Missional : Kindness?

I was recently asked, "when you say 'missional', do you really mean 'servant evangelism'?"

Now, I'm no stranger to servant evangelism. Steve Sjogren, the grand poo-bah of that stuff is as familiar a name to me as any treasured Christian writer. I've been following his work for over a decade. I was introduced to "Conspiracy of Kindness" back in 1998, when Pat Bjurling, the youth pastor at Christian Life Assembly where I was the youth intern, took out our youth group under the influence of Sjogren (I always thought there was a connection in their names; Bjurling and Sjogren) to one of the communities near our church to hand out packets of seeds, and to tell our neighbours that we were simply "showing God's love (for them) in a practical way".

Textbook Servant Evangelism.

I loved it. For me, it took off. At my first official post as youth pastor in Winnipeg, I took kids out at Hallowe'en to give out lightbulbs, showing that Jesus is the Light of the World (but what we said is, "to show God's love in a practical way" - don't want to divert from excellence!). Later, when my ministry took us to North Delta, I started a festival called "Explosion", which was termed "an Explosion of Kindness" in the local paper. The whole premise was a week of worship and servant evangelism (or simply, 'worship and service in our community'). Explosion grew 100% in year two, bringing in 25 youth to take part, and it hasn't stopped in the six years since I left North Delta.

Yes, when I think of missionality, I do tend to think 'servant evangelism'. But yes, I know that there's more to being missional than handing out seeds and light bulbs, painting houses and picking litter.

'Missional', I think, is more of an attitude. It's an awareness that just like those sent to the Philippines or Samoa (or even somewhere less exotic), those of us who live 'normal' lives here in Canada can and (if we're Christian) SHOULD be intentional about our mission, which is Jesus' mission: to seek and save the lost.

Living missionally means intentionality in relationships. Yes, we need to be careful here that relationships aren't JUST about conversions. The way I see it, Jesus was intentional about His relationships - who He spent time with, and why. Yet not everyone He spent time with chose to follow Him. Neither will those He brings into our lives. Our job is to love them, to care for them, to show them God's love in practical, and intangible, ways.

Missional living ALSO means intentional action. This gets a lot of criticism, even from people I admire. They say that if missional living becomes a service event, then it ceases to be a lifestyle. Well, I guess you could say that the same threat exists for worship. Worship, like missionality, is meant to be a 24-7, everyday life attitude, yet most Christians say that worship is an event, what happens before the sermon on Sundays. Sad, yes. But I'm not sure many would argue that we need to stop 'worshiping' on Sundays so that a worship lifestyle could be cultivated (note: Soul Survivor kind of did this for a season and it seemed to work out for Matt Redman...). Social Kindness events can be a conduit through which missionality is practiced, exercised, and encouraged, but no it isn't the be-all and end-all of what missional living is. That is, however, an important distinction to make.

Yes, a week of servant evangelism/social kindness/whatever is coming up with Access Church. Please stay tuned for more information. If you're into missionality but not into a week of serving others, by all means stay home. But if you want to bless the community of Aldergrove by showing God's love in practical ways, then we invite you to be involved with us.

We've received so much, so freely; that's why we're giving it away freely.