What's the Church's Mission?

Sunday, May 4, 2025

Scriptures: Luke 24:45-51

• Sermon Summary

  Summary: In the second sermon of our series, Strange New World, Scott helps us consider the breadth of the mission of the church. The truth of resurrection can be found in the places where we struggle, grow weary and find ourselves unsure. But, this also offers us a new mission, go out and be witnesses to resurrection—wherever we find it—in our strange new world.

  Now What: As Christ appeared to his followers after Easter, he helped explain the scriptures to them and instructed them to wait for The Holy Spirit. But, as his followers watch Jesus ascend, they are left in a strange place. What’s next after such an incredible event? The world is different now; what then is our mission?

  Limits of Language: In light of the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, his disciples were sent out into the world to practice what they had been taught. Scott points out, the words mission, evangelize, and apostleship all link back to this idea of being sent. Scott warns that narrowing our view of mission to only one kind of response to Easter might limit our experience of faith. He reminds us that different Christian traditions practice mission differently.

  Misadventures: To engage in Christian mission, we must first acknowledge all the ways the church has misstepped. Christian theology throughout history has often aligned itself, less with resurrection, and more with imperial expansion. We out to be aware of how Christian mission has been misaligned with Jesus’ way, and historically been the source of trauma for many.

  Where Resurrection Happens: Resurrection is not just one show-stopping event, it is a catalyst that begins a new chapter. Jesus taught his followers to see resurrection in the scriptures—the history of the world up till now—during the first Eastertide. We witness resurrection when we look after the poor, marginalized, and disenfranchised among us in light of Easter. This is where we encounter the living Christ.

• Discussion Guide

  Community is shaped by the conversations we share. These questions and reflections are a tool to help you meaningfully engage with the themes of this week's teaching.

  Connect: What is your experience or exposure to “missions work.” Have you been on a trip yourself, or know someone who has? If you’re willing to share a little bit of what that was like, feel free to do so.

  Share: how the Church’s language of mission may have limited your own view of what Jesus’ intended for us. Scott shares how different Christian traditions practice “going” in different ways. That “going” can look like Protestant Evangelicals sending missionaries to foreign countries, our Catholic siblings establishing orders, hospitals, orphanages, and our Eastern Orthodox siblings setting up monasteries, libraries, and churches in remote communities.

  Scott also says about the mission work of witnessing resurrection,

  “You are witnesses when you gently explain your theology to the curious, and to those who disagree.
  You are witnesses when you go and you form relationships, homes, and communities of radical welcome.
  You are witnesses when you work not just for profit, and not just for your own means, but so that others flourish, and so you can be generous with your resources.
  You are witnesses when you partner with local groups that serve the elderly, the vulnerable, the voiceless.
  When you partner with international groups like Hands at Work that pursue equitable development at the speed of relationship and connection.
  You are witnesses when you comfort a grieving friend.
  When you march and work for change. When you do the slow, methodical work of healing well, of moving on, of charting new courses.”

  Does Scott’s broad examples of being witnesses fit your idea of missions work?
  In what way might your language of mission need to become more creative?

  Reflect: on the history and modern context of Christian mission. Scott offered a snapshot of some of the ways Christian mission can be benign and horrific. Because you are sent out into a historical context of Christian mission—one that contains the good, the bad, and the ugly—reflect individually, or as a group, on the temptations to appropriate God’s mission of witnessing resurrection where it happens for our own nationalistic, violent, or otherwise selfish motives.

  What practices or postures of mission might you adopt to avoid marrying the work of mission with—in Scott’s words—a “pursuit of our own success?”

  Do you have to unlearn anything about mission work in light of this sermon?

  Engage: Scott explores the disciple’s feeling of being left with the wonder of the resurrection and a calling to “go,” but without much clarity. Jesus entrusts us with the Holy Spirit to be active, aware, imaginative, and full of hope in this strange new world. We also have the scriptures to inspire our work.

  With that in mind, how will you go into the world during Eastertide carrying both the wonder of the resurrection event and the work of witnessing it active in the broken world around you?

  Take away: What is your takeaway from the message or today’s conversation?

  Prayer from the sermon:
  To you our hearts are open,
  and all our desires known.
  In this moment, we take the opportunity to slow down just a bit. 
  To be aware of our racing minds,
  our aching bodies,
  our heavy hearts too.
  And as we’ve worshipped together we’ve been invited to turn our gaze from what might occupy us toward your great kindness.
  It appears to us in the welcome of those who surround us.
  It appears to us in the chance to let our voices join as one,
  to sing and pray toward a kingdom that will come.
  Be present to us now as we turn to ancient text.
  To the memories of your friends.
  Spirit, we ask that you would help us trust the careful work in us that you have started. 
  And, that the words of Jesus can be our guide as we move forward.
  We ask these things in the name of Christ, our hope,
  Amen.

• Service Songs & Prayers

  CALL TO WORSHIP Psalm 118

  MUSIC Curated by Kevin Borst
  Phil Wickham - Battle Belongs
  Brooke Ligertwood - Bless God
  CityAlight - Yet Not I But Through Christ In Me
  Commons Worship - Be Thou My Vision
  
  PRAYER FOR EMBODIMENT
  Written by Alexandra Chubachi
  
  In Psalm 118 it says “When hard pressed, I cried to the Lord;

  The Lord brought me into a spacious place.”

  I love the way that the Psalmist describes the way we might feel, not just visually or emotionally, but IN our body.

  Hard pressed. Spacious. 

  I invite you to join me in a prayer for embodiment.

  As I pray, I encourage you to settle yourself into your body and ask it how it’s feeling in this moment.

  Creator God, you meet us here in our minds, our hearts, and our bodies. Thank you for welcoming us as we are.

  For those who feel detached from their bodies, you offer patience.

  There is no rush to move back into a space that hasn’t always been safe. 

  Wrap them in a blanket of assurance.

  For those who feel it all, maybe it feels like too much sometimes, you offer steadiness.

  You will ride the storm with them, and you are unruffled by the waves.

  Ground them in your peace.

  For those who feel a sense of openness in their bodies, you offer abundance.

  You see their joy and you celebrate with them.

  Fill them with all the goodness they can handle.

  Amen.
  
  SERIES BUMPER
  Strange New World