Our world changed when COVID-19 zoomed into our lives in the spring of 2020.
We wrestle with knowing how to live missionally when our going is limited by barriers such as the fear of getting sick, government restrictions, and limited public gatherings. Many people are even afraid to stop and speak in public places.
During the upheaval and disruptions of Covid-19, the way we go about our missional journey may change, but our identity and our call to go has not. We are still sent. We are still a missionary family, sent to join the Father where He is working.
Mark 6:7-11 records Jesus sending the twelve, and He would later send the 70 and ultimately send us.
Calling the Twelve to him, he began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over impure spirits. These were his instructions: “Take nothing for the journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. Wear sandals but not an extra shirt. Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town. And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, leave that place and shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.”
Sent by Jesus
Because God is a missionary God, we are a missionary people. Individually and collectively, we are sent to join the Father in His mission.
If mission defines who Christ is, and if Christ sends us as He was sent, then missions defines who we are.
Unable to control the outcome
Jesus sends them and gives them authority, but look at what He takes away. He removes control. Jesus authorizes and sends them on a task and then takes away the ability for them to control the outcome. Part of being sent is being people with authority who are no longer in control.
They have no money, no food, and they don’t even know where they are going to stay. They are completely dependent on the condition of the times, the environment in which they find themselves, and the disposition of the people to whom they are sent.
One of the things that trouble us the most in this pandemic is the loss of control. As much as we want, we cannot determine the outcome. We’re not calling the shots, and we don’t like it.
We do not know what the future holds, and one way we seek to regain control is by going back to the past. We long to go back to the safety of what we know. We urgently want to restart all the things we did before.
But what if losing control is a good place to be? What if to be obedient to Christ’s call, we have to go forward into uncharted territory. Is God using this pandemic to make us depend not on ourselves, but the one who saved us and sent us?
Just as the twelve found themselves stripped of their clothing, food, and money, we find ourselves stripped of the familiar and are forced to yield and surrender the situation to the Holy Spirit and trust the one who sends us.
We may not be able to control our uncertain times, but we are secure in Christ. We are not powerless, we are not victims, and we are not without purpose, and our direction is forward – not backward.
A team effort
Jesus sent them two by two. We are not smart enough, wise enough, and strong enough to do this by ourselves. We are never called to do this alone. We need the relationship of brothers and sisters in Christ.
As we look for new ways to fulfill the mission, we need to find someone to talk through what it means to be sent in our current circumstances. Find a partner or group of fellow travelers to talk with, listen to, and plan with. Don’t go it alone.
Impacting households
Jesus is inviting us to engage in something that goes against the grain of what we want to do. We want to spend all our time with others who are like us, people we know and feel comfortable with. But Jesus is sending us to spend time with and to depend on strangers who need to know that God’s kingdom is near.
When you find someone who will open their lives to you, stop, stay, and impact those who welcome the messenger, and ultimately the message.
Our identity and call has not changed
Isolation and barriers do not negate that we are a missionary family, sent to join our missionary Father in His work. Change isn’t easy, but it is inevitable. What will we do in this time of change? Steve Addison writes:
To fulfill their mission, the most effective movements are prepared to change everything about themselves except their basic beliefs. … Movements embody their vision and values in systems that are effective, flexible and reproducible, outlasting and even surpassing the influence of the first generation of leaders.
Missional Challenge
Find at least one other believer and begin to pray and talk about what it looks like to live sent in a pandemic and then in a post-COVID world.
Then:
- Keep living sent
- Surrender control of the outcome
- Find ways to move out in the current situation
- Impact people groups