Missions As Outreach: Doing for our Neighbors

     In my experience, there are two ways that the missions of the church are used as an outreach tool to the surrounding community.  The first is what might be called 'the client' method.  A mission is set up with the intention of recruiting those who receive the benefits of that mission into the church community.

    Presently, the most wide spread example is probably a church establishing a child care facility.  As a tool of recruitment, the theory is that families who send their children to the child care facility  will then avail themselves of membership in the congregation.    

    Child care is not the only example.  Another might be a social justice missions for immigrants that seek then to recruit those they serve.  Missions that serve those with food insecurity may invite them to join the congregation.  I see these as 'client' based recruitment.  This is the basic problem.  If the theology of the mission is to make people beholden to the congregation, 'in debt' to the church, a debt 'paid' by joining the church, it is a flawed theology.  It is a flawed way of thinking about how to do God's work in mission.

    The second method of mission as a tool of outreach is in a 'partnership' model.  Instead of recruiting those whom a mission might serve, the focus is on those with a passion to participate in such a mission as an expression of their faith.  In other words, their love of Christ can find expression in the work of the mission.

    In this case, a church seeks to recruit those with a passion to help others, to join in the 'doing' of the mission in the name of Jesus.  It is an opportunity for those who want to serve others to find that service in the cburch.  They become members of a like-minded community of people, in Jesus.    

    The church is then built upon a foundation of those seeking to serve others, instead of 'billing' those who are being served, an obligagtion discharged by joining the church.  This is not to say that the Lord will not lead 'clients' to join the congregation.  However, it has been my experience, directly and indirectly, that churches offering child care services do not recruit the families.  

    Doing for our neighbors is not about bringing them 'into the fold'.  It is simply about showing our love for our neighbors as we seek to address issues and problems that we may be well placed to answer.  Rather, 'success' in outreach is found in partnering with like-minded folks to offer the mission in the name of Christ.  

    That is where the intersection of mission and outreach is to be realized, always in Christ.