Connection is found in a Shared Mission
One of the greatest and most fun ways to bond with others quickly is to have a shared mission.
There are several ways to do this.
Maybe for you, it's your workplace. Maybe you have a shared mission of a job where you're crunching numbers together. You could be a teacher or maybe you’re working in a church ministry. These are unique spaces where you can find deeper friendships because you have a shared common interest and goal.
Believers have a shared mission
As believers, we have a shared common interest and goal in everything we do. We’re called to make disciples. This is our purpose no matter what we do for work, no matter where we live, or what our kids are involved in. With everyone we meet, we are to give away the love of God and help people follow and know Him.
If you're a believer, this means you always have a shared mission and a purpose with other believers. You don't have to think of some brilliant thing you and all your friends can do together because you already have a shared mission.
You can make anywhere a mission field.
One of my friend's father was put in a nursing home, and he couldn't leave his bed. He had somebody make him a sign and put it on his door that said, ‘the house of forgiveness’. Everybody would come in and confess their sins to him. It was unbelievable. And at his funeral, so many people that came had said that they shared things with him that they'd never shared with anybody else. Lives were changed because he just put a sign on his door and said, “I'm here, you can share life with me.”
He pulled off this mission with the help of nursing home staff. They all helped him rally people to his room so that he could stay on the mission till the end of his life. When I heard this story, I was convicted. Anywhere can be a mission field, and anyone can be your teammate.
You may be at a point where you need to add some things to your life or make some choices. And I would say, you should make those choices around community.
Community is the first and most important decision maker in life.
Community needs to be the first thing in your grid when you're deciding where to live. Whether you're deciding what to do, what church to go to, or which town to live in, your decision should revolve around community.
Start to build your life around a place where you have people you can connect with and be on a mission with. If that means you need to live in a smaller house to stay near the people that you're already in community with, then live in the smaller house. If you need to go to a state college where you already know the church you would go to and the people that would go with, and be on mission with, then go to that state school.
Community should be the main determiner of your activities. What you do, how you do it, and why you do it should revolve around community. Who you do life with will ultimately point you in the direction that you’ll go.
People make decisions based on things like convenience, success, and money. We tend to make decisions based on anything but people. But people should be the primary driver behind why we do what we do.
What can you do differently to start seeing your life as a mission field?
Once you start seeing and acting as if your life is a mission field, you're going to notice that God has put you in this place with these people for a reason.
Jesus puts us on mission
From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.
He draws our boundaries and he sets people in their time.
Wherever you go, He has set you in your places. He has said, “I put you in this neighborhood. I put your kid on this soccer team. I put you in this sorority. I've put you in these places so that perhaps people may find their way to God through you being there.” This is our mission.
This is the most exciting and important mission on earth.
There's no bigger, bolder, crazier, more amazing mission we could ever have. This mission plants itself in our everyday lives, it’s beautiful. But, we can feel disconnected when we don't see our lives as a mission. Hebrews 12:1-3 talks about running the race set before us.
Sometimes, we are guilty of seeing ourselves as unimportant. We see our lives as if it doesn't matter, so therefore we don't cling to each other. We don't realize how important what we’re called to do really is.
Accountability starts to matter when you realize how important your mission is.
You don't want to be derailed from your race because of sin or burden. Instead, you want to run the race that God set before you.
If we don't play our part in the mission, the body of Christ is sick. When we realize how needed we are in the story of God and the work of God, we’ll realize how important it is to stay accountable.
We want to be accountable because we don't want to derail. We don’t want to miss the mission.
This perspective begins to shake everything. The mission is urgent.
And you might be wondering, “why are we talking about being on mission? I thought we were talking about friendship?” We’re talking about friendship and mission because the two go together. In the race that we're all running we need our people to help us, and we’re called to help others.
When someone said to Jesus, “you're asking my child to go and follow you, and I don't even know you.” Jesus replied, “I ask a lot from the people that follow me. I don't ask anything for the people that don't.” This is comforting because although we may have been following Jesus for a long time, we continue to see that he pulls us in deeper and asks more of us.
It isn't easy to turn the other cheek, to forgive, to confess sin, or to do a mission with people day in and day out, fighting for them and loving them even though they annoy you.
This is how we were meant to live. In living this way, He is working out our issues and pulling us out.
We notice our selfishness more when we're in deep community with other people. We notice where we've quit running our race and living our mission when we watch other people run theirs. This is a beautiful thing about community and deep relationships. It doesn't have to always look like a comparison. It could look like encouraging each other and fighting for each other.
Together, we’re trying to accomplish all that God has for us to do.
One of the greatest things we can do for each other is to dream together. Imagine what it would look like to sit down with people that love you and say, “help me dream for the next year in my life. What do you think my gifts are and what could I do with this little bit of margin or time that I have?” I know you might be scared to ask people, but I'm telling you, they would love it.
Wherever you’re called to be can be a mission field
I think about my friend who is an artist. One day she told me, “I don't see anywhere that I'm making a difference for the Kingdom.” So I asked her, “what are you doing day in and day out? What do you love?” She said, “I love art. That’s what I do. When I'm not with my kids, I'm painting or I'm doing art for people.”
So I said, “what if you joined a local art community, like a gallery or a gathering of fellow artists that live where you are?” And she started instantly started laughing and said, “I just got an invitation last week to a gallery show. I think I'll go.”
So she grabbed one of her friends who was also was an artist and the two of them went together to this gallery show. Six months later, she had a whole network of artist friends that didn't know God. The two of them were now involved in the art community of their town, making a difference, and giving God away to new people.
This all happened because she thought outside the bounds of what she normally does. It wasn't a Bible study, but it was a gallery show. It wasn’t even something spiritual. She made connections and got to give God away to people that would’ve never come to church or a Bible study.
This is what I hope this looks like.
Love is about taking things you love and pulling other people in with you and saying, “hey, let's make a difference here.” Wherever you’re called to be, it can be a mission field. And the people around you can be your teammates.
I promise you, this is the most fun way to live.
Don’t worry, there’s more.
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