Every Monday I post about being “on mission” with Christ. I’ll spend a couple of months asking you to think with me about the principles in Milfred Minatrea’s book, Shaped By God's Heart: The Passion and Practices of Missional Churches. Find previous posts on this subject here.
"Those who intend to be missional know they cannot be everything and do everything. They are focused on the purpose for which they have been sent and they are not taking their eyes off that purpose."
That's what Milfred Minatrea calls "Missional Purpose Number Seven"--order actions according to one's purpose.
"A mission statement has to focus on what the institution really tries to do," said corporate management expert, Peter Drucker, "and then do it so that everybody in the organization can say, 'This is my contribution to the goal.'"
Regardless of a mission statement on a wall plaque, a church's real purpose is determined by how it allocates its time and resources. Missional churches intentionally organize their calendars and budgets to reflect what they intend to accomplish. Likewise, Minatrea says, missional churches courageously stop doing things that do not fulfill their purpose.
At Hillcrest, our purpose is to be a place where northwest Austin can find and follow Jesus together. Every Thursday I've been posting about this mission statement. Thankfully, there's very little at Hillcrest that doesn't fit that mission, so there's nothing I can think of that we have to courageously stop doing. But we have to consciously change some of our assumptions about the way we're doing what we're doing.
The biggest change is to expect lost people to show up at every activity we hold. Not just the "crusades" or the special talks aimed at conversion. Instead, from our class socials to our weekly worship services to our Sunday night gospel-music service to our H.I.L.L. classes, do we expect lost people to be there so that we are collectively finding and following Jesus together? If that's our expectation, how does it change our promotions and advertising? How does it change our presentation of the material? How does it change our announcements? What a difference it would make if we approached everything we do with the purpose of being a church where northwest Austin can find and follow Jesus together?
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