Last week I said this meme never dies, and linked another one. Here we are again — another week, another “formerly known” …it’s a good thing, for now we have The People Formerly Known as The Missions Committee:
Enclosed are the minutes from the last meeting:
1. Julie moved that “missions committee” makes no sense at all.
2. Jason seconded the motion. “Ayes” were unaninmous. Donuts were served, including the long ones with the sprinkles on just one end.
We, TPFKATMC, have thoroughly enjoyed writing checks worth 9-12% of the annual budget to “missions” organizations. That is, until we realized the church itself is supposed to BE a mission — the church IS the mission — and that spending 88% of our budget to provide for organizational “non-missions” (?) costs, goods, and services, was…kinda awkward.
So we quit.
And oh, this just scratches the surface of a golden post by Brant Hansen which describes, in a nutshell, why many people are moving from mission-minded to missional.
It’s a good distinction, and to add clarity to it in a different tone, you’ll want to read Ed Stetzer asking “Is your church missional?.” It’s a year old, but I just rediscovered it… there’s no direct link to it’s place on the page, so scroll down until you find a green image of two guys with money and some statistics illustrating that people with money don’t need God that made me ask why anyone would think God wants us to be rich if it means it’s harder for us to get into heaven because we stop thinking we need — okay, that’s not relevant here. Right below that is Ed Stetzer’s explanation of what a missional church is and how that differs from being a mission-minded church.
So what do you think? What’s the role of the “missions committee” (or should it stay dissolved), and are the concepts of being missional or mission-minded in conflict, or are they just two sides of the same coin?
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