The Grace of...Living Missionally

Photo Credit: Ryan Klinck

By Denise Crane

I hope that in our everyday lives, we can remember that we are God’s sent out people.

What we do every day matters. That is part of living missionally.

We are not required to fix the world. We are required to do our best to make it better for all those we encounter and to make it easier to see the divine image in everything. That is part of living missionally.

We are not required to have all of the answers. We are required to wrestle with what we believe, listen to others express what they believe, and to love both those we agree with and those we may not agree with. That is part of living missionally.

I hope that we know that we don’t have to be engaged in every single social justice issue. I also hope we know that we need to engage with social justice issues that are ours to engage with and that we do so. That is part of living missionally.

To move out missionally means to move out with. We go together. With each other. With the Spirit. With the understanding that God is already there, already at work, and is likely to have something to say to us if we can be still enough to hear it. To move out missionally does not mean that we are to move out to—it is not to show up with all the answers. It is to listen to understand not answer. It is not to show up with what we think people need unless we have also listened to what people bring along with them.

Sometimes we forget that we are God’s sent out people. That is part of the beauty of grace.
Some days it is hard to see whether we made anything better, or realize that we didn’t show the best of our divine image. That is part of the beauty of grace.

We may have hours or days or weeks where we think we have all of the answers. Then we find out we don’t. That is part of the beauty of grace.

We have days of self-absorption, or when we get caught up in day to day busy-ness and miss opportunities to engage with social justice issues or support others who do. That is part of the beauty of grace.

God of light and darkness…please give us the courage and energy to live missionally even when it is hard, and thank you that we are equally beloved even when we fall short.