Should We Change the Definition of Missions?

When you see something interesting once, you might make a mental note of it and move on. When you see it on a recurring basis, you start writing the information down and and start analyzing it.

While we were studying successful church ministries to Young Adults, we kept seeing the same thing.

1. These churches were missional churches who did something concrete to improve the community around them, our country and the world, all in the powerful, redemptive name of Jesus Christ.
2. They let people outside the church take part in this service and through the process, many of those outside the church who took part were saved.

Let me give you an example…

I talked to a great young missions leader at Mariners Church in Orange County, California at a conference. They take their young adult members to serve children in an orphanage in Baja. They also take friends of these church members, some of whom are not believers in Christ. This missions leader told me some of these folks are saved on the bus trip back from Baja as a result of how they had seen Jesus Christ work powerfully in that orphanage that week. He told me this with some chuckling, because he said, “this kind of messes up our funnel about how we get people into the church. The missions experience is supposed to come after they are saved.”

Let me give you another example…

Here in Middle Tennessee several blowing and going churches have sent groups to the Mississippi Gulf Coast and the New Orleans area to serve the victims of Hurricane Katrina by rebuilding homes and in general showing love to the people who have been affected by this tragedy. These churches have also allowed people outside the church to go along with them, and again, there have been people saved because of what they have seen of the love of Jesus in the midst of this service.

Are you seeing a similar trend in missions/service? How messy is it to do this?