Missional Ecclesiology

Ok.This might sound confusing, but it's not really. Tonight in class we're talking about what missions in the church should look like. Ecclesiology is just the study of the church and it's workings. So...how does missions fit into this?

It bothers me that so many churches spend all kinds of money and effort to support things that shouldn't always come first. Like spending thousands of dollars for a brand new building or new signs when that same church can't pay it's own staff. And a church that can't even pay its staff is not very likely to do things to help the people down the street.

Or, they might be found in the other extreme. We find so many churches that are putting thousands of dollars to support a long list of missionaries overseas...yet what are we doing about the homelessness downtown? Most churches don't want "that kind of person" to sit on their pews for fear of making them dirty. Essentially, we don't understand what it means to be missional. We don't understand what it means to take care of someone that doesn't look or sound (or smell) like we do. But we're willing to pay someone else to do our job outside our boarders. Americans are such lazy consumers.

Now, don't get me wrong. I believe that we need to have missionaries in countries around the world. We need to be a light that shines in the dark places all over our planet. But I also understand that not everyone is called to pack up and go somewhere far away and do that. It's hard. It takes skills. And not just bowstaff skills. I realize that there are people right now that are doing some amazing things...it's just that not all of us are going to be able to do that.

But there is a definite problem when people are willing to just sit back in their comfy little pews and give money to someone they don't know just because they need to 'do something good.' We can't just rest on our laurels and hope that someone else will do good if we just give them money. We're paying someone else to do something that we should be doing all along.

Why aren't more churches involved in figuring out the problems in the city they find themselves in? Why are we targeting rich neighborhoods and rich people that we know will bring in a larger tithe instead of going into the ghetto next door to the people that know what it means to suffer and are literally dying for some hope?

I think we are afraid to get our hands dirty. We're afraid to let our children see a homeless person because we're afraid of what might happen if they see the truth. We're afraid that they might rub off on them -- to the point that we're not willing to rub off on them. We won't feed them because they might come back for more. We won't talk to them because they are all murderers and they'll kill us....wait, what?

Let's be different. Let's make a difference. Let's stop paying someone else to do our job. Let's be like Jesus -- let's hang out with prostitutes, drug addicts, homeless persons, punk kids, and cranky old guys at the mall. And lets let other 'Christians' judge us poorly for hanging out with sinners.