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Apparently, I was Wrong!

Presumably, when Jesus said that the disciples should wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit, what he really meant was that the disciples should all go off and get MBAs in strategic management!

I know that it is hard to believe, but in yesterday’s blog post (which didn’t show up on Facebook for some reason), I made a very serious error.

The point of yesterday’s post was that getting to know Jesus should be a higher priority for the church than doing mission:

Missionaries who are not transformed by Jesus teaching have nothing to offer the world anyway and would be better advised to stay at home and those who have truly absorbed what Jesus is saying will go out into the world to speak about him – you won’t be able to stop them. Our problem, is that all too often, we’ve settled for an anaemic, personal Jesus rather than radical, world-altering, crucified and risen Messiah of the Bible.

Getting to grips with Jesus is the highest priority for the Church. When we get that right, mission will happen anyway.

But as I say, I was wrong. Apparently, you don’t even need to be a practicing Christian to be a mission leader. At least, according to the diocese of Truro:

Image taken from Archbishop Cranmer

Yes, you read that right. The advert for a Strategic Programme Manager who will be responsible for “the strategic leadership of the Transforming Mission programme” says that “you do not need to be a practising Christian”. You can find the full text of the advert here.

Presumably, when Jesus said that the disciples should wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit, what he really meant was that the disciples should all go off and get MBAs in strategic management!

I’m sorry if I sound a tad cynical.

Mission is first and foremost about Jesus; bearing witness to him and teaching people to obey everything he commanded. It isn’t about social transformation, it isn’t even about church planting or Bible translation, it’s about Jesus. All of the other stuff flows out of our encounter with the crucified and risen Lord. Being a practicing Christian is absolutely essential. With all due respect to the diocese of Truro, I wasn’t wrong, but they are!

HT Archbishop Cranmer