How to be churches together in mission: Customer driven

|PIC1|It is not just the school and college networks which are beginning a new term. Churches all over the UK are ‘getting back to normal’ with the start of the Autumn programme. Advent may be the start of the churches liturgical calendar, but for many church leaders, September is the start of a whole new year ahead.

With a new term come fresh opportunities and challenges, not just in the creative aspects in the life of the Christian community, but also in the wider communities where our churches seek to serve in mission.

"The church exists by mission like fire exists by burning," said Emil Brunner. As Christians we do not exist simply for our own life and satisfaction, so much as the service we can provide for the coming Kingdom in the local community. The Great Commandment accompanies the Great Commission and both are to do with the ‘other’ rather than ‘us’.

At the start of the new term and in a short series of monthly articles, I want to explore the churches mission in the world on our doorstep. As the staff member at Churches Together in England serving the network of national evangelism enablers, I want to reflect on some lessons learnt when churches have worked together to share the good news of Jesus Christ. This month I want to think about the people we serve.

Loads of churches in August had wonderful Holiday Clubs. Most were for children, but some were for old people instead. Almost without exception they will have been great fun and for some people quite precious as being the time when they made a step forward with Jesus. Like the other major holiday events, whether it be New Wine or Greenbelt; a Scripture Union camp or ‘Spark in the Park’, each one will have catered to a specific group of people.

So, with a huge thank you to all those who have given of their time and talent to create these wonderful summer opportunities, and looking to the Autumn programme, can I offer the first reflection to guide us in our planning for the year ahead? It is simply this. If we are going to do the work of Jesus we need to do it in the way he did it, and that meant meeting the need of the ‘other’ rather than us. It may have been food for five thousand, a message about eternal life, or a healing or deliverance: whatever it was, the good news was ‘good’ because it met a discerned need.

So let’s be focused on the needs of the other person and let the age group or activity interest shape what we aim to do. In modern parlance it means our mission should be ‘customer driven’. Going back to Holiday Clubs, most of the old folk would not have wanted the children’s ‘Water Sports’, and neither would the kids have been happy with a coach trip to a Garden Centre. The ‘customer driven’ principle should shape and define what we do as we begin a new term in the Lord’s service. If the principle was good for Jesus it should be good for us.