Mission Drift
By Jeff Page (Director of Young Adults) and Lauren Stein (Session Elder)
Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. (Matthew 7: 13-14)
The discovery of the Hawaiian Islands is rooted in a rich history of wayfinding. Thinking about how Polynesian navigators found their way to this isolated speck of land in the middle of such a vast ocean is enough to leave one eyes-wide in wonder, marveling at the navigators’ ability to know where they were and where they were going. If those ancient sailors had been the tiniest fraction of a degree off at any point, they might have missed the Hawaiian island chain entirely. But they stayed the course, and didn’t drift from their mission.
Jesus gave us a clear mission in the Great Commission. He commanded us to make disciples, baptizing and teaching them to obey His commands. And He also promises to be with us through it all until the end of time. So often organizations and institutions start out wanting to be part of God’s mission in the world, but along the way they drift off course by a few degrees and ultimately miss the target entirely. Let’s take a look at a few notable examples.
Harvard University was founded in 1636. Harvard’s founders created it to be a ministry training school anchored in truth. Harvard’s early mission statement for its students was: “To be plainly instructed and consider well that the main end of your life and studies is to know God and Jesus Christ.” But only 80 years after its founding, Harvard’s identity was shifting. Concerned by Harvard’s secularization, New England pastors founded another university to be a new stronghold of Christian higher education in 1701. Their answer to Harvard’s mission drift is known as Yale University. Today, both universities are highly sought-after institutions, but neither resembles what their founders envisioned.
Let’s consider another telling example. A man named George Williams started a Bible study in 1844 for displaced young men on the streets of London. Rapidly growing, these Bible studies became a movement and the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) was established. The YMCA was a refuge of Bible study and prayer for young men seeking escape from the hazards of life on the streets. It grew to become an international movement eventually training and commissioning over 20,000 missionaries. But somewhere along the way, the YMCA substituted its mission—to make disciples of Jesus—for one of its outreach strategies: community and fitness centers. In 2010, the organization officially dropped three of its four letters to become simply “The Y,” removing any remaining overt ties to its Christian roots.
We might want to believe mission drift won’t happen to us. We might tell ourselves we are more committed to Jesus than Harvard or the Y. But the truth is we aren’t. Instead of pridefully assuming we are strong enough to stay the course, we should assume mission drift is happening to us. We get distracted. We want to please others. We get busy. We lose our way. Because of this, it’s essential that we continually look back at the mission that launched us in the first place. In remembering, we regain our bearings.
Let’s review this a paraphrase of Jesus’ words about our mission (the Great Commission):
I have been given complete dominion over heaven and earth. Under that authority I charge you: wherever you go, make apprentices of people from everywhere, immersing them in the reality of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Instruct them how to do what I have told you. I will be with you every moment to accomplish this until it’s done (all the way through the end of this age).
Jesus’ mission is to make apprentices and show them how to do what He said. Have you committed to learn life-mastery under Jesus? That is the main thing He is doing, the very reason you were created. It’s the most important thing happening on earth, and the kind of life that you will want to go on forever (which, of course, it does).
Where might you be experiencing mission drift? Is there an area of your life that is drifting from Jesus’ mission? Maybe an area that has not been open for instruction from Jesus?
Prayer: Jesus, You alone build the kind of people who can put our world back together. I commit myself to training under your instruction, with your help I will master what you are teaching and join your work rebuilding our broken world. Amen.
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