False False Gods

A few weeks ago I came across this article in The Telegraph slamming the so-called 'managerial class' supposedly running the church of England. Among other things the author was bemoaning the loss of traditional church choirs, but citing that as the result of (in the author's assessment) more troubling and deeper issues in the organisation.

Personally I am not so worried about arguments about choirs, or music styles in churches, or even debates about how churches are run. What caught my attention was an astounding statement in the very last sentence of the article: "Thanks to the false god of 'outreach', the Church of England is severing them".

I have never heard 'outreach' asserted as a false god before! As someone who has spent the last 20 years advocating "Misseo Dei" - God who is intrinsically reaching out on mission - I guess I find this assertion as the ultimate false statement. My critique of many a church (and many a individual believer) is not having a proper and holistic appreciation of Misseo Dei and the implications for the church and for us. The Mission aspect (and hence outreach) is all too frequently an 'add on', rather understood centrally in the reason & purpose of our faith ... allowing other things to take precedent, affecting our budgets, allocation of time and energies.

The fact that some look to institutions such as the church of England, and put its institutional life as the precedent, and label as "false god" the mission/outreach agenda, shows to me just how polar opposite from God's desire that people's thinking can become. Of course this is really no surprise: in God's ultimate mission move we read "... the world did not recognise him ... He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him" (John 1 verses 10 and 11).

Now at this point we should be clear: all of us, as fallen humanity, are capable of making anything we have around us on this world as a 'false god', i.e. elevating it above its proper place and holding it high instead of God. Our worship style, or thoughts on how things should be organised, and yes even our own agendas for outreach can be put above God in the way we think and then live out our lives. This is a problem that none of us are immune to, and we all have to repeatedly face up to.

But in facing it, we return to God, and hold Him again as first & only. This we are able to do because He first loved us, i.e. because He reaches out (over & over) to us, a mission endeavour on God's part! The fact that God reaches out ... to us and to others ... surely then leaves us with just one response: to be embraced by Him and to join His action in reaching others. In doing so we relegate our own plans. But that relegating means putting God's outreach desires ahead of our own personal preferences and tastes - preferring instead to do what is necessary to reach out to those of other backgrounds, choosing ways (like choice of music style) that might make sense for them rather than sticking to our own taste.

That doesn't make mission a false god, but a priority we pursue because the true God Himself is a God of mission!