What would it look like if…

Well, in about a week, Conan O’Brien comes back on the air.  I loved Conan on “Late Night” and was pretty disappointed that he was pushed off of The Tonight Show.  Conan had a lot of funny bits, one of them called “What If They Mated?”  The premise was simple:  take two celebrities that were rumored dating (or just two that would make the view laugh) and digitally combine their features.  It would make some of the most hideous pictures imaginable out of two of the most “attractive” people in celebritidom.

I bring this up because I got done reading a book by Reggie McNeal recently called Missional Renaissance:  Changing the Scorecard for the Church.  This book builds upon another of McNeal’s books in which he challenges common assumptions within the church, pushing from the wrong question to a new, tougher question the Church must ask itself.  In Missional Renaissance, McNeal offers a view of what it would look like if churches were to evaluate their effectiveness of ministry based upon missional values and priorities.  He offers three changes in evaluation, and for the next few blog posts, I want to focus on these.

The first shift of evaluation in missionally focused church is moving from an internal focus to an external focus.  If churches were to embrace a missional priority (being sent rather than bringing people in), the church would focus on what it is doing in the world rather than its internal growth.  The kinds of questions being asked would be “How many of our people are serving in the local community?” or “How can we empower people to love their neighbor?”  The power of this shift is that it calls a church to focus on BEING the church rather than going to church.  I was sharing this idea with a friend of mine when he pointed out, “My wife (who worked in the school system with special needs children) pointed out that she spends her entire day in ministry to the kids at her school, and our church doesn’t have a way of measuring that as ministry.  It’s only when I do something for our church’s Children’s ministry that they count me as being in ministry.”  Externally focused church celebrate the ministry their people are doing, no matter what.

There are a number of ways that churches can shift their focus from internal to external.  One is through how we invite people to pray.  Too often we teach that prayer focuses on ourselves, our own “relationship with God.”  Missonally-focused prayer means moving beyond our needs (or wants), trusting that God is already meeting them, and praying for the world around us.  One way is to go into a place in the community where people tend to be (shopping malls, parks, etc) and simply pray that you could see what God sees.  It might mean praying for a community leader (mayor, principal, police chief/sheriff, etc), even contacting them to see how you can pray for them.

Another way of transitioning from an internal to an external focus of ministry is to partner with other organizations rather than creating your own.  If your church is wanting to start a basketball ministry for youth, why not join with the Boys/Girls club rather than start something else?  If you want to serve the elderly, contact a local retirement community and ask if there was something that they have been wanting to do for their residents but just don’t have the people to be able to do it.

One last idea:  Celebrate those people in your church that do ministry outside of what your church plans.  Maybe that means lifting up those in the health-care industry, or teachers or social workers.  It could mean hearing the stories of those that volunteer in the school or hospital.  Whatever it is, don’t simply celebrate those that are doing ministry in the church:  Lift up those that are loving their neighbors in every way, shape and form.

We’ve been taught that evaluating the church is typically based upon three questions:  “How many in worship?”, “How financially solvent?”, and “How many programs (and how big are they)?”  These are great for evaluating the organization, but not great in terms of evaluating the impact a church is having on their community.  Missional churches focus on different questions:  “How many people are loving their neighbor and how?”, “How much of your church’s budget is used to serve the needy in your community and world?”  and “What community organizations is your church supporting?”  What would it look like if we evaluated our churches on these questions rather than the former?

So, I wonder, how do you find yourself focusing externally rather than internally?  How do you look for where God is at work in the world around you?  And then how have you joined in?  I can’t wait to hear.

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