The title of the mission is "The Ultimate 10,080 Minutes'. Each event features the word "Ultimate'. Our original idea was to call the mission "Who Cares?', but that was deemed a bit too PoMo and edgy for our target audience.
“But I thought we were edgy?” I said to fearless mission leader Sam.
“Everything in moderation, Craig,” he replied.
First day of mission and the pressure was on my section immediately " we were running a combined church service. Back on the mission planning day, we had conceived the event as a church service in the park. Our church is full of creative, marketing types, so I sent a couple of them off to come up with a title. Half an hour later they were back.
“Ok,” I said. “What are we going to call the church in the park event?”
“We’re going to call it ‘Church in the Park’.”
“Nice,” I said. “It’s punchy, it’s direct " and it’s ironic in a post-modern, anti-corporate sort of way. I like it.”
But all wasn’t well. Fearless mission leader Sam rang me up a few days later. “Church in the Park is not a go-er,” he said.
“But we’ve already come up with a name!”
“Sorry, we can’t make it happen with council. You’ll still be running a combined service, but it will in their normal meeting place.”
“What are we going to call it?”
“I dunno. ‘Church in the Church’ I guess.”
“Is that ironic?” I asked.
“Yeah, sure, whatever.”
“Brilliant!” I exclaimed.
‘Church in the church’ it was. The event virtually ran itself " very slick and polished. I said to Carrie, “See, all the hard work we put into the title has paid off.”
She looked at me a bit oddly " I wonder if she is feeling a bit sick?
Anyway, Dominic preached on Matthew 4, on being “fisher’s of men”. No punches were pulled as he told the audience that Jesus called us to “fish” for lost souls, and we needed to repent if that was not a priority in our lives.
There was an excitement in the team mission room later on. The first event was over and it had gone well. Time to do some fishing…