No Tariffs on Missional Living
Jeremy McCool / Director of Groups and Next Steps
Recently I went to Tops to get some stuff to make tacos for dinner for my family. It cost over $50 for a single paper bag (not even full) of groceries. Tariffs! It reminded me that we (as a country) have been outsourcing our supply chains to other countries for decades. Why? Because it was cheaper. It was more efficient. It made sense. But it also downgraded our national capacity to supply ourselves with what we needed. Hence a $50 “taco night.”
I think sometimes we’ve got this same idea about church. The idea is that we have pastors, we have small group leaders, we have authorities who can handle spiritual conversations so much better than we can. So why not use them? We may invite our neighbors to church so they can hear the Gospel from Pastor Justin. We may try to get our friends to come with us to youth group so they can hear the gospel from Pastor Pete. We sometimes think if we can just get people to come to church, God will meet them here and change them … here. We outsource the great commission and discipleship to the professionals. It’s easy. It's efficient. They’ll give better answers than we could anyway.
The flip side of this lifestyle, though, is that when we have this outsource mentality about the Gospel we’re not challenged to grow in Christ ourselves, and a lot of people (who refuse to set foot in a church) don’t hear the Gospel – because we don’t let it leave the building.
Jesus had a better plan. He prayed to God about His disciples (as recorded in John 17:18) “As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.” A couple of verses later He says, “I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word.” – this is us, guys! Jesus was praying for US!
I experienced a flip in my own outlook a few years ago when I made the decision that instead of being a “bi-vocational pastor” I was going to be a “bi-locational pastor.” That two-letter distinction changed how I lived at work, at home, with my neighbors, and even at church! The Gospel has left the building! Many lives were impacted by that shift in thinking and I have had the privilege of watching God do some amazing work in, through, and around me because of it.
So I’d like to challenge all of us this week with this: Let’s stop seeing ourselves as mailmen with church invitations … Let’s start seeing ourselves as missionaries with life-changing news. Missionaries to our families. Missionaries to our neighborhoods. Missionaries to our workplaces and schools. God sent the Holy Spirit to be our Helper and He’s got our back!
Are you ready to stop being a bi-vocational Christian and start being a bi-locational Christian? I can’t wait to see what God does in Western New York when we, His people, start thinking and living missionally. There are no tariffs on missional living.