Miguel Labrador's Blog

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Church – Gathering to Scatter or Gathering While Scattering?

In the last 24 hours, I have seen a number of posts on Church & Mission which have worked me into bit of a frenzy. While I hesitate to say the following is Part II to my series “I Don’t Want To Be That Guy Who’s Pegged As Anti-Church, But…,” it might just well be. Let’s get to it then…

The church gathers so it can scatter. The assembling of the body is more like a convergence of those on already on mission, debriefing, adjusting, talking, and attesting to the work of God that is going on in their midst, and less like a body being equipped or prepared to go on mission. Hence mission leads to church not vice versa. Church then is not primarily a sending body, but a body that is sent. A bit of missional physics; “a body in motion stays in motion, and a body at rest stays at rest.” Mission moves church. Church does not tend to move mission. A church at rest will stay at rest until mission moves it.

There is no dichotomy between gathering and scattering. The dichotomy of a scattered vs gathered church is forced in the definition of the word “church.” If we keep thinking that church is a “place” like a spiritual gas station, a clinic, a safe haven, oasis, or even a watering hole, then we foster and aggravate that dichotomy. The Church doesn’t have a mission. The Mission has a church.

Christianity furthers instigates this dichotomy by making pastors “leaders” of churches. Churchdom has taken a vampiric attitude towards the other 4 giftings in Ephesians 4:11. It has drained them of their blood and embalmed them in into a single person who represents 1/5th of a Spirit inspired ideal. We’ve sucked the missional blood from the veins of a full-orbed and ordained body of Christ and limp away wiping our mouths like malnourished, parasite infested, zombies. If Pastors were supposed to be the leader of churches by themselves, simply protecting and feeding the sheep, then there would be no need for mission. Even the walking dead know they’ve got to get out to be fed. They know by instinct that mission is central to their “survival.”

Breathe Miguel, Breathe…

Now, before you over react, I’m not saying that there shouldn’t be pastors or gatherings. In fact, I believe that pastors should do their 20% of the work of the ministry to the best of their god-given ability. I also believe that the gathering to scattering ratio should be somewhere in the range of 14% gathering to 86% scattering. Do you know where I come up with that figure? What’s your church’s ratio?

Ok, I’m done with my rant. Did I go too far?