Unite Southampton

Normally advertisers tell us that cars are fast, shiny and great at cornering whilst causing a wave of spray to arc up from the road. To have an exciting life, you need this car because it is "exciting" is the message.

Recently some car company or other (and it would make this post much slicker if I could remember which one) decided that their car was none of the above, and so was hard to sell as exciting. What it was good at however was putting kids in the back with all their stuff in the boot and driving to places to do fairly ordinary things. The message - doing things with your kids is the biggest adventure you can have.

The way the church does mission is very similar. Serving God is exciting if it involves high impact projects, big stages and tall PA towers. But what about mission that just involves doing things with your kids? Or colleagues, neighbours, friends and family? Might be harder to sell, but is it worth doing?

This post says much more on this subject. I recommend a read. Here's a snippet:

I believe there is a gap between what we think mission and evangelism is and what they are in reality.

Often there is this notion of ‘attempting great things for God’, ‘leading many people to Christ’, or ‘taking the city for Jesus’. I’m sure you have heard these phrases if you have been around church for any length of time.

By comparison, I have rarely heard mission spoken of as loving your neighbour, of living with integrity, or simply falling in line with whatever God asks you to do.