BLOG 3/11/17. WHAT’S YOUR ‘MONDAY-MORNING MISSION FIELD’?

This train of thought began casually the other Sunday morning when a few of us were having coffee before our fellowship gathered for worship. A friend and conversation partner, in passing, said: “If you think about it, Bob, pray for me tomorrow—I have a difficult problem to solve.” It turns out that it was a personnel problem, which problems are always painful. … But I began wondering, who equips us, or who models for us our role of Christian discipleship in whatever our Monday morning mission field may be? Christians need mentors for life in the grungy realities they confront in their ‘Monday-morning world.’

Let me see if I can pull up an event I experienced, as something of a metaphor, as a starting point. Some several years ago, the campus ministry, Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship, sponsored a several day conference for faculty and graduate students. Here were gathered some 1200 such persons from scores of campuses, mostly from the United States, but also from several other countries. The meeting was in the Hilton Hotel in Chicago in late December. A large banner off to one side of the platform of the ballroom stated the motto of the conference: Following Christ, Changing the World. – that motto would appropriately be displayed in every church gathering and in the prayer notes of every follower of Christ. That is our calling, and our goal. But who mentors us to fill that role amidst the complexities of our incarnation?

The conference was structured around four components: 1) at the heart of which was a very sensitive and reflective and quiet ministry of worship, placing the focus on God-in-Christ, where it belonged. 2) Then there was the presence of one of the giants of New Testament scholarship, N. T. Wright, to give it its strong Biblical foundation. I remember Dr. Wright’s emphasis that our Kingdom of God gospel is incredibly subversive (which got my attention). 3) Thirdly, there were specialized, more intensive, break-out sessions with gifted resource persons engaging more thoroughly in subjects relevant to the diversity of those participants. But, 4) the fourth (and more memorable to me) component was the inclusion of the witness-testimonies of some significant practitioners of Christian faith engaged in several different disciplines. I well remember that there was a renowned environmentalist from a major university, there was a well-known poet, … and several others. They were forthright in their honesty about the discipline of living out their faith in contexts not always congenial. It was, to use the over-used word: Awesome.

What one had to accept, in appraising that event, was that those 1200 participants all came with an intentional sense of having been called to the campus mission fields of the world. They came with a purpose—not to be entertained, but to be equipped and formed to fulfill their mission. These lived in the context of diverse philosophies, departmental politics, troublesome colleagues, and inescapable cultural realities.

The conference concluded with the moving witness of one of the daily witnesses relating his/her moving pilgrimage in Christ’s mission, … the lights dimmed, and softly the worship leader at a piano began to sing: Holy, holy, holy, Lord God almighty, early in the morning out song shall rise to Thee …” and 1200 joined in. That was the end, and the beginning. There was a holy hush. I looked around and individuals and groups were on their knees (as was I) placing their lives in obedience to Christ to change the world. This, for me was a great metaphor for how we form our times together as the people of God: Informed, challenged, mentored, … equipped for the realities, the vicissitudes, the ‘crap’ that is part of all our Monday morning worlds  (I dare say the world has not been the same since).  So, my friend’s request for my prayer for his difficult responsibility on Monday morning calls for the church community to be equipping all the followers of Christ, to enter their week both equipped … and with a vision for their transformational presence wherever they find their incarnation: Following Christ, Changing the World..