Breaking Out of the Box

No doubt you've heard the popular catchphrase, "Think outside the box." This encourages us to see things from new perspectives and not get caught in the old way of doing things simply because "that's the way we've always done it before."

Missions has a long and, to be honest, rather chequered history in the church. There are many good examples of missions throughout church history, from Paul's pure and passionate desire to share the Good News of God's love with the Gentiles, to Mother Theresa's humble mission to care for the poorest of the poor in Calcutta. But there are many extremely bad examples too, from Rome's forced Christianization of Europe at the point of a sword, to modern anti-gay protests organized by the "Christian right" piously proclaiming that "God hates fags." I could go on.

Missions here at Nassagaweya, to the best of my knowledge, has always meant financially supporting people and organizations who are engaging in "good causes" from a Christian perspective. Our support of Presbyterians Sharing, PWS&D, The Deck, Evangel Hall, Operation Christmas Child, Jewels for Jesus, and so on has undoubtedly led to a number of good things for many different people in our community and around the world. I, for one, am proud of the fact that our congregation commits to give away at least 10% of our revenues every year to mission organizations and projects. But has this automatic financial support become a "box" for us, something we do simply because that's what we do?

This Sunday, we're taking a bit of a break from our Spiritual Formation series to think about missions and what it might look like to break out of this narrow and incomlete view of missions. (Although it actually relates very well to our topic for next Sunday -- stay tuned for that!) How can we be involved in missions in a fuller, more engaging way? Is there more to missions involvement than raising and sending money to needy people through trusted organizations? What might that look like for a congregation such as ours?

In order to answer these questions, we will be welcoming Karen Plater as a special guest speaker this Sunday. Karen is the Associate Secretary for Stewardship and Education for Mission for the Presbyterian Church in Canada. She will bring her wealth of experience and insight in order to help us envision an expanded understanding of missions. In other words, she's coming to help us "think outside the box."

My prayer for us, though, is that this will lead us to not only think outside the box, but to actually break out of the box altogether and to engage in missions in a fuller, more meaningful way. Of course, that part of the equation doesn't lie with Karen Plater or the Presbyterian Church in Canada, it lies with you and me. So, please come on out this Sunday and be part of the conversation.