Over the past year, our church has had a small ministry team working on a new mission and vision statement. It has been an incredible process that at times appeared to be going backward instead of forward. I was amazed how often during the journey, just when I thought we were going nowhere, that God would place a person or book in front of me that would create new paths to our destination. One of those books was Philip Yancey’s What’s So Amazing about Grace. A friend of mine was cleaning out his book shelf and offered me any books I could use. Since having lots of books in your office makes you look smart, I took everything that looked theological including Yancey’s book. Next I had to fly to Arizona for a funeral and needed some reading material and before I knew it, God was speaking to me about grace and our mission statement. Here are two excerpts that stood out.
“The world can do almost anything as well as or better than Christianity,” says Gordan MacDonald. “You need not be a Christian to build houses, feed the hungry, or heal the sick. There is only one thing the world cannot do. It cannot offer grace.” MacDonald has put his finger on the church’s single most important contribution. Where else can the world go to find grace? (page 15)
Grace is Christianity’s best gift to the world, a spiritual nova in our midst exerting a force stronger than vengeance, stronger than racism, stronger than hate. Sadly, to a world desperate for this grace the church sometimes presents one more form of ungrace. (page 30)
At the end of our year long journey our ministry team was led to the conclusion that grace or the unconditional love of God was the primary thing we had to offer to the world. Therefore our mission statement reads, “To share with all people the unconditional love of God revealed in Jesus Christ.” I believe this mission statement captures the essence of everything we do in the church; worship, evangelism, mission, discipleship and fellowship. It is the one unique thing we have to offer and ironically the one thing the world needs the most.
“To share with all people the unconditional love of God revealed in Jesus Christ.” Now that is a mission. It is a mission that all Christians should aspire to achieve. One addition to your comments is that I have always believed that God's Mercy was as important as important, and more remarkable too me, than God's Grace.
My Grandmother taught me that Grace is giving you something that you do NOT deserve. Mercy is NOT giving you something you DO deserve. They BOTH stem from the above-mentioned “unconditional love of God”. It seems to me that we talk much more about the fact of what God has given us. His gifts are many and wondrous, especially his greatest gift, His son Jesus. But you rarely hear us speak about what God didn’t give to us, that we so richly deserved. Noah’s story that we discussed earlier shows us what we as a sinful people truly deserve.
God’s Grace makes life worth living.
God’s Mercy makes life possible.
Posted by: Kevin | June 24, 2005 at 07:51 AM