As our church recently closed out our 29th year and began our 30th year, It’s a good time to think about some of the key questions of life, as they apply to our church.
The first of those key life questions is about the WHY of a particular situation. The WHY of a given situation is about purpose. When I address the WHY question, I can usually get to the purpose in the situation. Purpose is important because of all the key life questions, purpose is the one that is most likely to inspire – to motivate someone to do something worthwhile. The WHY question can be asked in a number of ways. For example, I can ask ‘Why am I here?’ I can also ask that same question as Rick Warren posed it in the title of his record-setting book, ‘What on Earth Am I Here For?’
The fact is that with an understanding of the WHY, one has to wonder whether something is truly meaningful or worthwhile. Well, just as an individual may ask ‘Why do I exist?’, we as a church community must ask a similar question – WHY do we – as a church body exist?’ This is indeed a question that we wrestled with when we started Integrity Church those 29 years ago. As the members of our small core team discussed and debated and prayed and decided, we realized that the answer to that question can be summed up like this: ‘We exist to develop fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ.’ About 20 years later, we tweaked that purpose statement just a little bit, wanting to clarify what we wanted to do with the fully devoted followers of Jesus that we develop. So we changed it to ‘We exist to Advance God’s Kingdom by developing fully-devoted followers of Jesus Christ.’ For us this statement sums up the mission of our church. Always has – always will!
A couple of weeks ago we started a new mini-series’ called ‘The Way We Do the Things We Do.’ Our goal with this series is to help familiarize us all over again on WHY our church and church body exists, and the reasons for doing things the way we do them. One of the points I made is that we attempt at Integrity to understand clearly what God’s Word says about how we should develop, and how we should live. Then – our job is to take those precepts and principles, and ask the question ‘If this is what God’s Word says how we’re to live, then what is it that our church needs to do to facilitate our people actually living that way? And so we regularly try to ‘overlay’ that ‘way we do church’ on top of those Biblical requirements on how Jesus followers are to live. This leads us to that Purpose – or Mission – Statement.
So – if this is Integrity’s mission statement, and if what Integrity does is to ‘overlay’ its processes, ministries, etc. on top of God’s requirements and standards for His people, so that they can more likely meet those requirements and standards, then what does that say about man’s purpose in this earth, having been created by the Almighty God Who loves and cares for man?
For that, we go to Matthew 22:37-40 to see man’s purpose
Matthew 22:37–40 (NLT) Jesus replied, “ ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”
The Purpose of man – the overarching reason why man is to fulfill what this passage says. We are to love God above all else and with every piece of our being. Then we are to love our neighbors in a way that causes us to place the well-being of that neighbor above our own well-being. We are to live sacrificially.
From there, God has ordained a specific mission for each of His children to live out and fulfill. That mission can defined as doing what it takes to fulfill the purpose od has given me. God has also given us a unique makeup – a set of attributes, personality, talents, passions, spiritual gifts, etc. that shape just how we are to fulfill that mission. Psalm 139:16 says ‘You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.’
Fulfilling that specific mission is how to ensure we hear Jesus tell us one day ’Well done, good and faithful servant.’
Next Week: The problem that people have with a personalized life mission.
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