Your mission, should you choose to accept it . . .
August 23rd, 2007 » posted by Sarah
Mission statements, missionaries, mission trips, Mission Impossible . . . what is ‘mission’ all about? If I had to construct a list of the first things that come to mind when people hear the word ‘mission’ it would include the following:
1) Mission Trip ‘Mission’ is what we do on ‘mission trips’, when we go someplace else—usually someplace with a specific need for healthcare, building or rebuilding, education, or the like—and help provide what’s needed.
2) Missionary Remember Katherine Hepburn in The African Queen? At the start of the movie she’s a prim spinster dressed in formal linen, boots, and stiff undergarments in some hot African country, plinking hymn accompaniments on an out-of-tune piano while her brother conducts a worship service in a thatch-roofed church. She is the stereotype many folks have of missionaries: people who are well-intentioned, if fish-out-of-water, do-gooders.
The Episcopal Center at Duke IS a mission (of the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina) and HAS a mission and here’s what I think that means: our mission is to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind; and our neighbors as ourselves.
Of course, that may be easier said than understood. There are a lot of different ways of thinking about what it means to love God and our neighbors. I tend to believe it has more to do with what we do and how we are than with what we say or even with making new Episcopalians (and I say that as someone who loves and is deeply commited to that part of God’s vineyard known as the Episcopal Church).
Loving God and our neighbors—I look forward to talking, working, reflecting, and praying with you this coming year as we learn together what we mean by ‘mission.’
Blessings,
Sarah+