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2008-03-04 issue:

Sent with power

Grace and Truth column

by Donna Mast

Print Article

Climbing into the car, I tried to remember everything my husband had told me about coaxing the Mazda along the road. I started the engine, turned off the overdrive and pretended the automatic was really a standard, manually shifting from first to second as I made my way along. Coming to a stop sign, I shifted back into first gear, hoping I would have power to pull out into traffic when the time came. Thankfully, I made it to my destination and back again with our transmissionally challenged vehicle.



When I told Conrad, my husband, I was calling our car “transmissionally challenged,” he laughed and commented that my new term might make a good subject for this column. After all, Mennonite Church USA seems to be challenged with the term missional. I’ve been thinking about his comment for several months, wondering what I might have to offer to readers and occasionally chuckling over the thought of mechanically challenged me using an illustration that involves an automobile to try to convey truth.

I am intrigued with the idea that transmission and missional have their roots in the same word—“mittere”: to send. An automobile transmission sends power from the engine to the wheels via belts, fluids, gears and various other parts. Mission has a variety of meanings, but the common denominator is a sending out or being sent out with authority to perform a special service. To be given authority is to be given power—a sending with power.

Sounds like something Jesus said as recorded in Acts, doesn’t it? “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

Jesus authorized his disciples then, and authorizes his disciples now, to go to the ends of the earth to witness to the truth about who he is and what he wants to do in our lives. We can do this because Jesus also promises power, transmitted to us by the Holy Spirit. The church is to be a sent people, empowered by the Holy Spirit to tell Jesus’ story.

The word missional is the adjective form of the word mission. Much has been written about the missional church. It is helpful for me to remember that an adjective is a descriptive word. Missional describes what the church is to be. As we go and tell, the Holy Spirit transmits the truth of the message to the hearer. We are like the belts, fluids and gears in the automobile. If we fail to go out and tell the story, surely we are transmissionally challenged, for the hearer can’t receive the message—the wheels won’t turn.

Some are saying the church of today has changed the “go and tell” of Jesus’ command to a “come and see” appeal. Have we grown attached to our buildings, programs and community of believers to the detriment of going and telling? If so, we are transmissionally challenged. Do our buildings, programs and community of believers support and enhance our going and telling? This is the picture of a missional church.

May we each recognize that we have a story to tell. May we be filled with desire to go and tell. May God be glorified as we obey Jesus’ command to be his witnesses in our neighborhoods, in our parts of the country and, yes, to the ends of the earth.

Donna Mast is co-pastor of Scottdale (Pa.) Mennonite Church.

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