Driven by mission

I was pondering stuffz this morning. Easy to do early on a quiet morning looking at a calm lake while the kids are still snoozing. It strikes me that the church can either focus on events or focus on the mission of the church but not both. That is not to imply that all events are inherently not conducive to mission but that when it comes to our primary focus, it is one or the other.

It is easy to get so caught up in the next event of the church, the next "worship service" or meeting or the upcoming date on the liturgical calendar that we forget what we are called to do in the first place, i.e. love our neighbor and declare the Risen Lord. To make it more difficult, the events of the church seem so pious, so religiously acceptable that it becomes easy to think that engaging in events is the mission of the church. How can it be wrong to be busy with church stuff 24-7?

The gathering of the church is crucial to mission because of the way it encourages, edifies and equips us for the mission of the church. The gathering of the church is not the mission of the church. Edification is not an end unto itself. A church full of super edified people who are not encouraged and equipped to do the work of ministry is worthless. In other words the purpose of the church is not to go to church but we can spend all of our Christian lives so busy with church that we never actually get around to doing what the church is called to do in the first place.

We need to be driven by mission, not by events.