Maintenance vs. Mission

Most of us consider January as being half-way though the church year, which makes it a good time to look at what we are doing with our congregational life. One of the assessments congregation leadership can make to determine how the congregation is doing is to look at the energy spent in maintenance versus mission, that is dealing with in-house issues rather than working to meet the congregation mission or making the church an active agent in improving the world. Eddie Hammett in Making the Church Work lists some indicators that give evidence of a congregation’s drift into maintenance mentality:

• Committee meetings focus on institution concerns (budget, maintenance) rather than on mission (reaching new people, change the injustices in the world).

• Budget planning begins with “what we have to work with” rather than “what is our driving mission in the community/world”.

• Annual planning consists of doing what was done last year.

• Most conversations revolve around meeting the needs of those in attendance rather than reaching into the community to new people.

• Trying to preserve programs, rituals and traditions gets more energy and focus than creating new strategies to reach new populations and helping a broken world.

• When people’s intent and energy focus more on humoring those in the pews now than on penetrating into the community for finding ways to welcome new voices

So a good question for us to ask ourselves as we start a new year might be,

“Are we a maintenance or a mission congregation?"

“Does a maintenance or a mission focus inspire people to support us with their time and money?”

District staff is available to help congregations engage in mission discussion. Contact us as 508-559-6650 or BCDoffice@uua.org.

Bill Zelazny, District Executive (BCD in Brief, 1/2005)