“Your mission, should you choose to accept it….”
–Are you part of the Impossible Missions Force?
The subtitle for Robert Lupton’s book Toxic Charity is: “How churches and charities hurt those they help.”
Do we regularly stop to think about the cans we collect? The clothes we give away? The Christmas presents we provide? The turkeys we drop?
Do we stop to think if the charities we support might be contributing to the need they are supposed to be alleviating?
We can change the paradigm of harmful church activity by getting all of our Life Groups on a mission.
Missions are personal. ”Your mission, should you choose to accept it…”
There are no questions about who will own it, who will do it, who will take a step forward to relieve this holy discontent in the world. You step up. Seek what breaks God’s heart, create a mission around it, and then align it with what breaks your heart. Then you get moving.
Missions are involved. Missions require research, strategy and presence.
There is no chance to ‘dump and run’. A mission guarantees involvement because you can’t rely on the experts and the people that are already doing it. You have to do it! So you better figure out how.
Missions generate excitement. “This message will self destruct in five seconds.”
And with that statement, the mission is underway…and the clock is ticking.
Missions are creative. Think Tom Cruise dangling from thin wires.
I don’t remember a lot about the MI movies, but that image of Cruise’s character dangling from the wires is ingrained in our culture. It is an image of creative problem solving. A mission requires you to think about accomplishing goals from a different angle or viewpoint.
Missions can be completed. “Mission accomplished.”
The amount of ills and needs in society can be overwhelming to the point of paralysis. If all these organizations and experts can’t fix the problems, how can we? You can’t! But it is possible to identify a part of the problem, create a mission around it, and set out to accomplish that mission. Come what may. It may have a huge observable impact or it might miss. Chances are it will land somewhere in between. But you can set a goal, evaluate your progress towards the end, and reach the finish.
The famous opening quote above was given to the Impossible Mission Force. There was an escape clause in the mission because they are seemingly “impossible”; you’d have to be crazy to accept it. The Church has to be the one to take on the mountain moving problems of the world. We are the ones who can participate in impossible missions because we serve a God who has already taken on the impossible and answered with, “It is finished.” We are the Impossible Mission Force to the world. We are God’s people, sent to bless the nations. Start with getting your group on a mission in your community.
