What does it mean for “mission” to be the organizing principe for all activities of the church? Here are two great paragraphs from the book Right Here, Right Now by Alan Hirsch and Lance Ford. Alan and Lance will both be speakers at this year’s Sentralized gathering.

“A working definition of missional church is a community of God’s people that defines itself by, and organizes its life around, its real purpose of being an agent of God’s mission to the world. In other words, the church’s true and authentic ‘organizing principle’ is mission. When the church is on mission, it is the true church. The church itself is not only the result of God’s mission but is obligated and destined to extend it by whatever means possible. The mission of God flows directly through every believer and every community of faith that adheres to Jesus. To obstruct this is to block God’s purposes in and through his people.” – Alan Hirsch

“Mission as organizing principle means that mission goes way beyond being some sort of optional activity or program for our churches. It actually is the organizing axis of the church. The life of the church revolves around it. This is not to say that we don’t do corporate worship, develop community, and make disciples, but that these are catalyzed by and organized around the mission function. Only in this way can we be truly missional. Merely adding serving events or special outreach days to our church schedules will not develop missional people nor make a missional church.” – Lance Ford