Today I’m going to talk about mission, that ‘M’ word that is used sometimes a bit too frequently in churches – it can make people grimace or even scare them off! I wonder if it is simply that we just don’t really understand what the church means when it mentions mission?

A quick flick into the dictionary gave me 19 definitions – 19! Which just seemed to confirm that it’s really hard to pin down its meaning!

I then recalled a term that was used a lot in church when my children were younger – the question was continually asked, ‘are we a mission shaped church?’ What on earth could that even mean, what should it mean to us, the congregation, as I was at that time? If this was something we were meant to be striving for, surely, we needed to understand what it meant, although I don’t ever recall getting an answer to that question.

Around 2004 the Church of England Mission and Public Affairs council wrote a report, published as: ‘Mission Shaped Church’, giving an overview of recent developments in church planting and an overview of Fresh Expressions of church – that’s anything that seems a bit different to what we might expect ‘church’ to be. For example a group meeting in the pub discussing Jesus or joining up for prayer might be considered a fresh expression of church, even though it’s held in the pub.

It was a way to encourage all churches to think what they might do differently to engage a different demographic to those in their usual Sunday congregation – and this something different would be regarded as mission.

15 years later, so just 5 years ago, a follow up study declared that indeed things were different, that growth in new churches and fresh expressions of church had been phenomenal, allowing us to be the church for all our nation and that in fact, this had influenced in a positive way, existing church congregations, impacting theology, beliefs, resources and how they are used, leadership and their outreach or mission practices, which sounds really positive.

Reports since have looked at the long-term sustainability of these new styles of ‘being church’, the average lifespan is often around 3 years – although of course some go on for much longer or shorter spans, which shows that sometimes we have to do get on and do things in the moment, as the opportunity may be short – but really key in sharing faith and growing disciples.

Have you ever noticed the poster setting out the five marks of mission? In our diocese there were 5 pentagons with one mark on each. These were introduced by the Church of England in the 1980’s – giving us what they feel are the 5 key ways we should be behaving as a church and as individual Christians to live out life as a Christian.

Is any of this relevant to us, here today celebrating St Luke? In our reading from Luke’s gospel, we heard that Jesus appointed and sent out over 70 others, telling them, the harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few. I do wonder if the disciples stood there and thought about what was being asked of them, if some tried to go in a different direction, sneak off and find another role, especially after Jesus proclaims: I’m sending you out like little lambs in to a pack of wolves! Is this not exactly Christian mission today?

Those 5 marks of mission I mentioned are based on what Jesus tasks each of us to do. To share our faith, to grow and nurture new disciples, to love God’s children, to challenge wrongs, care for His world, isn’t this stuff that the church calls mission what we do anyway? Are we actively doing this as a church?

I was chatting with someone in St John’s Saturday Café a few weeks ago – they were really keen to tell me what a changed place St John’s is – the more we chatted the more I began to see St John’s through their eyes, they were excited by all that is going on and I think we all need to be hugely encouraged, it takes a church to start, sustain, nurture and grow new disciples, as they say ‘teamwork makes the dream work’ and I think we can each give ourselves a huge pat on the back.

You may have spent time with someone over coffee; encouraged someone through the door; volunteered at services and events; smiled at someone; passed on a leaflet – we all do our bit and working for God can be hugely rewarding.

However, can we rest on our laurels? What about this little church? In a moment, I want us to go outside, to stand in the front of this church and look out at our community, our parish – the area in which God has tasked us to grow His Kingdom and just think about what we see, let God into our minds and see what He puts on it, what does he want for this area of our city?

We will then write our prayers on to the bunting that we are going to hang up around the outside of the church to draw attention to this little church, it will begin to attract the attention of the community and make us visible as we go about working out what is next for this church and this community.

Service: Rev Rebecca Yates, 13th October 2024. (St Luke’s Church Peterborough UK)

Readings: Luke 10:1-9