The Mission Service

Church Planting Series, Part eight

The grandson of a friend of mine became a pastor at a church where his grandfather had served many years before.

Imagine the thrill as the grandson sifted through old files and saw his own grandfather’s handiwork: minutes of board meetings, fliers from ministry initiatives, printed sermons and bible class notes.

As the grandson scanned old worship service bulletins, he kept coming across a calendar item that confused him. Each Sunday in the late afternoon there was a calendar listing called “The Mission Service.” What in the world was “The Mission Service”? The grandson was intrigued. In the worship bulletins after his grandfather left, “The Mission Service” listing disappeared. The church also began to decline.

It took just a few phones calls and personal visits to unravel the mystery. The old-timers remembered what “The Mission Service” was. Every Sunday afternoon the grandfather traveled to a neighboring community to hold a special service. The location of the worship service varied from community to community. Sometimes church members would attend; sometimes the pastor would venture out by himself. But every week the pastor tried something new. Some of the services kept going for months until a person was raised up to take over the worshiping community. Other services never caught on or “fizzled” out due to lack of response. But as an elderly man who grew up under the grandfather’s pastorate said, “Your grandfather taught us that a church should always be reaching new communities.”

This is a true story. This is how the church used to behave. This was NORMAL for the church. Pastors had multiple preaching stations. They tried new things. The congregation not only supported these efforts, they participated in this outreach. Why? Because a church was about reaching new communities.

The goal of a local church was not to become comfortable, or to acquire wealth, or to become the stylish place to be, or to be the “high-tech” church of the area. It was to reach new communities.

For the new pastor’s grandfather, the strategy was “The Mission Service”—-create some relationships in a new area, get people talking, do some publicity, knock on some doors, discover some needs, and go there to do something. Make a “splash” and see what God does with it.

These days we are challenged in two ways. First, we must not overlook the old and simple ways of reaching out. Get out of the office and try something! Bring the living Word of God with you and see what happens.

Second, we need to shatter the notion that a few “expert” paradigms from the last fifty years are the only options we have for church planting and ministry expansion. There are simple and exciting ways to reach meaningfully into communities. We just need to listen, watch, pray, and go to work.

What might make a “splash” for Jesus in an unreached area near you? What will your “Mission Service" look like?