Volume 4, Number 3, Summer 2011
A Mission-shaped Church by Bishop Wayne Smith sociated Parishes for Liturgy and Mission,” and the organization remains in existence today. AP understood implicitly the connection between the liturgy and mission, that one who partakes of Christ’s body and blood at the altar will sooner or later be compelled to seek what Christ is doing elsewhere, away from the altar.
It has been four years since I started speaking and writing intentionally and often about mission as one of the organizing principles of our life together. The response from around the Diocese has been very good, and people generally want to engage this way of being the Church. However, there are some subtleties inherent in this missional life that can lead to some confusion about it. So a few points of clarification seem in order.
Mission forms people to be Christians. It also helps us grow in our belief. As such, mission belongs in the curriculum of our learning. There is much to be learned, for example, by engaging in a food ministry, in its delights and challenges, and its messiness. The learning becomes more imbedded in the believer’s life when careful theological reflection in community, especially from the scriptures, follows the experience. An ancient catechetical method utilized this approach: Experience first. Then reflect and learn.
Mission is not a program. It is a way
of being the Church, or at least it is so if mission becomes an organizing principle for us.
Mission is not the amassing of projects. Mission is instead a matter
The Episcopal Diocese of Missouri 1210 Locust Street St. Louis, Missouri 63103 ph: 314-231-1220 online: diocesemo.org email: info@diocesemo.org
of orientation for us, forcing us to look beyond the walls for one point of reference. Mission begs to be holistic in vision, not merely episodic. The buildup of one good deed after another in particular can deceive believers into the caustic, wrong-minded, and persistent belief that salvation is the result of something that we do. The Church decided against this idea in the fifth century, but it will not go away.
Mission depends on the building of relationships. The Church skips
a few steps whenever we think that we know preemptively what “another” population needs. In particular we do well to listen to people and take time to build mutual trust. Mission without relationship can deteriorate into dogooderism (see the heresy mentioned in the second bullet-point above), or even into a Churchy kind of imperialism.
Mission relates to the liturgy.
It especially relates to the Eucharist. A driving force for the liturgical reform resulting in our current Prayer Book (1979) was an organization founded in 1946. They called themselves “As-
The Church does not have a mission. Ok, that’s not quite true,
but in recent theologies of mission this phrase is often purposely set in contrast to the next point.
God’s mission has a Church.
The Church’s purpose is to seek what God in Jesus Christ is doing in the world, and to join ourselves to that purpose. Where God is, there the people of God might need to be also. And where might God be? In broken things, in joy, in suffering, in hope, in fear, in the least of brothers and sisters, in hospitals and prisons, in the helpless, in one who is crucified, in one who is risen. The ways of finding God in our particular locales are a matter of discernment and prayer, of listening to God and the people. I think that if we can hold all these things in our mind at once, then we might see more clearly how mission can be that organizing principle for our life as Church. In the great Eucharistic teaching in John 6, Jesus says “the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” Notice that he says “for the life of the world,” not “for the life of the Church.” The Eucharist which we the Church receive does not reach its end until, through our broken but redeemed lives, we touch on the life of the world, and thereby join God’s mission.
The Right Reverend Wayne Smith is the Tenth Bishop of Missouri.
Letters from Lui Diocese,
a new bishop, a new country
To the people of the Diocese of Missouri, Please allow me to thank you on behalf of the whole Diocese of Lui for your support for my consecration and enthronement. People of Lui are very thankful and excited about all the gifts you gave, we do not know how to reward you but God in His mercy will reward you with His special heavenly blessings. Thank You.
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+Stephen Dokolo Bishop of the Diocese of Lui, Sudan
Follow the story of our partnership with the Diocese of Lui, Sudan, and our fellow mission partners in Blackmore-Vale Deanery, Salisbury UK, and Lund, Church of Sweden on line at LuiNetwork.ning.com . Photos: (upper left) family portrait of Bishop Stephen and Lillian Dokolo, David, and Vicki; (above) scenes from the consecration on June 26, 2011 in and on the grounds of Fraser Cathedral in Lui; (left) Bishop Wayne and Debra Smith traveled to Lui for the funeral of the Rt. Rev. Bullen Dolli, two weeks before Dokolo’s consecration. The Republic of South Sudan became the world’s newest country on July 9, 2011.
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