Launch!

Me with Bishop Shelley Wickstrom (Alaska Synod)
and the Rev. Susan Halvor (clergy women on a mission!)

Welcome to my Mission907.blogspot.com, my new blog in my new role as Director for Evangelical Mission for the Alaska Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).

That's a long and fancy title for what is really a pretty simple idea. Let me break it down.

My name is Lisa Smith Fiegel. I'm a Lutheran pastor in Anchorage, Alaska. I work in our synod (think: regional) office and help congregations share the good news about the reckless love and radical acceptance of Jesus Christ for all people. Also, I do some paperwork.

You might think this is obvious. Aren't churches supposed to be out sharing the news of Jesus and helping those in need? Yup. It's called the Great Commission (Gospel of Matthew 28:16-20). But sometimes Christians forget. We all do it. I forget, too. We forget that God calls us to get out of our comfort zone, to meet our neighbor, to do acts of service, to give of our financial resources and to tell about why the love and presence of Jesus makes a real, actual, concrete difference in our lives.

Why do we forget? Well, sometimes we get tired. I was a church goer for far longer than I've been a church pastor (a bunch of years for the former, about eight for the latter). I sometimes went to church because I had a crappy week and needed some encouragement. I went to church to see my friends. I went to church because that's how I was raised in rural Iowa. I went to church because I felt guilt if I didn't. These are not necessarily all bad things (but you can skip the guilt). Yet there's so much more to being part of a church.

Because the church doesn't exist for itself. It exists for the world. The main point of having a church at all isn't to get people to come to a building on Sunday morning. The main point of having a church is so that the members (who are the church) can get fired up to go out into the world and proclaim God's love in word and action.

That's what it means to be a church in mission, AKA a "missional church." Check out this short clip:

I've been a Lutheran and a churchgoer (you can be both!) my whole life. But only in the last few years have I really thought about what it meant to be a church in mission. I'm pretty excited about it. It's a new (not really all that new) way of thinking about church. It's a way to be relevant, when churches exist for the sake of their neighborhoods and communities. It's a way to get out of the scarcity thinking (we don't have enough time/money/people) that churches get into. It's a way to get away from the things people think about when they think about Christians (judgmental, hypocritical, homophobic, self-righteous).

Because being a missional church is all about being in intentional relationships with those in the neighborhoods near the church. Relationships matter. Relationships make a difference. Relationships change not only others but change us, too.