Missioner Hodapp's slides from the 2012 Mission Area Gatherings of the Episcopal Church in Minnesota.

1. Mission Area Gathering
Mission MarketPlace
Jan — Dec 2012

2. Engaging God’s Mission

3. What’s mission anyway?
• In my life …
• In the life of our Church …
• In the life of our faith communities…
• In the life of our neighborhoods …
• In the life of the world…

4. What’s the mission of the Church?
To restore all people to unity with God
and each other in Christ. (BCP, 855)

5. Yeah, but what’s mission?
“If everything is mission, nothing
is mission.” — Bishop Stephen Neill

6. Five Marks of Mission
• Tell: Proclaim the Kingdom’s Good News
• Teach: Baptize and nurture new believers
• Tend: Respond to human need by loving service
• Transform: Change society’s unjust structures
• Treasure: Safeguard the integrity of creation
— The Anglican Communion (1984-1990)

7. But it still doesn’t tell us what mission is…
Our understanding of mission has
developed, from God Acting (actio dei)
to God Sending (missio dei) to
WHO GOD IS …

8. In other words: mission is the creating,
reconciling, transforming action of God
flowing from the community of love found in
the Trinity, made known to humanity through
Jesus, and entrusted to the faithful action and
witness of the people of God, who through
the Spirit, are a sign, foretaste and instrument
of the reign of God.
— National Council of Churches in Australia

9. Mission is God’s desire
(agency, impulse, force)
to be known and make a
difference in the world.

10. • What do we do?
– MT 22:36-40 (Great Commandment)
• Who does it?
– MT 28:16-20 (Great Commissioning)
• How do we do it?
– Jer 29: 7

11. “Seek the welfare of the city
where I have sent you…
and pray to the Lord on its behalf,
for in its welfare
you will find your welfare.”
Jer 29:7

13. Episcopal Church can no longer claim privileged
place in today’s diverse, increasingly post-
Christian U.S.
– 2010: 0.2% U.S. population in Episcopal Church
on Sunday (657,000)
– Average Sunday attendance loss for TEC from
2000-2010, 23% (MN, 22%)

14. “These statistics reveal something very important
about the challenges we face as a Church… One
of those is that we cannot allow statistics like this
to make us anxious about our survival. Earthly
survival is not much a value of the Gospel. Striving
for the kingdom and righteous of God is…
Concentrating on the latter is likely to yield more
abundant life than the former (Mt. 6:31-33).”
—Bishop Stacy Sauls, Chief Operating Officer

15. “…Right now, I think the cross calls us to die to
those trappings of our old establishment life, and
that means turning our attention single mindedly
to God’s mission and our participation in it, which
means that we are going to have to restructure
and reform ourselves accordingly. Churches that
turn inward will die. Churches that turn outward
will not only live, but thrive. The numbers call us to
strengthen our commitment to turn outward.”
—Bishop Stacy Sauls

16. • Rethink theological basis for mission: from
doing mission for God to participating in
God’s ongoing mission…
• God’s ecstatic communal life
• God’s reign of mercy and justice
• The world’s hospitality (Lk 10)
• Cultivate theological imagination

18. our
world’s needs
gifts

19. A Prayer for Mission
O gracious and loving God, you work everywhere
reconciling, loving, and healing your people and your
creation. In your Son and through the power of your
Holy Spirit, you invite each of us to join you in your work.
We, young and old, lay and ordained, ask you to form
us more and more in your image and likeness, through
our prayer and worship of you and through the study
of your scripture, that our eyes will be fully opened to your
mission in the world. Then, God, into our communities, our
nation, and the world, send us to serve with Christ, taking
risks to give life and hope to all people and all of your
creation. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.