Talking with Connie Sabo in the living room of her north Atlanta home, you’d think from her poise and easy grace that she might have been a contender for Miss America. (She is first cousin to one.) But when I first meet Connie, her blond mane is pulled back in a ponytail, she’s wearing jeans and sneakers and playing ball with a dozen Latino kids in the muddy parking lot of an aging apartment complex. “We don’t speak a word of Spanish,” she said, “but they know we care. We certainly were not equipped for this, but God has equipped us.”
Her husband, Frank, is there, too. (He is greeted with shouts of “Mr. Frank! Mr. Frank!”)
Soon daughter Taylor arrives with her high school classmates for an afternoon of tutoring, a Bible lesson, and games in the parking lot with the kids of Wyndham Creek apartments. For the past six years, this has been their Wednesday afternoon ritual.
“This is not a project. It is integrated into our lives.” —Connie and Frank Sabo
“Definitely, it’s a big, long-term commitment,” Taylor said.
“Mostly we love kids,” Frank said. “And they love us back.”
The Sabos represent a shift taking place among believers and churches in North America. Frank and Connie lived in several cities during his career in corporate management with a major restaurant chain, and now, settled in Atlanta, they enjoy a comfortable lifestyle. As members of Perimeter Church, a megachurch in the Presbyterian Church in America, their family grew under the teaching of pastor Randy Pope and a wide variety of ministries for their girls. Then their older daughter, Chelsea, now in college, participated in a junior-high outreach to an apartment community of immigrants with lots of kids, few English language skills, and deep need. That in-town mission sparked a desire in the Sabos to move beyond their comfortable faith.
Theirs is part of the story of a church that awakened to the spiritual and physical need of their neighbors and the birth of a service ministry that now includes 90 churches of all denominations in the area.
It is a good picture of what happens when a church and a family go “missional.”
More than Buzz
The word missional has been in the dictionary for 100 years, defined in the 1907 Oxford English dictionary as something that is of, or pertaining to, missionaries. But those who use the word today have broader applications, focusing on the church’s role in the culture.
“I need to live here. It keeps my heart tender toward my neighbors.” —Julie Sawyer
It refers to a philosophy of ministry: that followers of Christ are counter-cultural, on a mission to change the culture. Missional refers to the specific activity of churches: to build the kingdom of God in all settings where church members are at work, rather than building up the local congregation, its programs, numbers, and facilities.
Many users of the term refer to a change of heart—that missions is not a distant program to which we send a check or boxes of used clothing—but instead something we’re personally involved in. The whole life of a believer is to be dedicated to faithful sharing, giving, and going—more than studying, hearing, and sending others.
Those steeped in a missions tradition would contend it is the recovery of an old ethic. If the number of websites and recent books using the word are any measure, missional is hot and spreading. Time will tell if it is the successor to “church growth” and the antidote to consumer-driven church.
Nigh Society
A missionary returning from South America to teach at the seminary I attended predicted the demise of the monolithic agency that sent him and funded him for nearly 30 years. “The denominational mission structure has grown large and unwieldy. The churches are losing connection with the missionaries they fund,” he told our class. He spent a week teaching on the missions societies that grew up around the work of Adoniram Judson and other missions pioneers.
“The problems and issues and struggles of the community are now our problems and issues and struggles.” —Ben Sawyer
“The forces that led to these ad hoc groups of people from various church backgrounds and the passions that kept them together proved effective in spreading the gospel,” he said. “I think we’ll see the reemergence of the society method of missions sending in the next generation.” Not only as a funding and sending method, I would tell the professor today, but also as a congregational and personal ethic.
For congregations, the missional concept means:
1. Local churches (and the networks they form) replacing the denominational boards and parachurch organizations as missions senders.
2. The shared parish concept in local communities.
3. Personal ownership of missions responsibility.
From local congregations and missions societies supporting a few missionaries in the 1800s, the seat of Christian mission responsibility moved to denominations in the 1900s, to parachurch organizations in the latter half of the last century, to entrepreneurial megachurches in the past generation, and increasingly back to congregations and individuals in ad hoc groups that often want to do the work themselves.
Yes, professor, we are coming full circle. Individual Christians in local congregations are taking new ownership of the mission. We are becoming missional.
Going to People Afar
Roberta Hestenes’s account of a missions trip to East Africa is just as gripping for the audience who hears it today as it was eye-opening for the church that supported it in 2000. Rather than another short-term trip that makes do-gooders feel good and leaves the missionaries on the field to mop up afterward, this trip was the first venture in the adoption of a distant, unevangelized people by Hestenes’s Southern California congregation. Solana Beach Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) chose the Afar in Ethopia.
After extensive research and prayer, the church took these remote and little-known people to heart and began fundraising. Hestenes told the story of a woman named Vera, who waffled over going. Finally she joined the team.
After months of planning, and two days on cramped planes, the team was journeying several hours across the desert to find the Afar when one of their drivers swerved to avoid a collision. The van flipped. Three people were severely injured.
In the hours they waited for help to arrive, a group of boys came by. “Afar?” Roberta asked of the boys who were hours from the Afar village. “Afar!” the leader said, point to himself and several others. “Afar,” he scowled, pointing to one boy and shaking his head. Apparently not Afar. Seeking some connection with the kids who knew no English, Roberta eventually led them in singing “Alleluia.”
And undecided Vera found her purpose on this trip. Vera is a nurse. She tended the injured.
The group was led to the Afar town and met an entourage of 50 leaders, a door that had never been opened to Christians before. “We know you really care about us and our needs,” Hestenes quoted the top official as saying, “because you came. Even though it was hard and even though your colleagues were hurt in the accident.” This was the first trip in a multi-year relationship with the Afar.
Hestenes now urges other churches to personal involvement in mission work, not merely missions support. Our personal formation in the image of Christ demands hands-on ministry, she said. Everyone is important in the work, even those like Vera who are at first unsure of their contribution. These are recurring themes in the missional conversation: hands-on, personal involvement, a purpose for everyone.
The monolithic sending agencies are admitting, “We can’t do it alone.” The Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board, which has for decades prided itself for fielding the world’s largest team of missionaries, turned to local congregations for assistance in reaching “unreached people groups.” In SBC life this is a remarkable change from the decades in which all the churches supported all the missionaries in order to reach all the lost people—in the process losing close contact between missionaries and the people back home.
This is the supra-denominational approach to missions—local churches working above and beyond the reach of the sending agency, and often outside the denominational or even parachurch structure.
On the local level as well, the new watchword is partnerships. “In the ’80s and ’90s, the national agencies would come up with the ideas and fund them. On the local level, we participated in what they funded,” said Keith Draper, a church planting strategist who was recently named executive director of the Chicago Metro Baptist Association, an alliance of Southern Baptist congregations. “Now, the national leadership wants to know what is working on the local level. Then they join in and may support it financially.”
This, too, is a significant shift for a denomination with a top-down missions strategy. “Today our work is about creating partnerships on the local and regional levels,” Draper said.
“In some ways this is nothing new,” he pointed out. “There is historical precedence for local congregations leading regional, national, and international missions. Before denominations coalesced 150 years ago, local churches took responsibility for global missions. They were ‘glocal’ two centuries before the word was coined. We are getting back to that.”
Shared Parish, Shared Purpose
What the Billy Graham organization pulled off in the cities where it crusaded—bringing churches of different stripes together for a common purpose—is beginning to happen organically and for ongoing ministry. Think of it as the church without borders.
In Columbia, South Carolina, they call it a “circle of accountability,” the responsibility shared by churches to reach the 600,000 unchurched people in their city. Jeff Shipman founded Columbia Crossroads Church six years ago with the intention of reaching every lost person. Realizing the enormity of the goal, Shipman enlisted fellow pastors to subdivide the region and tackle the task together. His church has even supported the planting of 20 churches in five denominations, none of them his own. Today 70 churches partner.
In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 30 of the 80 evangelical churches are working together under the banner “Loving our Communities to Christ,” a project of Mission America. The alliance is one of nine in cities across the nation. In each city, the churches focus on issues specific to their location, including reconciliation, justice, and strengthening marriages and families.
A community-wide work in Little Rock, Arkansas, has become a model in more than 20 other cities. Started eight years ago when 31 pastors prayed for a way to demonstrate Christ’s love to their city, Sharefest annually brings together dozens of churches in Central Arkansas for repair work in rundown schools and neighborhoods. Fellowship Bible Church continues to spearhead the annual event.
These are a few examples of what may be called a “shared parish,” the desire to build the kingdom together with other congregations.
The church that inspired the Sabos to become a missional family is part of Unite!, 90 churches sharing a parish and resources in North Atlanta. The ministry centers around International Village, an area that has seen an influx of thousands of immigrants from more than 100 language groups.
When Churches Work Together
About the time the Sabos’ daughter was asking dad to drive the van for that junior high mission project, pastor Randy Pope was asking God for clarity for Perimeter Church’s next season. At their 25th anniversary, the church had quality teaching and strong faith (head and heart, as Jona- than Edwards put it), but what was missing was involvement in ministry to people in the area (the hand, as both Edwards and Pope point out).
“Our church is in an area where the spiritual need is great, but the physical need may not be so obvious,” said Chip Sweney, Perimeter’s Metro Outreach pastor. “We began looking in a larger ring around our community.” A demographic study showed that big changes were happening around them. Along Buford Highway the black-owned businesses and mom-and-pop shops were becoming ethic stores: Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese, Laotian, and Latino from a dozen countries.
“There are 400 apartment complexes around here, and each nationality settles together in a few apartment complexes,” Tim Cummins of Whirlwind Ministries explains. “Every complex is like visiting a different country. In every one, people need help talking with the landlord or reading the letter from their kids’ school. A tremendous opportunity for the gospel here. Talk about going to the world? The world is coming to us!”
In that environment, leaders of a few churches said, “We are each doing some good things in the community, but what if we were to do it together?”
A core of eight churches formed with Sweney and Bryan White of Hopewell Missionary Baptist Church, a historic, black congregation, taking the point.
Now, almost four years later, Unite! involves more than 90 churches—black, white, and Hispanic—from a range of theological backgrounds. They lead prayer initiatives and adopt schools. The Unite! churches took in 1,000 families who fled to Atlanta after Hurricane Katrina. And they support a clinic for indigent people.
Sweney is still a church staff member, although much of his work is outside Perimeter. He is their gift to the community. “The churches with resources have responsibility to lead out,” Sweney said. “We just need to love on people, and let them know that we care.”
And much of their work centers on the people of International Village.
Moving Into the Neighborhood
Like the Sabos, Ben and Julie Sawyer are members of Perimeter Church who heard a calling.
“It was just like a finger in the eye,” Julie said of the prodding they felt from their pastor’s teaching and from the Lord. “We had a strong family life. It kept coming to us that it’s natural to serve in an area where you’re already strong.” So when they heard of an opening at an apartment complex in the International Village, where one of the their children’s teachers had lived and led ministry to immigrant children, the Sawyers packed up, left their suburban home, and squeezed their family into a four-room apartment. The downstairs living area becomes a kids’ club a couple of afternoons a week.
A marker board in the window, with the Unite! logo, says “Homework Help, 4-6 p.m., Welcome!”
Ben comes home from work in time for the tutoring and games on the asphalt drive. “We felt it was important to move into the community itself because it lends credibility to what we’re doing here,” Ben said. “The problems and issues and struggles of the community are now our problems and issues and struggles.”
“It grabs me every time I drive into the complex,” Julie said in her makeshift dining room, surrounded by immigrant children struggling with simple math. “This is important. I need to live here because it’s important and it keeps my heart tender toward my neighbors. And I fear leaving, that my heart would harden again.”
Eric Reed is managing editor of Leadership.
The stories of the Sabos and the Sawyers are told in the video Intersect Culture, produced as part of The Christian Vision Project by Leadership and Christianity Today International. The video is a six-part series profiling people who are changing their communities. It includes a study guide for small groups. For information, visit www.ChristianVisionProject.com.
Copyright © 2007 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
