We're on a mission from God!

“So because of God's mercy, we have work to do. He has given it to us.
And we don't give up.”

--2 Corinthians 4:1 (New International Readers Version)

They were the unlikeliest of God’s servants. Black suits, pork pie hats and RayBan sunglasses. Sister Mary Stigmata (a.k.a. “The Penguin”) had given them a special charge to raise $5000 to save the orphanage they grew up in from the Chicago city tax assessor. Every time Jake and Elwood Blues got a question about what they were up to, they simply responded, “We’re on a mission from God!”

You may recognize the story as the plot of the 1980 comedy film The Blues Brothers. John Belushi and Dan Akroyd had a fictional mission . . . ours is very real. God sent Jesus to us so that the world would experience God’s salvation . . . the WORLD. Christmas celebrates the WORLD receiving a special gift from God. Our very real mission, as recipients of this Special Gift of God’s mercy, is to give our testimony of God’s love and mercy to the world. As the apostle Paul put it in 2 Corinthians, we have work to do given to us by Jesus himself (Matthew 26:19-20; Acts 1:6-8).

There is a current trend in congregational growth and revitalization known as “going missional.” Actually, it is an effort to help congregations return to their Christ-given mission . . . to go out into their world proclaiming, in word and deed, the love of Christ. A book entitled Treasure in Clay Jars: Patterns in Missional Faithfulness defines a missional church as “. . . a church that is shaped by participating in God’s mission, which is to set things right in a broken, sinful world, to redeem it, and to restore it to what God has always intended for the world” (pg. x).

We’re on a mission from God. It’s a great mission if you think about it. What could be more important and satisfying than helping set things right in a broken, sinful world? Allowing ourselves to be shaped by God, both personally and congregationally, is the essence of life as a follower of Jesus Christ. My prayer is that our creative juices will be ever-flowing about new ways to live out our mission in our community.
When people ask us about what’s going on at our church, may our answer always be “We’re on a mission from God.”