’re privileged to be part of it.

Affectionately,