Mondays for Mission Teams 5.25.15
Mondays for Mission Teams 5.25.15
We are doing a weekly “West Workshop” on Mission Teams over the next couple months, and so I’m going to share notes from them on Mondays that may (or many not) help in your Mission Team Leadership.
Mission Statement Confusion
When we went through the Shift, we asked all of our Mission Teams to partner with the church by aligning their Compassion efforts with the mission of the church. We did this by asking them to fill in the following blank: “Our group helps people far from God experience Jesus by _____________ .”
I will be the first to admit that while this was well intended, there are two observations that we’ve made over the past two years: (1) It was a first try and something no one else—to my knowledge—is trying in their small group ministries. (2) Communication of what we were trying to do was not perfect.
So with that in mind we will continue to work on fine tuning and resourcing our Mission Teams and leaders until we have clarity. Yesterday in the workshop, this is what we covered:
What was Received
What was Meant
Go and do more stuff
Aligning around focused action
Group time is no longer for me
Balance of Worship, Love, Compassion
No More Bible Study
Faith in action, living the Bible
May need to change group/team
Activating everyone in and on mission
We must reach a consensus
Doing something trumps doing nothing
It is too complicated
How are you helping people experience Jesus?
Not adequate as a leader
It is who we are called to be as people of God
It is hard work
It is…but worth it
We don’t have time
Get in flow of natural action and relationships
More than anything, what we were/are trying to do is live out a proper ecclesiology, a proper understanding of the Church. Here are 3 more resources for you as leaders to try and get a bigger picture or clearer destination for what we are trying to do with Mission Teams:
Role in the Mission of God:
Mission Team Manifesto especially Compassion Defines Mission Teams
Scripture Foundation. Explore God’s Word as a Team for why we should be on Mission. This is what we rolled out two years ago. Did you actually provide the Biblical foundation?