This weekend I was preaching at a retreat three of our congregations in the Toronto area organized. I was preaching on Philippians 1, where Paul describes his inner turmoil between being with Christ and serving the local church. Specifically, I was seeking to make the case that sending and relationship are both relationally motivated.
Historically, I’ve talked about the two forces that we need to leverage in church life: mission and relationship, or alternatively, sending and togethering. There is certainly a sense in which going deep together while simultaneously thinking about expansion is important. But, as I pondered Philippians, and as I’ve reflected over the years, I’m not sure that positioning mission and relationship as complementary forces is helpful, as it could lead to the misunderstanding that mission and relationships are somehow at odds with each other.
Why is that?
The Mission Brings Us Together
Firstly, the mission is what brings us together.
The only reason that any members of the church have relationships is because someone chose to live missionally to reach them.
While it is true that we want to see people saved, the transaction of salvation is not the mission in itself. Inclusion in the family of God is a better and more holistic description of the mission of making disciples.
Everything we do from a missional standpoint is motivated by love and compassion for each other. If we do not love each other well in the process, then no amount of missional activity can occur. We are just a clanging gong, to quote a wise man. The mission is only possible if we are relationally invested and committed to loving one another and the lost.
The Mission Keeps Us Together
Secondly, the mission is what keeps us together.
There is no shortage of conflict, friction, and reasons to go our separate ways in church life. In many instances, our mutual commitment to the mission (including loving one another) enables us to persevere in the commitment to reaching others and walking together in relationship.
The mission gives us a purpose beyond ourselves that enables the relationship to continue to flourish when it may be easier to go our separate ways.
Mission Cannot Be Separated from Love
Treating the mission as separate from relationships is to imagine that mission could occur outside of the bounds of love. However, that is simply not possible. We could do missional activity without love, but we cannot do mission without love. The mission and loving one another are so interdependent as to be inseparable.
Mission and relationship are not, therefore, in tension with one another, but rather complementary expressions of the same underlying force: love.
The Same Thing: Love
So, can we just say relationships are the mission and the mission is relationships? They are one and the same thing: love expressed in the form of missional relationship!