Blacksoil

One of the kinks we’ve been working out at Blacksoil as we continue this project in doing church in a new way is the question of corporate mission or corporate calling. More specifically: what does it look like for a body, a church, a group of Jesus-followers to be in mission together?

The GOCN’s fifth indicator of a missional church is that it “seeks to discern God’s specific missional vocation for the entire community and for all its members.” I should say that part of what I assume “specific missional vocation of the community” to mean in our context is that our neighborhood groups will discern some sustained activity that each group member will participate in and contribute to in some form. So for example, if the group discerns that God is calling it to feed the hungry in our neighborhood, perhaps not everyone will directly serve food; some might fundraise money for the supplies, some will cook, some might pray over the ministry, some will just engage in conversation with those who get fed. But everyone in the group will be participating and contributing in some way, on the basis of individual gifts and calling.

Some folks in our neighborhood group have raised concerns that if you define the group’s calling too narrowly–”Our mission is to feed the hungry people in the area”–that you might loose sight of the Church’s broad mission: to be in Christ, and to call others to be in Christ. Another concern was raised: If only one project or activity is discerned, what if I don’t want to do that? (Maybe I don’t like feeding hungry people.)

On the one hand, these are valid concerns. A body that defines it self by doing rather than by being is in danger of getting off-track. To use the big theological words, the church must primarily be defined ontologically, and secondarily defined missionally. And of course its true that there is always power in any human relations and, therefore, some danger of imposing one person’s agenda on other in the group.

But on the other hand, in our consumer culture it seems we are much more likely to fall in a ditch on the other side of the road. We elevate the individual and his/her ability to do whatever she wants whenever she wants, and we don’t tend to think of groups or communities as having value (other than meeting the needs of the individual). But the biblical picture of churches–a human body–is so much more interdependent and interconnected than that.

So what does it look like for a group to be involved in mission together (in a way that’s substantially different enough from traditional American churches to warrant a label like “missional”)? How specifically does the calling need to be defined? (E.g., Is “loving people in the name of Christ” specific enough?) And how high does the level of commitment need to be from each member of the group?