My definition of church as a young adult were clearly shaped by my church experiences as a child. Regardless of whether we grew up as part of a church, or did not experience church until adulthood, those first church experiences effect and define our idea of church.
My church met on Sunday mornings. We had 300-400 that attended. There were “worship services” that were held for the youth and adults and classes and activities for the preschool and elementary kids. I could never tell that there was much worship or service going on in those “worship services” – but that is what we called them.
I came to think of the church as the building where we met on Sunday mornings for our gathering. It was part of being a Southerland that you were “going to church” on Sunday mornings. So I thought of the church primarily as the building where we went for that Sunday morning gathering of people.
When I became a Christ follower as a senior in high school, I began running with some other like-minded Christ followers who started talking of the church not as a building, but primarily as the people of God who were following Christ and His mission. And they did not just talk of the church as the gathering of those Christ followers on Sunday morning, but also as the sending of those Christ followers throughout the week.
This was mind boggling to me then and is still mind boggling to me now – because I now know it is true.
The church does gather for teaching and worship and motivation. But the church also scatters – as the church is sent out into the community. In fact, we gather for 1-2 hours a week, but we are on mission and sent all week long.
Sounds like it is time to emphasize the scattering and the sending more than the gathering and the meeting.
Allen Hirsch says it this way – and says it well:
“The word missional goes to the heart of the very nature and purpose of the church itself. So a working definition of missional church is a community of God’s people that defines itself, and organizes its life around, its real purpose of being an agent of God’s mission to the world. In other words, the church’s true and authentic organizing principle is mission. When the church is on mission, it is the true church. The church itself is not only a product of that mission but is obligated and destined to extend it by whatever means possible. The mission of God flows directly through every believer and every community of faith that adheres to Jesus. To obstruct this is to block God’s purposes in and through God’s people.”
David Bosch adds this insight:
“Mission must be understood as being derived from the very nature of God. It is thus put in the context of the doctrine of the Trinity, not of ecclesiology or soteriology. The classical doctrine on the missio Dei as God the Father sending the Son, and God the Father and the Son sending the Spirit is expanded to include yet another “movement”: The Father, Son and the Holy Spirit sending the church into the world. As far as missionary thinking is concerned, this linking with the doctrine of the Trinity constitutes an important innovation …
Our mission has not life of its own: only in the hands of the sending God can it truly be called mission. Not least since the missionary initiative comes from God alone …Mission is thereby seen as a movement from God to the world; the church is viewed as an instrument for that mission. There is church because there is mission, not vice versa. To participate in mission is to participate in the movement of God’s love toward people, since God is a fountain of sending love.”
Do not miss what these two great missiologists are saying. It is not that the church has a mission. It is that the mission has a church. It is the mission of redeeming the world that brought about the existence of the church.
It is not the fact that we gather and meet that defines us. It is the fact that we scatter and are sent that is central to our mission. The gathering and meeting of the church is only meant to deepen and equip us for the scattering and the sending.
Those Sunday morning meetings are not the truest definition of church. The church is the people of God who are on mission with God to reach and redeem the world.
We have made it about Sunday morning. It has always been about the entire week!
I am not against Sunday morning or against gatherings. Quite the opposite is true. I am leading a two month old church with 300 gathering every Sunday morning. But our purpose of gathering on Sunday morning is to train us to be on mission all week long. Our Sunday morning gatherings are to serve the greater purpose which is the mission of the church. We are sent by God. We are on mission with God. We are an essential part of His plan to redeem the world.
We have emphasized the Sunday morning gatherings for decades. It might be time to emphasize the week long sending and scattering for a while.