Missional: Preservation or Persevering?

Recently I read several quotes from Church leaders about the lukewarm Church in America. I received these quotes on a page from a local ministry to the poor - Empty Tomb, a ministry that has put beliefs into action. One of the quotes on that page caught my eye because I have been thinking a lot recently about what it means for our church to be missional. Here is the quote that stopped my reading down the page.

"Presbyterian (USA) pastor and organizer Robert Linthicum observed, 'The church has always talked about mission, but we organize ourselves for preservation, not mission.' Jerry Van Marter, 'Giving It All Away'; Presbyterian News Service; posted 1/17/07; ; pp1-3 of 8/4/07 5:06 PM printout."

That is a Cliff's Notes version of what it is to avoid being missional: organizing ourselves for preservation, not mission. Mission is risky. We may not survive. But if we risk being missional, we may live like we have never lived before. We may reproduce that new life in others. It seems like I have read that before. Jesus said: "I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit" (John 12:24).

So to be missional must be the reverse of that - to organize ourselves around mission rather than merely preserving ourselves. To be willing to die to live is to be missional. To be missional is to persevere with the mission Jesus gave us: to go into all the world and make disciples.

Jesus also said "those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it" (Luke 9:24). Save their life sounds a lot like preserving their life to me. What it means to be missional is getting clearer. It is to lose your life for Jesus' sake. To be missional is to persevere in losing, for Jesus' sake.