Effective Mission

There have been quite a few conversations on the topic of "mission" lately. It seems everyone wants a voice in what the church is supposed to be and do. These are some very helpful conversations, and I would like to augment them by talking about effective mission. Effective mission is about actually carrying out the mission of the church. Theoretical talk about the mission of the church corporate needs to be supplemented with theoretical talk about the mission of the church local, but both need to be put into practice at some point to mean anything at all. Effective mission is about putting the mission into practice.

So how do we do that? How do we transition from a bunch of seminary egg-heads sipping $4 coffees and discussing the deeper things of "mission" (don't add an "s" on the end, or you will be forever branded as a theological troglodyte) to a bunch of seminary egg-heads actually doing mission? More importantly, how do we do it well? Today's post is about doing it well for the glory of God.

The center of the church's mission is the proclamation of the glorious good news. I choose those words carefully because we want to be careful to avoid some thorny pitfalls. The mission of the church is not centered upon saving the lost. God does that. Nor is it centered upon good works or being all that we can be in the Lord's army. Now to truly proclaim the gospel we have to live it. And when we do, God will use that to draw men to himself and gloriously save them. But the role of the church in all this is a living witness of God's grace, not a soul-winning machine or social justice engine. So any effective mission has to be able to effectively share the gospel.

For this reason, discussions of effective mission must at some point touch upon logic, rhetoric, and communication. Understand, a person or church or denomination might have a perfectly true gospel proclamation and yet have a quite ineffective mission. Sometimes this ineffectiveness has got to do with method or practice. This post is not about that. This post is about ineffective communication. I am not a pragmatist, but there is a certain amount of wisdom in Spurgeon's counsel that a man of the cloth aught to have an expansive chest. Modern microphone technology may have leveled the contemporary oratory playing field, but his point still stands - a pastor is a communicator, and must take that seriously. That being said, I would like to suggest that effective mission requires effective communication, and effective communication can be accomplished with a three-fold strategy.

1. Recognize the communication zeitgeist

If you haven't got around the "real world" lately, you might want to take a course or two on contemporary rhetoric. You can find a lot of good resources online. Here's the Cliff Notes^©: Educational institutions, international corporations, and not for profits all have communication policies in place which require associates to speak in morally neutral and relative terms. For example, if you catch an employee stealing, it is incorrect to say, "You shouldn't steal." Instead, one should say, "It is against MegaCorp's policy to embezzle funds." These two characteristics have implications for how we proclaim the gospel. First, the common "hellfire and brimstone" approach of yesteryear will not only be misunderstood, it will probably be automatically classified as the degenerate ramblings of a brainwashed, fundamentalist lunatic who probably has a bomb in the pulpit and a .357 magnum in his truck in the parking lot (innocent of the bomb charge, no comment on the other). There is absolutely nothing wrong with preaching hellfire and brimstone, and some contexts might demand just that. But most of the time this approach simply won't connect with the audience. Don't put a stumbling block before people just because you like a certain delivery style. Second, any truth presented must have a relative anchor. It usually won't do in our culture to say "because the Bible says", even if that is a perfectly valid answer. A better approach is usually to explain the historical thread of a given doctrine or idea. In general, if you can establish a tradition, most people will accept it as valid, even if they reject it. This not-too-subtle rhetorical approach uses the culture's presuppositions against them. Because they see truth as an exponent of individual human experience, they cannot discount historical theology without also discounting their own ideas. This is called the "Admiral Ackbar Maneuver".

2. Explain what Christianity is

The truth is that many Americans simply have no idea what Christianity is. Explaining Christianity will require the negative act of tearing down bad misconceptions, and the positive act of building up proper understanding. Be sure to incorporate the previous rhetorical strategy to be most effective.

3. Play hard to get

I know that sounds counter intuitive, but in our culture things advertised as free - or worse, pushed at us - are automatically classified as greedy, corporate, swindling, deceptive, manipulative...and the list goes on. The gospel should be presented clearly, but instead of emphasizing the "free" aspect, emphasize the cost. Discipleship is not for everyone. There will be a real cost to following Jesus. Your audience will appreciate the transparency, and your message will be more effective. Remember, in our culture "free" is associated with annoying pop-up ads blocking your view in Angry Birds.

In conclusion, preach the gospel! But please, take the time to serve people well. I don't think there's a brownie badge in heaven for being too lazy to think through your rhetorical strategy well.