Saturday, October 17, 2009

What does it mean to be a mission-driven church?

There are two kinds of congregations today. There are mission-driven churches, and there are member-driven churches. They are vastly different in many respects. Member-driven churches are focused on trying to keep the greatest number of members in the congregation "content." This usually involves keeping changes to a minimum, avoiding anything that is controversial, and always playing it safe.

Mission-driven churches are focused on accomplishing their God-given mission as a church. This means that they are willing do whatever it takes to get the job done. This usually involves making frequent changes in order to be more and more effective, thinking "outside the box," and being willing to take big risks. They are different from member-driven churches in another important way –- they are growing and reaching the lost!

Crossroads is a mission-driven congregation. Our mission is to connect people to God and to each other. You see the results of our pursuit of that mission every single Sunday morning: new faces, new families, and new believers being baptized. These things are not happening by chance but by the Sovereign work of God, as we intentionally seek the lost with passion and intensity.

As we make plans, we look for ways to bring the lost into our building and to connect them to God and our people. Some people will simply come to a worship service. Others will never accept an invitation to church because they have preconceived ideas about what church is and who Christians are. This is why we do more than just "have church."

For example, on Saturday, November 28th, Crossroads Christian Church will host its first-ever wrestling show, as a fundraiser for our summer mission trip. Guy Louks and NWA Indiana, his wrestling company, will have this show in our auditorium. It will be extremely family friendly and entertaining because it is, of course, a show. Those who are committed to the mission trip will be helping out with the show and providing the concessions.

Now I know this idea is a little unusual for a church, but think about it from the perspective of our mission. We will have over 120 people from our community attending this show who might never normally enter our building on Sunday. I will have an opportunity to share with them during the evening and invite them back for church. I don't know how many will come back, but I think it is worth the risk.

We have another outreach event planned in December. We are again hosting a Life Line Screening on Saturday, December 19th, from 8:00 a.m. - 5:30 p.m. Life Line will be doing a tremendous amount of advertising in our community for this event. It will draw a distinctively different crowd of people into our building. It costs us nothing but the use of our building. Both events help us to accomplish our mission by helping us connect with vastly different groups of people in our community.

You see, it does not matter whether a person is coming to get screened for osteoporosis or to root for their favorite wrestler; the opportunity is the same. They are coming to us and we are connecting with them. Please be praying for these events and asking God to use them to help change a person's eternal destiny through Jesus Christ.

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