Choosing a Mission

Focus is essential in activating for missional impact.

I’m a sucker for books that tell the story of particular industries and businesses. Years ago, I read a fascinating book on the strategy development of the consumer goods company P&G. Who would’ve thought that a book about razor blades and garbage bags could be so compelling?

I’m not sure what that says about me, but maybe it’s simply that I find this world, in all its beauty and diversity, endlessly fascinating. There’s a never-ending stream of wonderful things to learn. But with that abundance of opportunity comes a core challenge: where do I focus my energy?

The P&G book had a fairly simple thesis: strategy is all about choices.

That principle isn’t just relevant to business. For a church to be missional, or effective on mission, it must make choices on where to focus its missional energy. where and who we will focus on reaching the gospel with.

The apostle Paul speaks about becoming “all things to all people” in 1 Corinthians 9. But, and this is a very important but, we can’t be all things to all people at the same time. We can only be a particular thing to particular people at a particular moment. That means choosing one direction instead of another.

When Laura and I officially started leading our church, there were only about 20 people left. The church had really suffered from a lack of missional clarity and identity. One of the first things we did was clarify our mission: to plant churches on university campuses. That single decision focused our energy and attention, and it became catalytic for the season of impact that followed.

When a church can’t articulate who it’s trying to reach, or if its objective is so broad that it includes everyone, there’s no way to focus clearly enough to develop the systems, practices, and rhythms needed to be effective.

Our church has a very specific and, frankly, quite narrow vision: to plant churches on every university campus through a multiplication of disciple-makers and evangelists. For example, that means our gatherings are optimized for students, our discipleship models intentionally connect students and non-students, and our decisions about where to live reflect our desire to be close to campuses. Our core ministry seasons follow the school calendar instead of the Christian holiday calendar. Christmas and Easter are actually some of our quietest times of the year.

Saying “No”

All of this means we say “no” often. Our church context isn’t for everyone. It’s exceedingly difficult for families who weren’t discipled in our church to jump in, because there’s a strong expectation that everyone will disciple students and shape their lives around that mission, with their children participating alongside them..

Thankfully, there are many excellent churches in the cities we serve that can receive those families. But we are typically the only church on campus with a laser focus on reaching and serving students.

Strategy and Methodology Flow from Missional Clarity

I’m often asked where our ecclesiology and missiology come from. The truth is, we didn’t develop our model from a book or by copying others, although we’ve drawn inspiration from many sources. Our strategy emerged from a crystal-clear mission focus that forced us to innovate and adapt.

We didn’t build our methodology in a vacuum. We developed it over nearly two decades of trial and error, learning how to fulfill the mission God placed in our hearts.

Scripture as a Creative Source

This experimental approach was grounded not only in missional clarity but also in a deep conviction that Scripture contains the keys to building healthy churches. It is full of ideas that can stretch our missional imagination if we’re willing to explore it.

Passages like Acts 2, Acts 8:1–4, Acts 11, Ephesians 4, and 1 Corinthians 12 have been especially formative for us. That might sound obvious, but it takes real intentionality to lay down our cultural assumptions about what church should be and let Scripture shape us with fresh insight.

Everyone on Board

A key part of maintaining missional clarity is making sure the whole community is aligned. We work hard to cultivate a shared heart for the mission.

Not everyone naturally feels compelled by student ministry. There are many in our church who wouldn’t have chosen this focus on their own. Still, we expect everyone to move together in the same direction.

Because we are a church family first, we start with relationships. I serve alongside my brothers and sisters, and when my passion for the mission wanes, it is my church family that reminds me why we do what we do. Over time, this shared focus deepens our relationships by giving us something meaningful to pursue together.

These shared experiences are relational gold. This is essentially a reworking of Alan Hirsch’s concept of communitas.

In rare cases, people realize they are not personally compelled by our particular mission and don’t wish to serve it. After patient and honest conversation, we bless them to serve elsewhere. Preserving the mission is critical. We must remain true to who we are called to be.

Conclusion

I encourage churches to get specific about what they want to accomplish. The more specific, the better.

This requires humility, sacrifice, and risk. Saying “no” is much harder than saying “yes,” but the long-term relational depth and focused impact make it worth it.

To help develop this clarity, I’ve often used a strategic framework inspired by the P&G book, adapted to begin with communal prayer and contextualized to mission to make disciples of all nations. Here’s an example:

• What is our mission or vision?
  People fully alive in the hope of Jesus by being the church on every campus.

• Where do we want to do that?
  Proximal to major urban university campuses, starting in Ontario, Canada, and expanding outward in concentric circles.

• Who do we specifically want to reach?
  Domestic and international undergraduate and graduate students.

• How do we want to reach them?
  By mobilizing everyone to multiply disciples through a church planting process that flows from evangelism and discipleship.

• What capabilities and skills do we need to develop?
  Effective evangelism and discipleship skills for everyone in our community, and clarity about what it means to be a church family.

• What systems and structures do we need to support this?
  A clear leadership development pipeline that trains people from new believers to multiplying disciples. This includes our resources, software, ecosystems, and more, much of which I write about here on Substack.