Member Mission
Member mission is based on seven basic truths about God
and our relationship with the Lord.
God is on mission. God is on mission everywhere all the time. God is always working with us and through us to make the world all that it can be. Wherever there is love and justice, God is at work. The Lord's mission is to bring love and justice wherever they are blocked and to maintain or increase them where they are already present.
God's mission has a church. The church does not have a mission. Rather, God's mission has a church. The church is the visible instrument of God's mission and, so, collaborates with any person or group working for greater love and justice.
God is as concerned about how we live from Monday to Saturday as about what we do on Sunday. We know about "congregational missions" at church or under the church's "banner." Beyond church, the other kind of mission work begins. "Member missions" are what church members do daily on their own at home, at work, in their communities, in the wider world, during their leisure, and for their spiritual health, as well as what they do in their church's life and its outreach. Since, the members go everywhere in the world each day, what they do can have far greater impact on the world than what they do together as church.
Today, churches are often sidelined when critical decisions are made. But, the members are not! Spirituality – our relationship with God and how it influences what we do – needs to go public. Go beyond a spirituality focused on our private lives and inner struggles. Focus on our public lives where we can often do the most good for Christ by carrying our Christian values into the world. We do not impose our beliefs on others but, rather, to allow our faith to guide our behavior in every facet of our lives. This way we can influence the political, social, and individual decisions that affect everyone.
Move toward making your congregation's basic purpose be to support all of the members in their daily living as Christians. In time, let this become its primary purpose. More and more of you will come to see that it's in this purpose that God's greatest presence and power can be found. God's work in the world will thrive.
We are God's coworkers; Jesus Christ is the victor over evil and shares that power over evil with us. As we choose to do God's work, we look to Jesus for help to get it done. Jesus overcame evil in his lifetime through his teaching and healing. Even crucifixion did not kill Jesus or destroy his message. His resurrection is the ultimate victory over evil. Evil will never have the final say. We are not alone when we struggle with evil. We join Jesus in his mission—"As the Father has sent me, so I send you . . . Receive the Holy Spirit" (John 20:21-22). He shares his power with us, the power of the Holy Spirit, to cope with evil, sin, and death in our own daily missions.
Our daily missions are to live the gospel in each of our daily mission fields. We are here to love each other and to seek justice for all. We share in God's mission by what we do and by what we say. We draw on our church life and each other for the support, the guidance, and the power we need to do God's work.
Watch Member Mission Presents Videos to hear personal stories about living God's mission in various aspects of everyday life from Monday through Saturday!