Real mission

Churches often play at mission. Eddie Gibbs, in his book Churchmorph, observes that new attempts in mission and outreach,

"will only gain significance as they reach out to the de-churched and never-churched segments of the population, rather than providing the latest attraction for bored, frustrated, or angry current churchgoers. They also need to be strongly in evidence in urban contexts, recognizing that our culture is driven by urban values and images, with suburbia increasingly becoming culturally marginalized".

Groups of Christians must find fresh identity. We have to shed the garments of ecclesial baggage and traditions that smell more of worldly culture than of Christ. We need to reinvent ourselves in Jesus' name. It's not enough to be nice people in community. As Gibbs also observes,

"The most vigorous forms of community are those that come together in the context of a shared ordeal or those that define themselves as a group with a mission that lies beyond themselves—thus initiating a risky journey". 

We really need to see 'the mission of God' as standing at the heart of our reason for being. Otherwise we are not simply irrelevant for our neighbour. Worse, we become irrelevant for God.