Last night was the first Vestry meeting with the new rector, and it all went well (if a bit longer than usual, which was to be expected). One of the things he asked each of us around the table, as an “ice breaker,” was what we considered our “mission,” from a religious perspective (the Gospel we looked at was the Great Commission, so it wasn’t completely out of the blue).
After a few moments thought, and realizing that I have a lot more than a single mission (even if I look at it from “just” a religious viewpoint), I came up with this:
To demonstrate, through my life (i.e., not intentionally, but just as I live), to those around me that you can be observantly religious — and Christian — and not be a bigoted, arrogant, hypocritical, narrow-minded, judgmental, anti-intellectual, right-wing, busy-body, puritanical jerk.
Hopefully I’m hitting most of those marks. 🙂
Note that, if this is in fact my mission, that I’m not doing it to demonstrate it (i.e., to be persuasive or, gads, proselytize), but because I want to be the opposite of all those things. And if I succeed in that, and if it results in some folks not automatically assuming that “Christian = List of Jerky Behaviors Above,” then spiffy-boo, and our work here is done, Tonto. ‘Cause God knows there are plenty of counter-examples to enforce that assumption.
Well Dave, you do a fine job on living your mission.
Also, did you submit that statement in the Vestery meeting, or was that just part of the mental exercise?
I did indeed. It helped that I had half the table before it was my turn, to be able to come up with additional adjectives.
Folks seemed to enjoy it. At least, nobody suggested I be burned at the stake or kicked out or prayed over or anything. 🙂
But, then, we’re one of those Episcopal parishes …
Given that most mission statements that I have seen lately stress intentionality why did you stress non-intentionality?
Fair enough question. Probably because my main purpose in not being “a bigoted, arrogant, hypocritical, narrow-minded, judgmental, anti-intellectual, right-wing, busy-body, puritanical jerk” is not to show off how spiffy I am (let alone how swell Christians can be), but to simply be a good person. If God chooses to use me to some further end, that’s great, but far be it from me to intentionally seek to be a paragon. (If nothing else, I’m at least as aware of my clay feet as anyone else is.)
The other thing about it not being intentional is that I don’t want those around me to ever think that I mention the religious part of my life with any intent of getting into their spiritual pants, so to speak. I’m not that good an actor, for one thing, and the thought of being an intentional proselytizer or missionary makes my skin crawl and my stomach cramp.
It’s a mission, though, to the extent that, willingly nor not, I know that I am an example: that some folks look at me, look at my professed religion, look at how I behave, and that it shapes their opinion of both me and of Christians (and of every other category I fall into). That’s a cautionary note for me, though, more than anything to feel any (hopeful) pride in — if I display any of those eschewed attributes, I know that folks will be far more willing just to shrug and say, “Hey, Marcia, look at the [fill in the blank] Christian,” confirmed in their opinion of the breed.
Which is another reason why I expressed it as a negative — because there are too many people who do think of Christians in precisely those terms, so I need to be, like Caesar’s wife, not just innocent but beyond reproach.
All of which, as I reread it, makes me sound like I have a bigger ego than I do (and it’s hefty enough to begin with). Suffice it to say that I’d rather be thought of as an honest schnook than a whited sepulchre (of which there are a plenitude), and that my honestly trying to rise above my schnookdom is what I’d rather be known for. If that makes any sense.
Having stated what to avoid, I found the following mission statement of a church in Greeley saying roughly the same thing but in the positive:
Blinne redux of above. The Culture Wars as a Non-Zero Sum Game. The reason why the world has such a negative view of the church is because too often the world (and more often than not correctly so) views the church as not looking out for their best interest.
Well, the Church doesn’t necessarily look out for the best interest of the World (nor vice-versa). The negative view, though, comes more from the perception (rightly so, in some cases) that some in the Church look out for their own Worldly interests at the expense of others not in the Church, and use the Church as a club to gain Worldly advantage.