Our culture is fast-paced, goal-oriented and outcome-driven.
Christians live within culture and cannot help taking on some of the aspects of it - many of which are helpful. But there is a downside.
Goal-driven, outcome-focused living often causes action to be short-term. We see this when CEOs have their performance bonuses determined on only twelve month timeframes.
Another consequence is that we can become ‘utilitarian’. That is, we use people, circumstances and things around us to achieve our goals. We focus only on the things that are central to our task.
This is sometimes seen in our treatment of where we live. Our homes are just where we sleep. We don't interact with our suburb. We live where we do because it is convenient in the attainment of our task.
That we focus and have short-term goals is good and is necessary to make life liveable. You just cannot relate to everyone all the time. But it comes at a cost. One of the costs is our failure to partner missionaries in our church life.
Missionaries and church life
Our focused outcome-based lives are in danger of causing us to lose our missionary heart! (I must admit to a vested interest in what I now say, as I teach student ministers at Moore College).
Our churches are busy, with lots of programs running. In our busy churches when someone informs the congregation that they are leaving to begin a formal full-time theological education we feel joy at their decision and sadness at losing them. We often have a public farewell and sometimes give them a book voucher so they can purchase important theological books. We then pray for them, and sometimes continue to pray in church on occasions.
But I think we have more to do.
Our churches must take responsibility not merely for saying goodbye but for sourcing those who should leave us to be missionaries elsewhere (whether in Australia or overseas). It is our responsibility to put the question about serving the Lord in other places to those we are convinced should do so.
But it is an even bigger task than that. We should not only find missionaries, but should create them. From the time God brings people - adults and children - into our midst we should be sharing the magnificent truths of the gospel in such a way that hearts will be gripped by proclaiming Christ, and then we should develop pathways for people to grow in being proclaimers of the Word.
What will it look like?
Every congregation has the ability and the flexibility to determine how this should be implemented, but here are some things to think about:
"¢ establish a financial support program at church, so that those whom we recruit to ministry can be supported through the College days.
"¢ have those who have left you come back once a year to fill us in on what has been happening. In fact why not use Moore College Sunday in a couple of weeks?
"¢ put time into your student ministers and their spouses. It is easy to think that we only have them for a year or two, so we won't really get to know them. Any valuable time you spend with students may be used to help shape them, so that you can participate in God's mission to the world.
