Can the Work of Mission Be Taught?

by Fr. Joel Brady

Last August, I was blessed to attend the OCA’s Mission School. As a newly-ordained priest, newly placed in a mission parish, I certainly could be seen as needing some schooling on the subject! And it was indeed an intensive week, with classes and discussions on many aspects of mission life.

So you could ask the question: Did I come away knowing “how to do mission?” And the answer would have to be: not really. Reasonable enough – if we had discovered hard-and-fast methods for mission growth, we’d see Orthodox missions growing and flourishing everywhere. We were blessed to come together as people doing this work of mission, including many who’ve done it for years,and share stories and ideas of things to try. Perhaps most important in this was simply the encouragement. None of us are the first ones to confront this work, and while the challenges are always new and different, the work has been going on since the time of the Apostles.

For the first time, the Mission School included representatives not just from recently-established parishes with an official “mission” label, but from old and declining parishes in need of revitalization. We could say that these are parishes that need to “go back to being missions.” But in another sense we could say that they should never have left being missions in the first place: that every Orthodox Christian community has a duty to remain a “mission” in the sense of continually trying to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ. Including old parishes was a reminder that it’s not too late to remember that calling.

The most helpful thing about the Mission School was the opportunity to come together and share our thoughts and struggles in trying to do this work that the Lord has appointed for us. But even that won’t be terribly helpful if it’s something done only at an annual conference with different people attending each time. We’re all in this together, whether we’re in a small “mission parish” struggling to grow its numbers and put together money to buy a permanent space, or a well-established and beautifuly adorned and well-appointed cathedral. The Lord has appointed every part of the body: the new missions and older, established parishes all have their roles in helping one another proclaim the Incarnate, Crucified, and Risen Lord, and we’ll do that much better if we can come together and share what we have to offer. More than anything else, the Mission School highlighted for me the importance of working together as a whole Church, and gave a glimpse of what that might look like.

So, to begin with, remember us, and pray for us. If you can, come and see the work that God is doing here. In the past year at Holy Apostles we’ve been blessed with a handful of baptisms and severalpeople new to the area who’ve begun attending. One of our parishioners was ordained a deacon and another is a student at St Tikhon’s Seminary. Our work among the local student population doesn’t necessarily grow our numbers in the long term, but it’s a contribution to the Church as we send people out spiritually grown and nourished, and a little more prepared to proclaim the Gospel wherever they relocate.

At Holy Apostles we’ve accomplished much, by God’s grace, but we have much still to accomplish: we’ve continued to beautify the rented space in which we worship, but we have a need to put down deeper roots. We have an active student fellowship at Cornell University, but we still need to keep growing our presence on campus as students come and go. And while we have a beautiful community of people who gather here on Sundays and feasts, we have plenty of empty seats as a reminder of the work still to be done in gathering the Lord’s harvest. It’s a comfort to know that this work is not just ours at Holy Apostles, but belongs to all of us in the Church, and by our united prayers, all of us are in it together. So whether you’re near or far, join us in doing the Lord’s work! The more we all pull together, the stronger we’ll be.

Fr. Joel is the pastor of Holy Apostles Mission, Lansing, NY.