Local ownership inflates mission

Natasha Percy | 28 May 2007

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The first week of May saw 16 Moore College mission teams in Sydney churches for a week of outreach.

The Rev Paul Sampson of Sylvania Anglican Church said his church felt the benefits of the visits.

“It’s encouraging for us to have a team of young, capable people to give an injection of energy to do things we can’t normally do,” says Mr Sampson.

However the real challenge churches face is fitting a mission week into everyday life and strategy, according to youth mission expert Jodie McNeill.

“By running a plethora of evangelistic events we often infer that we consider our normal Sunday church to be unsuitable for non-Christians,” he says.

The Head of Moore College’s Ministry Department, Archie Poulos, says follow-up processes are crucial for ensuring mission is not a ‘one-week wonder’.

“Ideally, churches have done preparation for mission and we’re just adding momentum to the mission that the church is engaged in,” he explains.

“There’s a difference between the process and the event – the real benefit comes when the mission is part of the process of what the church is doing.”

In the weeks leading up to the mission, members of both Concord and Sylvania parishes had specific training.

The Rev Chris Chardon from Concord says that the 19 church members trained in a course based on Tough Questions are now following up those who expressed interest in Christianity during the mission. Having events planned beyond the mission is another strategy Sylvania and Concord parishes have used to keep mission in the congregation’s mindset.

“It’s having activities that have a tail at the back of mission week, so that when the guys pack up on Sunday night, our mission doesn’t end,” Mr Sampson says.

A sense of ownership of the mission amongst the congregation is the essential ingredient in ensuring mission is a part of church life, rather than a week of events, says Mr Chardon. At Concord, church members organised mission events, or accompanied students with doorknocking or handouts.

Lay member John Hughson coordinated Concord’s mission week events and says getting involved helped the congregation see that mission was something that could be done everyday.

“A lot of people realised mission is not that hard or daunting, so the onus is on us to see it continue.”

This ownership is bolstered by building evangelism into church culture, adds Mr Chardon. “We do similar activities like this throughout the year,” he says.

“I’ve always been opposed to having an evangelistic committee – the culture we’re trying to develop here is that you don’t do anything without evangelism as part of your focus.”

Should mission teams be focused on equipping the church rather than evangelising? Mr McNeill believes missions should work with churches to raise their profiles in the community and train churches to do their own evangelism.

“If the mission team does the fishing for you, then your church will only have new fish for a week,” he says. “But if the mission team teaches your church to fish, then you will have fish for a lifetime!”

Mr Poulos says training and evangelism are both essential in running effective missions.

“The goal for mission is to train and excite the congregation members, to make contact with people that haven’t had much contact with the church in a while, and to make contact with people who have never had contact before,” he says. “The second two factors depend on the first.”

Mr Chardon says that the study demands on students mean that the success of a mission depends on churches themselves doing the training and legwork.

“I’m not sure that the mission team can actually do much in terms of equipping laypeople, because they’re only here for about a week,” he says.

“In my experience, the team doesn’t often have a great deal of time to think about what they’re doing for mission until they’re almost there.”

This makes the work of the minister and the parish even more crucial.

“What happens before mission determines what happens in mission,” he says.

“We did lots of groundwork and lots of preparation, talking to people, getting people to own it, because we were really excited about what this was going to do as a springboard for the rest of the year.”

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