Recently, some churches have begun calling themselves missional. In truth, however, aren’t all churches called to join in God’s mission? If so, then what’s the difference between doing missions and being missional? To find out, we asked three practioners.

Sarah Cunningham is an idea junkie who loves to bring people together around good things. She’s been a part of many inspiring projects and events, including Story. She’s also the author of several books, including The Well-Balanced World Changer.

Currently pursuing a doctorate at Fuller Theological Seminary, Laura Larsen would be happy spending every afternoon with students. She lives in Kansas City, where she works at Youthfront and Second Presbyterian Church.

Passionate about immigration reform, Matthew Soerens lives in an apartment community that houses people from 20 countries, and where he regularly is offered genuine, unscheduled hospitality. He’s the field director for the Evangelical Immigration Table, a coalition of national evangelical organizations advocating immigration reform, and co-author of Welcoming the Stranger: Justice, Compassion and Truth in the Immigration Debate.

YouthWorker Journal: What does it mean for ministries to be missional?

Laura Larsen: A church that’s missional recognizes the ongoing activity of God. It says God is constantly in action. It has the eyes to see and the heart to join that action wherever it is.

Matthew Soerens: It means to be sent, to follow Christ’s command to love our neighbors. That’s the command Scripture tells us sums up every other command. It includes making disciples, as well as compassion for those who are vulnerable. It’s a command for every Christian, not just for certain people. We all have to wrestle with the ways God calls us to love Him and our neighbors. That’s true for adults and youth.

YWJ: What’s the difference between what ministries currently are doing and missional ministry?

Sarah Cunningham: The way a church’s adults define their relationship to the community influences the way youth see their role in the community. If youth see adults attempting to interact with the community via annual coat drives, they adopt a short-term mentality that seeks to start and complete service in one day.

Matthew: Historically, we’ve thought of missions as something that happens overseas. That’s good, but when Jesus tells us to make disciples, we’re missing something if we don’t realize we have every nation living in our backyard. Too often, the attitude is to complain that those people are lowering our property value. Those concerns are driven by fear rather than the recognition that God is working through the movement of His people.

YWJ: Where does missional youth ministry take place? Is it limited to the walls of the church?

Sarah: Effective ministry takes place anywhere followers of Christ are living and being the church. Does that include buildings with stained glass windows? Absolutely, but the Great Commission road doesn’t just run through the church. It takes us beyond it. We cannot go to the world without getting serious about building relationships with those outside our buildings and those unlike ourselves.

Laura: I don’t know that it can or should be limited by the walls of the church, but there’s unique ministry that happens inside the church. We had a night when kids came and slept in boxes. The next morning, a kid who started coming three weeks prior asked, “How much does it cost to come to church here?” We had a conversation about what it means to be part of the church. Because we were standing in the church, there’s something that gave this kid the freedom to ask questions. Sometimes, it seems the pendulum has swung to say God’s moving outside the church but there’s also a responsibility to engage with what God’s doing inside the church.

YWJ: Tell us about a ministry you’ve experienced that’s missional. What practices, attitudes and theology did you notice?

Sarah: I’m moved by churches that aren’t satisfied with serving the majority race, class or people group, that are taking intentional steps to be part of the community, to show the community the church values people, and to build long-term relationships. This means church people have to release control of where relationships are nurtured. Friendships might not be best formed in a church-stamped small group, class or function. It might be more effective to meet people in neutral, jointly owned public spaces. This allows people of faith to act as equals with non-churched community members, to put themselves in a posture of listening as much as talking.

Laura: My friend works for the social justice initiative of Youthfront. Her primary responsibility is an abandoned elementary school. The idea is to resurrect this building and redeem it. They’re doing after-school tutoring. This depicts the resurrection and Redeemer in a tangible way. It’s a slow process because there are people who formerly attended the elementary school who are involved. Their involvement honors the history of the neighborhood. They have a lot to say about how it’s redone. They know more about this neighborhood and what it needs than my friend.

Matthew: Kudos to those who are willing to try, even if it’s not culturally sensitive. There’s one group we work with that hosts a Thanksgiving meal with its youth group and refugees. It’s intentionally designed not as a one-sided giveaway, but as a chance to come together, meet and learn from each other. It’s an opportunity for young people to understand, hear stories and learn about different cultures.

YWJ: Short-term mission trips are crucial components of many youth ministries. Is taking a short-term mission trip what it means to be missional?

Laura: No—you stop doing something; you don’t stop being something. Mission trips have start and end dates. A missional lifestyle says the lunch you stop at on the way home from the mission trip is just as important as the house you painted during the trip.

Matthew: When I hear the term missions, I think of people who go to other countries and preach the gospel. It actually fits under a larger umbrella to love your neighbors, which also means going across the street. It means sharing the hope of the gospel, meeting human needs in helpful ways, and speaking out against injustices. It means building relationships and being friends. There’s a lot of people in a local context who need friends.

YWJ: Do short-term mission trips still have a place in youth ministries?

Sarah: Short-term mission trips still have a place. They are opportunities—almost a spiritual discipline—to step outside of our normal, familiar settings and intentionally see the world from someone else’s point of view. To help youth come to it from this angle means involving them in discussions about how missions sometimes have been used as opportunities to devalue others’ cultures and evangelize people into an American way of looking at things. It means helping youth become aware of their own feelings in order to stay away from extremes such as a hero or martyr mentality. We’re often least exploitative when we leverage our efforts in the communities where our feet currently are planted.

Laura: Short-term mission trips are easy to mess up, but just because they’re difficult doesn’t mean we should throw them out completely. It’s what Andy Root says in his short-term missions and eschatology book: When we feed a group at a soup kitchen they’re going to be hungry again, but you’re acting out a day that’s coming when they will be hungry no more.

YWJ: How can youth workers equip teens for ministry?

Sarah: Model. Are adults in the church hosting small groups for people inside the church? Are we trumpeting the guy coaching soccer as much as the guy handing out bulletins? One of the best things churches can do is help people become aware of the social elements that hold us back from following God’s stirrings. Think of the disciples constantly voicing disdain at the children, the woman with the bleeding disorder, the woman at the well, the woman who washed Jesus’ feet, and so on. Those were cultural responses common in their day. Jesus helped them become aware of how those ideas contrasted the way of life He was calling them to live.

Laura: Help kids recognize they’re doing ministry as they care for people. When a friend is hurting, they’re ministering when they provide comfort. Help them recognize the action of God and their participation in that. Be willing to say, “Did you pray with your hurting friend?” Maybe they didn’t realize that was an option. Be around kids, have guts and leverage your conversations. A middle schooler isn’t likely to turn a conversation to spiritual matters, but they’re more likely to have that capacity if you provide it for them first.

Matthew: Challenge the young people you’re discipling to think specifically about what it means to practice hospitality in their schools and social lives. Could they sit with a table of refugees? When people are picking teams, could they reach out to people who are different, not as projects, but as friends? Give people context and a theological frame for welcoming people. Students often have very little understanding of what causes people to migrate. Why do people come from other countries? Why are refugees fleeing the Congo? What’s the appropriate response of God’s people? How can we encourage our government to respond?

YWJ: How can youth ministries join the larger missional movement?

Sarah: It starts with stated values, with making going to the community a vocalized, repeated priority. Write it into church value statements, embed it in sermon series, teach it in church membership classes. Then as the church or youth group is making choices about priorities, hold that as a filtering question. Does this new program or initiative equip people to follow Jesus more closely and to build relationships with those outside the doors of our churches?

YWJ: How might learning to be missional impact the long-term faith formation of teens?

Matthew: Kids are looking for something bigger than themselves to define who they are. I hope they find that in Christ so that when they get into college, they’ll wrestle with how they can use the skills God gave them to join in what He’s already doing in the world. That’s far more fulfilling than the rat race of the American Dream.

Sarah: Jesus didn’t call disciples by saying, “Come, take a class about following Me.” He seemed to believe the first step was following and that the following itself would create a laboratory in which learning and development would take place. When people go out and try to live and be church in their communities, God’s Spirit stirs them. When they respond, their souls experience deeper and more sustained allegiance to the way of Jesus.

Recommended Resources:
Unlocking Mission and Eschatology in Youth Ministry by Andy Root
The Godbearing Life by Kenda Creasy Dean and Ron Foster
Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition by Christine Pohl
Welcoming the Stranger: Justice, Compassion and Truth in the Immigration Debate by Matthew Soerens and Jenny Hwang Yang
Christians at the Border: Immigration, the Church and the Bible by M. Daniel Carroll, Ronald Sider, and Samuel Rodriguez
Portable Faith: How to Take Church to the Community by Sarah Cunningham