Church Mission Statements

“Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.” Deuteronomy 6:4-9

In the Religion section of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette each Saturday is a feature story about a central Arkansas place of worship (I hesitate to say “church” because I think there have been synagogues featured). The feature highlights a brief history of the church and its ministries and pastor. It is usually the run-of-the-mill stuff that almost any church is interested in: serving the community and one another. Not to suggest that such “stuff” is routine but for the most part, it reads almost the same from one week to the next. Except for this week.

As part of the introduction of the featured church, there is a “mission statement” attached to the story to offer the reader what that church feels is its own essence, a brief description of how the church views its ministry and mission.

The reading from Deuteronomy cited above was listed as the “mission statement” of yesterday’s featured church. It is a non-denominational congregation that was apparently created from the collective vision of several from other denominations who felt that the true mission of the church can be easily lost to denominational doctrinal understandings (or misunderstandings). The church as a whole loses its proper focus when that focus concerns itself so narrowly on what we as a people would like to see, according to what we specifically believe.

The mission of the church: to love the Lord your God with …everything you have and everything you are, and to love your neighbor as yourself. How much simpler can this be and yet so profound at the same time? And as I read and re-read this “mission statement”, it occurred to me that other mission statements I have reviewed in the past came across as commercial fluff that might be appealing to a particular segment of society, or it might be eye-catching to that particular neighborhood it serves. Not to dismiss any church statement that is not a direct quote from Holy Scripture, but the appeal that this particular church had in conjunction with its stated purpose for existence was powerful in a way that I am seriously considering the 45-minute commute every Sunday. Even as the United Methodist licensed pastor I am, at least on the surface this is a church I would be proud to serve as a preacher and pastor.

Jesus Himself quotes this passage from Deuteronomy when asked what He considers to be the “greatest” commandment. And then He states, “The second greatest commandment is LIKE the first …”

So simple and yet so powerful a statement that contains not what we might like to see from a church we would choose to attend and be a part of but, rather, a statement of purpose which is more a reflection of the Lord’s will rather than our own. After all, is this not what our common prayer usually focuses on, "Thy will be done"?

If not, it certainly should.