Understanding Your Mission
In the next number of weeks, I am going to write a series of articles that address the directional questions church leaders need to answer. In my work as a consultant for many years, I helped a number of churches address these questions: What do we do? Why do we do it? How do we do it? Where are we going? Where do we start? and How do we know if we got there? The first and primary question is: “What do we do?” In other words, what is our mission? What is our purpose? Purpose addresses why we exist. Mission addresses what are we supposed to be doing. For churches this is not something that needs to be created. Our purpose and mission are one and the same. They are not drawn up in a board room but given to us by our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus gave us two clear directives. The first is the Great Commandment – to love the Lord with all our heart, mind, soul and strength, as well as love our neighbor as ourselves (Matt. 22:36-40). The second is the Great Commission – to go and make disciples of all nations who are baptized and taught to obey these commands (Matt. 28:18-20). We exist to love and glorify God. Our mission is to express that love for God and for our neighbors enough to share the gospel and help them become disciples who love and glorify God. If we are to be faithful leaders we must lead in a way that our mission trumps everything. Always, Every time. Such commitment becomes important when the mission is challenged by culture, personal preferences, traditions, or even the influence of financial givers. Mission is our true north that helps us navigate what we do and don’t do. How we do it is determined by how we answer the other questions. More to come.
– Dr. Gary Mathes