The mission of the church is exactly as old as the church itself. It's as old as humanity if we look back (as we should) to what God has been working to accomplish in the world from the very beginning. The mission is clear, though it is variously stated in Scripture as making disciples of all nations, reconciling the world to God, fishing for human beings, etc. 

Looking back over the last 2,000 years, the church has changed significantly from place to place and from time to time. Our approach to mission is no different. While this strikes many modern Christians as suspicious (the gospel doesn't change, so why should the church or its approach to mission?), missionaries have a long history of adapting their methods without compromising the gospel. We who live in a changing culture would do well to learn from their experiences. 

Missiologist Andrew Walls uses two principles to frame the tension inherent in mission: the Indigenizing Principle and the Pilgrim Principle. The Indigenizing Principle teaches that the church is always meant to be a place to feel at home. There is no culture in the planet in which the gospel cannot take root and create a place of belonging. This is what we love about our church experiences: the gospel has transformed a group of people in such a way that we feel we belong in the deepest sense. The Pilgrim Principle, by contrast, teaches that the gospel is never fully at home in any one culture. There is always some element of our culture or ourselves that must be challenged. Because we are human, we are never fully at home in the church: we are always being stretched by the gospel, we are always being sent out. 

These two principles together are enlightening, but also maddening. The church is meant to be a home for everyone, but none of us will ever be entirely at ease. When the church perfectly fits our every desire, we can be sure the church belongs to us and not to Jesus. These principles also keep us from imagining that one-size-fits all in pursuing our mission. 

Though we have a tendency to refer to our church models as "biblical," a careful read through the New Testament actually reveals frustratingly little by way of detailed instructions for what our churches should look like. Does it not strike us as arrogant to think that we've only just now, in 20th and 21st century America arrived at the one approach to church that God sanctions? 

This lack of detailed prescriptions may feel unsettling, but it shouldn't. We should feel enormous freedom! And within that freedom, we should tap into enormous creativity.  

One positive response I've seen to Covid amongst pastors of traditional churches, like myself, is a huge upsurge in creativity. Almost no one is doing exactly what they used to do, and few churches have taken identical approaches. That is a welcome change! Our new constraints force us to create. 

The musician Jack White (of The White Stripes) has said that he intentionally uses old guitars that he must fight to keep in tune while he plays. He'll book less time in the studio than he thinks he needs to record an album. Why? Because infinite options can be debilitating. So he imposes limitations to force himself to create within those bounds. Ease of use, he says, is a plague on the creative process.

What Jack White imposes on himself we don't necessarily need to seek out. We have limitations on every side when we seek to fulfill the mission of the church. While we can never compromise the gospel—that good news is our lifeblood and the only reason for our existence—it is time for a renewed sense of adventure, creativity, and experimentation in the way we pursue the mission.

We don't need to see any more stats to show us that the people we are needing to reach are not interested in church as we've been doing it. As has often been said, "your organization is perfectly designed to achieve the results it is currently achieving." In other words, the church will continue to dwindle and gray if we continue doing precisely what we've done. The only surprise here is how stubbornly committed most of us seem to be to doing the same thing we've always done.

The Spirit of God has brought fresh life and direction at key times throughout history. Many of us believe we are at just such a moment. We can never tell precisely what the new season will look like, but it will always require faithful followers of Jesus who are comfortable being uncomfortable, with living on the fringes of the established church. If we are willing to experiment, we will find many ways to fail at the mission. But we will also find ways of recovering what the church was designed to be. Let’s lean into both the Indigenizing Principle and the Pilgrim Principle. If we listen to the other pioneers who are taking what seem to be wild steps into fresh ways of embodying the unchanging gospel, we might recover the soul of the thing we love so dearly. It's time to listen to and support the innovators among us. And it's time for all of us to pursue creativity and adventure for the sake of Jesus and his church. 

Mark Beuving has been serving in pastoral roles for nearly 20 years. After a decade in various teaching and administrative roles at Eternity Bible College, Mark is a pastor at Creekside Church in Rocklin, California. His books include ‘Resonate: Enjoying God’s Gift of Music’ and the New York Times bestseller ‘Multiply: Disciples Making Disciples,’ which he co-authored with Francis Chan.