Identity --> Mission --> Community

This post is coming as a result of a multi-year journey, which started with a search for community and is culminating in the revelation of identity. Along the way, many influences have pushed me towards this truth, most recently, Chris McAllister, who has helped me paint the picture of the connection between identity, mission and community.

A secure identity in Christ leads to a clarity of mission, which attracts and builds community.

We often get this process out of order and it frustrates the core desire we have to become the person Christ has created us to be.

As relational beings we set out in search of community to fill our innate need for intimacy and acceptance; to be known and understood and to belong. When we find that community we latch on to it for the need that it fills; we adopt its mission as our own in order to not lose touch with that communal relationship and to not lose that fill of intimacy. Or sometimes, as often seen in the case of small groups or in the church, we decide as a group to engage in a service project (mission) to feel significant, worthwhile and to fill our internal obligation to do good deeds.

Do you see the difference? The community dictates the mission, which forms our identity.

It usually goes undetected for a short while, but over time we begin to feel the friction between our true identity and this fabricated mission. Commitment demands increase and over the long haul the facade we construct for each gathering wears down. In time, frustration builds and we become unsettled, realizing this is not where we are supposed to be. But we're stuck, clinging to the intimacy offered by the community and the significance and worth found in the group and the mission.

There is a way out. Flip the order of the process. What is your deepest need? Examine your heart. Examine your mission, what you are doing and why you are doing it. Examine your community. What needs are they filling? What do they provide? Significance? Worth? Intimacy?

Now, turn to Jesus for these needs. Instead of striving for worldly things to fill you, let Jesus fill these holes in your heart. When he meets your needs - and he will, to the fullest extent, more satisfying than any earthly channel - you won't go to work everyday with something to prove; you won't push others down to build yourself up; days won't be an endless fight straining for something you can't obtain on your own.

The Samaritan woman in John 4 goes to the well for water everyday to quench her thirst (the need). Symbolically, Jesus instructs her to turn to him to fill that need eternally (v 10). When we fill our needs through worldly things the need will persist (v 13), but when Jesus fills that need eternally it will well up from inside us, giving new life (v 14). Through that new life comes clarity in mission, new life in your mission. It flows out of who you are.

Finally, a laser-focused mission attracts and builds community. People who are secure in their identity and people who are laser-focused in their mission are contagious. Others flock to them. And through a laser-focused mission we actively build community to accomplish what we were born to do.

Think of Jesus. His healings and miracles attracted droves of people. And as he started his mission he recruited disciples to help carry it out. Also notice he controlled his community. He sent some back home after they were healed. He retreated to solitary places and to his disciples. He even kept some around who weren't on board with the mission (Judas Iscariot), but everything he did was with the mission in mind, flowing out of his identity in the Father.

Jesus found intimacy not among the disciples, but in communion with the Father. He found worth not in healings and miracles, but through the Father. He found significance not as King of the Jews, but as the Father's son.

A secure identity in Christ overflows into a laser-focused mission, which attracts and builds community, the very things you are superficially longing for.

I am not an expert. I communicate visions. Chris McAlister is an expert. If you want to dig more into this topic, read his blog. Also, over the next five weeks I will be posting about recognizing holes on a journey to wholeness. It will help lead to a secure identity. Stay tuned.