What is our mission again?

One of the most engaging questions in Mark Driscoll's Confessions of a Reformission Rev. was "Will your church have a mission of community or be a community of mission?" It is the tendancy of most Christians and most churches to become inward-focused communities. Most Christians seem to go through various spiritual stages and at some point in this process they cut themselves off from the world surrounding world. They find contentment in surrounding themselves with other believers and removing themselves from everything else. We get "Christianized" and our mission switches from reaching and connecting with non-believers to creating a community of themselves, which typically turns out to be a pretty judgmental community. Now don't get me wrong, I believe that we all have a God-given need to be around others, relate with them, encourage them, and "do life with them." However, it seems that is the mission for many of us - community.

Is this what Jesus died for? Is the message of the cross to create safe, warm, and friendly environments for believers to exist in removed from the world? I think not! Instead having a mission of community, we must have a community of mission. A community of people that are dedicated to being missionaries to their work, nieghborhood, and zip code. The beauty of community is only reflected when people do life together because of the mission they've been called to.