RHYTHMS OF MISSION
Mission is Global. We just happen to live on one part of it.
Think global even when we are local.
SENDING MISSION
CrossPointe Coast on both ends of the rope
[Andrew Fuller once said that William Carey’s] mission to India seemed like a few men who considered going into a deep, unexplored mine. It was as if Carey said, “Well, I will go down, if you will hold the rope.” [It was as if] in Fuller’s mind … he and the other brethren gave their word that “whilst we lived, we should never let go the rope.” – Baptist World Mission
Mission always involves sacrifice and loss. Whether we are the ones sending our best or the ones leaving behind homes, careers, comforts, families and friends, there is always a cost to Sending Mission. But as missionary and martyr, Jim Eliott, once said, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”
It is our desire at CrossPointe Coast to involve both those who go and those who stay in the joyful gain of the missionary’s fruitful labor. Therefore, CrossPointe partners will both respond to God’s call to go into all the world and preach the Gospel and will support those whom we send with our time, talent and treasure. To this end we have three goals for Sending Mission:
Those being sent will increasingly come from within the congregation of CrossPointe Coast.
Those being sent will go with a confidence that they are genuinely still partners and beloved by CrossPointe Coast and so can be confident that they go with all the promises to provide for their needs according to God’s own abundant provision.
In order to encourage ongoing relational-connectedness, the primary connection between those being sent and those who remain at CrossPointe Coast will be facilitated through Community Groups.
DISCOVERY MISSION
Discovering genuine, relationally-connected love and engagement with the global church
We have the opportunity to learn from what God is doing through his church around the world. We must never see ourselves, in our corner of the globe, as the true church and the church scattered elsewhere and in emerging regions as something lesser. One of the greatest things that we can discover is a genuine, relationally-connected love for the church and a desire to join in pointing communities around the globe to Jesus Christ.
Therefore, we will partner with sending ministries, missionaries and churches around the globe to send short-term groups to churches and mission outposts. We desire to do so humbly and in such a way that our presence does not present a burden on those hosting us and does not disrupt the every day ministry on the ground. We desire to go as learners and partners seeking to connect the two ends of the Sending Mission rope.
Discovery mission will not seek to establish CrossPointe or any of our short-term teams as primary ministries in other regions of the globe. We will make every effort that our contribution will not move directly from CrossPointe to those in need. Rather, we will seek to connect with local churches and disciples that they would become a conduit for any contribution that CrossPointe would make in the region.
It is our hope that Discovery Mission will ultimately serve to increase our engagement in Sending, Community and Everyday Mission. To this end we have three goals for Discovery Mission:
Discover the joy of partnership in the Gospel with brothers and sisters around the globe so that we engage more deeply in Sending Mission.
Discover, in the context of another culture, how to better and more boldly engage in Community and Everyday Mission at home.
Discover a vision for Sending Mission that becomes a desire to be sent out by CrossPointe into another region of the globe.
COMMUNITY MISSION
Gospel Communities on Mission
The call to Community Mission is a call to realize that we are engaged as missionaries in our own cultural context. We must, therefore, come to know the suffering and idolatry of our community and how to bring the truth of the Gospel to bear with clarity and compassion. It is easy to fall into the myth that missionaries are the people who serve in other cultures.
Community Groups are the primary means of engagement in Community Mission. CG Leaders and CG Hosts will work together with their groups to discover a focus for Community Mission for the year.
Many of the needs in our community have already been identified by those who have labored here before us. For this reason, it will be rare that CrossPointe Coast will need to establish a new ministry in the community. Rather, we encourage partnership with existing ministries and institutions in the community. Priority should be given to organizations with whom CrossPointe has formed an ongoing partnership, such as InterVarsity.
Moreover, many of the opportunities for the Gospel in the community are best engaged not through an organized ministry or institution, but through more regular and intentional engagement of households and Community Groups in the lives of our neighbors. May we not institutionalize what can be embodied.
EVERYDAY MISSION
Daily lives of faith-filled obedience
The heart of mission is Gospel proclamation. Gospel proclamation does not begin on the other side of an airplane flight or upon arrival to a soup kitchen. Gospel proclamation begins early in the morning when your heart needs to hear again the joy of salvation. Mission continues as we make known the Gospel to our spouses, our roommates, and our children. Mission then moves out of our households into our neighborhoods, workplaces, dormitories and classrooms. It is as we live daily lives of faith-filled obedience for the sake of Christ and His Gospel that we will learn the meaning of Philippians 1:21-22, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me.”