Because a congregation is a voluntary association of free individuals, with different needs and passions, living in diverse contexts, with varied skills and resources, the mission of a church must be broad. Our core mission, then is not to do any one particular thing, but rather to be an institution equipped to do many things for many people.  

            We’re talking about Mission and Vision for these Winter months, now through the end of March.

            Mission is the spiritual question, “What should I do?”  Vision is the goal that mission works to reach.

            Maybe you have a personal mission statement.  The beginning of a new year is a good time to think about why you’re here.  Your purpose.  The work you can do, and maybe only you can do, to contribute to the health and joy of the world:

            To care

            To teach

            To add beauty

            To heal division

            To make right

            To expand human knowledge 

            To strengthen the weak

            To amplify the good.

            Mission is about action, about work, about focused activity toward some goal.  Vision is the goal.

            This church is currently in an interim period between one settled ministry and hopefully soon, another.  I’ve been working with you for a year and half now as an interim, with another year and half to come.  Later this spring we will elect a search committee.  Next year, the search committee will do their work.

My role as an interim minister is to help you all make a successful transition, to move away from the previous ministry and into the next.  We’ve worked together to address issues coming out of the previous ministry.  We’re working to strengthen the current church so that healthy systems and structures are in place to support the church longterm.  And we’re doing the interior reflective work to find clarity about who you are and what you want for yourselves, and from your next professional leader.

            Our mission for this Interim period is to do what’s necessary to make the church healthy and strong, attractive to the best possible candidate ministers, equipped to do the challenging and subtle work of discerning among the applicants the one minister who is the best match for this church, and preparing the church to welcome your eventual choice with enthusiasm.  That’s our Mission for this interim.  Our interim Vision being a new minister, successful, for a long time, in this community.

            But what about once the interim is finished?  When we’ve met that short-term vision, what are we here to do?  Where are we headed?  That’s our question for the next few months and the marching orders for the search committee once they start their work.  What work do you need a settled minister to help you accomplish?  Where will you want to go, and what kind of minister will you want walking beside you?

            Corporations and non-profit organizations have mission statements.

            Some of them can be quite specific.  We build widgets!  Or we help women get elected to public office.

            Other mission statements are more general:

            Jet Blue:  “We inspire humanity—both in the air and on the ground.”

            Tesla:  “To accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.”

            The mission statement for TED, the organization that does the TED Talks, is just two words:  “Spread ideas.”

            Some Mission statements are so specific you might be able to name the company just by hearing their Mission statements;

            “To be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices.”

            That’s Amazon.

            How about:

“To connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful.”

            That’s LinkedIn

            Here’s another:

“To build the web’s most convenient, secure, cost-effective payment solution.”

            That’s PayPal.

            Here’s Nike:

“Bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world.*  And then there’s an asterisk that explains, *If you have a body, you are an athlete.”

            And listen to the Mission Statement of the outdoor-clothing company Patagonia:  “Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.”

            What should be the mission statement for our church?

            Well we have one.  You might know it:  “Ours is an inclusive religious community that inspires personal and spiritual growth.  We care for one another.  We strive for social justice, a healthy environment, and a peaceful world.”

Does that describe what we do here?  I think it does.  We inspire personal and spiritual growth.  We care for one another.  We strive for social justice, a healthy environment, and a peaceful world.

      We have another kind of a mission statement in the covenant that we say together every Sunday at the beginning of worship:

            “To dwell together in peace,

            to seek knowledge in freedom,

            to serve humanity in fellowship.”

Our hymnal is full of Mission Statements.  Here’s a kind of mission statement from the hymn we sang as our opening hymn:  “With heart and mind and voice and hand may we this time and place transcend to make our purpose understood:  a mortal search for mortal good.”

            What’s our purpose?  “a mortal search for mortal good.”  That’s a pretty good mission statement for a church.

            Or here’s another from the third verse.  “where we can grow, and each one’s gift is sanctified, and spirits lift, where every door is open wide for all who choose to step inside.”

      As I planned our worship for the next three months, I went through the hymnal and choose hymns and readings that sound like mission statements.  You’ll hear a lot of those in the weeks to come, starting with the long-winded one from the twentieth century Unitarian theologian James Luther Adams that was our Call to Worship this morning.

            How’s this for a mission statement?

I call that church free which enters into covenant with the ultimate source of existence, which brings individuals into a caring, trusting fellowship, that protects and nourishes their integrity and spiritual freedom; that yearns to belong to the church universal;  a pilgrim church, a servant church, on an adventure of the spirit.

            Or here is a Vision statement from the same reading:  “The goal is the prophethood and priesthood of all believers”

            That all sounds good, right?  It’s lofty.  It’s inspirational.  It’s poetic.  It makes you feel good, and important.  A Mission statement should look nice printed on the company letterhead.  Or if it’s short enough you could memorize it.

            But here is what many of these mission statements don’t do:   they don’t actually tell you what to do.

            Nike’s mission statement, “Bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world” doesn’t mention shoes or clothing.  Could you read that Mission statement and know what Nike actually does?  Maybe they print inspirational posters to hang in lockerrooms?  Maybe they compose inspirational fight songs for high school pep rallies?

            Jet Blue’s mission statement:  “We inspire humanity—both in the air and on the ground.” Nothing about airplanes or travel.  Maybe they create firework shows or floats for the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade?

            Patagonia’s mission statement says, “Build the best product” but it says nothing about what products they build.  And then it concludes with lovely language that could be about nearly anything, “cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.”

            “OK,” the new Patagonia CEO might say to his management team, “But what do we do?  Wind farms?  Solar panels?  Plastic recycling?”

“Uh.  No,” they confess, sheepishly.  We make jackets.”

            Now you might think that I’m pointing out a problem with these lofty, ambitious, far-ranging, but non-specific mission statements.  But actually, I’m pointing out a truth, and a good truth, about mission statements.

            Mission statements aren’t about doing specific things.  If they were, they could quickly become out-of-date and irrelevant.  The world around us is constantly changing.  New contexts need new solutions.  Technology is changing.  The means by which we met human needs a hundred years ago, or in many cases even ten years ago, no longer apply.  If your company is so narrowly focused on a single “doing” that fills the needs of today in the way we do today, then you’ll be out of business in ten years.

            We need mission statements that define not how we fill the need, with this specific act of doing, but statements that define us as being here to meet the need, open to whatever doing is appropriate to the context, to the time, to the people we’re here to serve.

            Our church mission statement says:  “We inspire personal and spiritual growth.”  It doesn’t say how.  There’s no list of programs.  It doesn’t mention that we hold worship services on Sunday, and adult religious education classes during the week.

Our mission statement says, “We care for one another.”  It doesn’t say we arrange rides to doctor’s appointments. Or we deliver homemade casseroles to people who don’t have the energy to cook for themselves.  Or we listen quietly when people need to unburden their sorrows.

“We strive for social justice,” but we don’t name particular social problems or say how we address them.  We’re not a non-profit organization devoted to a singular cause.  We strive for a healthy environment, and a peaceful world, and I think we do, and should, but how do we strive, and what do we do exactly?  Well, that depends on the context, and the time, and the people.

A church community is filled with dozens of people, with different skills and resources and passions and needs.  Some come longing for a moment of quiet.  Some are eager for connection with the transcendent.

For others in our community, the “transcendent” has no meaning.  They’re here for inspiration, or for beauty. Others are hoping for a provocative idea to stimulate their thinking throughout the week.  Some want a moral education for their children, or maybe just an hour when it’s someone else’s responsibility to keep their children occupied.  Some come because they are lonely and are looking for friends.  Some come because they’re going through a rough time in life and need some comfort.  And others come because they’re most satisfied when they can provide some comfort to others.

Some are seeking a community where their opinions are shared and they don’t have to be on the defensive all the time.  Others are looking for just the opposite:  a community where their opinions are regularly challenged, which gives them an opportunity to learn and grow.

“I just want to sing in the choir,” says one.  “I’m just here for the opportunity to serve my neighbors at the Tuesday Drop-In program”, says another.  “I only come to the book club”, says another.  Or, “Frankly, I’m only here for the coffee.”

And all of that is good.  All of those doings of the church are good.  Not just a coffeehouse.  Not just a community choir.  Not just a social service agency.  But all of that:  worship, education, pastoral care, social justice, music, quiet, discussion, peace, children, fun, tolerance, and brunch.

A church cannot define itself by a single doing.  We are here to do many different things to fill many different needs for many different people.

So that, eventually, is the true mission of our church.  To be here.

Not to do, but to be.

Simply to be here.  That’s our mission.

To be a container for many doings.  To be a community, where all the varied interests and needs and desires of all the various people who choose to step inside, can do what they choose to do.  Not to offer a single doing, like a non-profit or political organization that asks its members to join a single cause, but a community where we open ourselves to our member’s needs and aspirations, and then offer flexible resources for folks to do what they choose.

Our mission is not to do one thing but to be a community where members can do many things.  The mission of our community is simply to be a community.

A need for community is actually the flexible, expansive, ongoing need that people continue to feel decade after decade.  Offering community and tending to the community is our mission.  Work to keep the community strong and healthy.  Work to keep the roof from leaking, and the floor from sagging, and the heat on, and the staff paid, and the doors open.  Work to offer community to people who need community.  That’s our mission.

Once a person steps inside they can decide what work they want to do with their community:  make music, make friends, say a prayer, lend a hand, fight for justice, teach a child, decorate the altar, make the coffee.  Our church’s mission statement hints at a few general doings that we’re here to do all together:  inspire personal and spiritual growth, care for one another, strive for social justice, a healthy environment, and a peaceful world.  But the most important part of our church’s mission statement is actually the first phrase, not a statement of doing, but of being:  “Ours is an inclusive religious community.”

That’s what we offer.  That’s our widget.  That’s our mission.

To be a community “where every door is open wide to all who choose to step inside.”