What drives your church? What is the function that is the catalyst for all other functions that exist in your church? Michael Frost would argue that the majority of churches today are driven by a single function. That single function is the catalyst for all other functions that the church carries out.
Frost would say that that single function that drives all others in today’s churches is worship. Stop and think about the church you’re a part of. What drives it? For many of us we immediately think of the Sunday event. We even call it “worship”. We invite our neighbors to it. We dress up for it. We set aside our Sunday morning for the “event”. The Sunday event (the worship event) drives our community structures (our small groups, our Sunday schools, our home groups), it drives our discipleship, and it drives our mission. In almost any church today if you took away the Sunday event the church would cease to exist.
Frost goes on to argue that there are four main functions that make up a church: mission, worship, community, and discipleship. None of these are more important than the others. They should all play an equal part in the life of a church. But one will usually be the catalyst for the others, and to Frost it should not be worship - it should be mission. The mission of our churches should drive the way we worship, the way we disciple, and the way we form community. And this is not a simple mission statement. It’s much more complex than that. To Frost mission plays itself out in the missional rhythms of a church (another post for another day).
So, what is the thing that catalyzes all things that your church does and is? Is it the Sunday event, or worship, or your desire to see community formed within your church body, or your desire to see disciples made? Or is it the mission that catalyzes all of these things?
I’ll conclude my series on the Frost conference with missional rhythms later this week.
-shorty
Leave a Reply