Mission Reflectives

Others closer to the details will do the analysis of the facts and figures. My job is to offer a reflective on the value of the Passion for Life mission led by Canon Michael Green and his team from Wycliffe Hall, Oxford.

If you want Michael’s perspective on Missional Church and the necessity of courageous leadership , then look out for my piece to camera with him. It’s a good watch!!

Expectations and ownership

I approached the four day Mission with very mixed feelings. The three month  preparation had absorbed enormous amounts of Staff and volunteer energy and there had been some  apparent reticence on our part as Church to embrace a group from outside coming in to help us.

We deliberately  scaled back the programme in order to concentrate on a few key events and to work with departments whose own momentum was  Missionally focussed. So for example, Christianity Explored chose to use its key away day to coincide with the Mission. This proved to be one of the best fishing grounds.

We didn’t really have the take up we had hoped for informal evening dinner parties in homes at which the gospel was to be gently shared. The reason for that may well be indicative of the reason why so many churches find front line evangelism a challenge – we just don’t have many friends or colleagues with whom we are sharing our lives. So unsurprisingly sharing the gospel with them  is not really on the agenda.

A radical rethink is required so that Church is put on a continuous mission footing and avoids the "big bash.... big dash approach". We also need to re examine our structures  to see if investment in maintenance, which keeps the existing programmes running, isn't in fact distracting us from the great commission.

Nevertheless , the dinner party that did happen was so successful that two of the guests were still there at 2 am chatting away! The host couldn’t make it to church later that morning- presumably because he had only just gone to bed!!

In some ways of course an event driven mission, such as Passion for Life, defeats the object of creating a congregation where lifestyle evangelism is  stepped  up. But it’s never either or, it’s both. Events with top quality content and communicators are always needed because the gospel is to be proclaimed and offered and the challenge of commitment made clear. It seems to me that they are most fruitful in a context  where people are regularly  engaged with and relating to, "not yet Christians",  for whom an invitation to an event at Church isn’t sudden and left field, but natural and frequent.

After all, people can only say no, and in an ongoing  friendship, there’ll always be another time. So long as the church continues to put on appropriate opportunities sufficiently often. 

Ownership in a large organisation of specific events and seasons is always problematic. Especially when each department, in our case youth and children, Internationals, Christianity Explored , Students, Men and Women’s ministry, has a year round commitment to intelligent evangelism and a strategy to deliver it. The whole church has got to put on something pretty spectacular for such groups to say "this is worth us using".  The days when the entire Church family supported a Church event, regardless of it’s content, timing or purpose,  have long gone.  We are living in the days of niche groups, specialist interests, generational no go areas , and disconnectedness. People have feet and they vote with them according to the perceived value to the individual of the advertised event.

 It’s not enough for the Church to say "we are organising so and so, please support".  Life doesn’t work like that anymore. The Church is one of a number of interests which people have and on a Saturday night there's a lot of competition for the Christian consumers time, energy and money. That loss of corporate responsibility and loyalty is to be mourned and not simply conceded. Big churches need to work on family identity, the leveraging of commitment to the cause, while avoiding the old style guilt trip under which so many of us can labour as felt failures.

However  realism suggests that in a busy church,  there is never a right time to engage in public mission, there are always other things happening and people make choices. So if we wait for the right time, we’ll never do it! The challenge is to be clear in communication over a long run in, that this is a choice the individual needs to make. Clarity as to the purpose of a mission, the type of events being organised, is essential, as is redundant communication.

People need to get it before they really get it. And that means getting it over and over again!

Creative Programming

In light of the above comment about busy people making consumer choices, an initial decision by the planning team was what kind of events do we organise and where does Sunday fit. 

In some ways the easiest thing for any Church is to see Sunday as the one and only meaningful reaping occasion and everything else comes  way down the pecking order. After all Sunday is the one day that you can guarantee, well not quite(!), that Christians will make an effort to rock up!

The trouble is that Sunday is for most of us the main occasion when we want to tick the boxes of normal church life. To surrender a Sunday to an evangelistic mission is to sacrifice a maintenance opportunity! Of course this is less of a problem if you see every Sunday as in some way seeker sensitive and guest friendly.

In my experience the churches which have worked that out in terms of their weekly language, style and cultural accessibility, are the ones who find such a Mission Sunday the easiest to accommodate. But even they have to be prepared to make some significant changes, otherwise the regular Christians can hide behind a normal Sunday and not feel that this is a really good opportunity to invite a friend.

Of course, the problem can be compounded in bigger churches where we can all feel "if I don’t invite someone that’s ok because other people will and anyway we’re pretty full on Sundays every week so I’m not sure we need to do this sort of thing. More newcomers means more change, less space for me."

Therefore it's always a brave , risk taking Church which decides not to put all its eggs in the Sunday basket. The numbers at other events may be smaller  but the event itself, by being smaller and targeted, has a USP (unique selling point) which if it can be maximised and pulled into the logic of the overall Mission week programme, can have real dividends.

So for us, Friday night saw four simultaneous events- a families and children talent night, a youth event, an Internationals evening, and a Student late night music bar. That one teenager to my knowledge made a commitment to Christ is justification enough. But the value of such programming is that it allows departments to shape an event with their client group in mind and to own the whole Mission. It also means that the outside help works with the existing people and doesn't come in as experts but servants of the ongoing mission of the church.  The other benefit of this approach is that in a church department  which is always up for evangelism, sowing and reaping go on all the time. This means that the most effective events enjoy both happening simultaenously. Some hear the gospel meaningfully for the first time, some for the umpteenth time. Some are ready to commit, while others want to give it another hearing.

Given the apathy to spiritual truth in the West  in its institutional forms, the suspicion of the Church and its message, and the generally unimaginative , boring presentation of the normal church programme, an evangelistic  Mission requires a bold, daring approach. The issue of relevance is crucial- so long as faithfulness to the message  is not overlooked.

So for me the journey on Friday  from watching parents and children queue to get into the Pierce Hall, which was magically turned for the night into what looked like the setting for an Oscars award ceremony, to a Student lounge bar where an open mic  and mainly loud music was played and the occasional Christian story shared, was powerful.

It showed me people committed to getting it right for their audience, imaginatively working to provide an engaging experience that delivered a message unmistakably Christian.  Was I comfortable in the Music night? My ears weren't!! But around the tables I had good conversations with students about God, the universe and everything. Would my peers enjoy that sort of ambience – probably not. But it wasn't for them – it was for students who like retro music, and Jamie Cullum sound a likes.  I heard two stories from students both of whom I had baptised two weeks before- the one was  a straightforward talk the other was the most moving rap music that spoke of the difference Jesus makes to the soul of man.

And so it was that from a Question time format on the Thursday to a Popular classics programme on the Saturday with an after interval message from Michael Green, the creative jui ces flowed. And on the Saturday, the synergy between Mozart, Haydn and an Art for Haiti auction made for 300 people coming through the doors, 3000 pounds being raised and a sense that the gospel is about something bigger than saving your own skin!

The Sunday was significantly tweaked to allow for an obviously non normal Sunday progamme. Less singing, more word and image content and through our Facethebook format, an opportunity for people around tables and from the floor to debate with the issues and ask their own questions.

We even had some of those questions raised via the mystery of Twitter, mobile phones and text messaging while the debate was happening! That was an unnerving first for me!!

The Missioner and the Main thing

No church can seriously contemplate this sort of initiative without confidence in the message and the messenger. And a church that isn't regularly exposed to evangelistic preaching is going to struggle to get up for a full on, come to Christ, sign-a-card presentation.

A lesson re inforced for me, has been the value to the Christian and the local church, at an intellectual and emotional level,  of hearing the gospel preached effectively by someone who loves the Saviour.

The pity is that there aren't more Michael Greens around who can communicate so personably, warmly , comprehensively and cogently.  The days of set piece evangelism, when one person stands up and tells it the way it is, are perhaps not over after all. And we who are committed to proclamation evangelism must do all in our power to make sure that a generation of new Michael Greens emerges.

I know the argument, God makes unique  people to do special things, and that’s true. But was Michael Green present when the teenager gave his life to Christ (?) or when the black rapper blew the sky away to the noise of Jesus the liberator? No!

And anyway, the evangelist is nothing without the Spirit or the prepared hearts that have been watered by the love of Christian neighbours or colleagues.  

Undoubtedly, there is a sense in which the church that has confidence in the evangelist is much more likely to throw its support behind the event. But Passion for Life was about a team of people who came with Michael, servant hearted like him, trained and willing to talk one to one with others.

There was perhaps no more moving sight for me than Michael on the Sunday morning inviting people to trust Christ and then at the front getting out of the way as his team members sat, talked and prayed with those who wanted to deal with God.  I can see the woman now with tears gently trickling from her eyes as she confessed Christ and explaining that this was her birthday! To which the evangelist smiled and said "It’s a double birthday then!" These are the moments that will echo down through eternity and make the life a local church pastor worthwhile.

They are moments that bring rejoicing in heaven and underline on earth the purpose of the church to make Christ known, to be missional, radical and biblical. This is the main thing, and as we know, the main thing is to keep the main thing, the main thing!!

Peter Baker