The mission of the church never changes. It. Never. Changes. Congregations hire consultants and “experts” to come in and help them craft “mission statements” like a business. While those mission statements may be valid, the truth is that Jesus gave the church their mission statement after He resurrected and before He ascended in Matthew 28:18-20. In those verse we read, “18 And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.” What Jesus shared with His disciples was the mission of the church in the first century and every century thereafter. It has been, is, and will always be the mission of the church. It. Never. Changes.
While the mission of the church never changes, the method by which we achieve the mission of the church has evolved as communication has evolved. Before the Word was written, it was only spoken. After it was written, it was spoken and read. When the Gutenberg printing press produced the first printed Bible in the mid-1400’s the Bible would eventually be shared in a media that few had the privilege to behold. Still, the printed Word became a reality. Countless were converted as the Gospel was shared using “The King’s English.” Today there are between 5 and 7 billion copies of the printed Word in 4,170 languages worldwide. Still, the mission of the church never changes. It. Never. Changes.
In 1876 the telephone was invented. In 1878 the first telephone exchange became available to the public. Soon people could call and ask for prayer, counseling, or to have Bible questions answered. Around the same time radio was invented in the mid-1890’s, but the first “Christian” broadcast didn’t happen until 1921. The Word of God could be heard “magically” anywhere a radio signal could be received. In 1961 the first “Christian” television broadcast aired. The Word of God could now be seen and heard wherever a TV signal was available. Yet, the mission of the church never changes. It. Never. Changes.
In 1969 ARPANET was developed. It was the precursor to the World Wide Web in 1991. Two years later, Christian web sites went online and the Bible was now available on any internet capable device. While the first smartphone was released in 1994, widespread use wasn’t adopted until 2007 with the release of the iPhone. The Bible was now available anywhere anyone had a mobile phone. Desktop and laptop computers, tablets, smart TV’s, and anything that could connect to the internet could help us share the Word of God. Regardless, the mission of the church never changes. It. Never. Changes.
I didn’t mention cards, letters, newspapers, plays, movies, TV shows, audio and video cassettes and discs. There are many more methods of communication that we could list (smoke signals?) – yet the mission of the church never changes. It. Never. Changes.
Jesus gave us our mission, to “19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you.” That’s our mission. That’s why we have been called into existence. It’s so easy to get sidetracked, to start thinking that our mission is something other than what it really is. While the methods change, the mission of the church never changes. It. Never. Changes.
