On Jesus and Mission Statements

I was a youth minister during the time when churches turned to mission statements. In the 80s and 90s, many churches spent lots of time, paid consultants, and noodled with language for hours to wordsmith the perfect mission, vision, or purpose statement. In some churches–not all--once the statement was perfected and posted in publications and signage, it was all but forgotten. Nothing really changed to align practice with purpose. The actual implementation of ministry effort of the church was not measured against the stated mission statement that hung on the wall. I remember a staff meeting in which the pastor declared that if we had anything on our ministry calendar (youth, children, worship, family life) that did not align or support the mission statement of the church, we should cancel it and plan something else. 

AS honest as I can be, I am guilty. I make a plan, declare an intention, strategize a vision–then I get distracted, discouraged, or just distant. I want to follow through, but my attention wanders, I get pushback from others, or my plans hit unexpected obstacles. So I either give up or drift away from what I planned to some watered-down version.  Father, keep teaching me how to stay on my plan if it is Your plan.

In my morning quiet time, I am making my way through the New Testament this year (I am using the ESV Daily Devotional New Testament). I have made it to Luke and I am starting to notice times when Jesus said, “this is why I came” or something similar. Even as a 12 year old in the temple, Jesus said that He must be about His Father’s business (Luke 2:49). 

Several times in Jesus’ life, He shows that He was a man on a mission. He had a purpose, which He intentionally fulfilled. When He began His earthly ministry, Jesus returned to His hometown of Nazareth. After reading the Isaiah scroll, Jesus said,

He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: 18 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” 20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. 21 He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” Luke 4:16-21

In just a few verses later, Jesus spoke clearly about His mission. 

At daybreak, Jesus went out to a solitary place. The people were looking for him and when they came to where he was, they tried to keep him from leaving them. 43 But he said, “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.” 44 And he kept on preaching in the synagogues of Judea. Luke 4:42-44

And near the end of His earthly life, Jesus “resolutely set out for Jerusalem,” where He knew He would be killed (Luke 9:51). In Luke 4, Jesus showed that as important as it is to heal, His purpose was to proclaim the good news. In Luke 19, Jesus had been accused of eating with sinners–which He did. He said that dinner was part of His actual mission:

“The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” Luke 19:10

As individuals, churches and even denominations, we are prone to forget what we started out to do when we began to follow Jesus. As important as budgets and calendars and ministry activity is, it is not as important as sharing the gospel with people who need to hear about the redeeming love of a Father who avoided mission drift. The history, the prophecy, the poetry, and the gospels all point to the singular purpose of the Father:

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. John 3:16-17