Missing

I just read another great blog here that you might have missed because of its title. (I do hope some of you take a look at the other blogs we follow from time to time; they tell some great stories!)

But this one has a bit of foreboding in the title. And it’s really a great message about a congregation that’s found its mission in the community where it’s planted. Pastor Jan is a Presbyterian minister in Washington D.C. who is struggling to respond to the many professional ordained ministers who seem to be leaving the institutional church. She, herself, is not going anywhere! She’s staying right there in a congregation that has found its place in its neighbourhood.

“Would anyone care or notice if your church went missing?” is a question researchers ask us. And Pastor Jan answers with a resounding “Yes.” Then she goes on to recount several stories of the very folks who would surely miss her congregation if they “went missing.”

After you’ve read her story, spend some time thinking about all the people that would miss your church if it weren’t there. That’s the important part of this posting. We encourage you all the time to think about your mission. What is God calling you to do in the neighbourhood where you’ve been planted? How have you made your congregation indispensable to the people who share that neighbourhood with you? Who would say to you: Thank God your church is here?

Those are the reminders we may need when we read “the mission of Jesus Christ is what matters most for the journey ahead.” Sec.164:9f

I’m going to quote her:

“Yes, the community would miss us if we were gone. We are truly the church of Jesus Christ in our little corner of suburban Washington, D.C. Our carpets are dirty and our parking lot could use a re-paving job. But we are doing what God has called us to do. And we could do even more.”

How about you? Have you got your eyes off your carpets and your parking lot and fixed them on being Jesus Christ to your neighbours? ‘Cause I hear that’s what matters most.

Posted by Marion