Being, Not Doing

"...mission is not primarily about going. Nor is mission primarily about doing anything. Mission is aboutbeing. It is about being a distinctive kind of people, a countercultural, multinational community among the nations. It is modeling before a skeptical world what the living God of the BIble is really like. Whether we remain all our lives in the towns of our birth or travel to the slums of Calcutta or the wastelands of Madison Avenue, we are all called to mission. For mission is to put our lives on the cutting edge where God is at work. And we have seen in this passage that God is at work challenging the false gods of culture, religion, and the marketplace; God is at work seeking justice for the widow, the orphan and the alien; and God is at work freeing men and women, giving them new identities that transcend those of class and tribe and nation. What was true to Israel's calling is also true for our calling as the church of Jesus Christ: "They are to be a people set apart, different from all other people by what they are and what they are becoming - a display people, a show-case to the world of how being in covenant with Yahweh changes a people."'

- The Message of Mission, by Howard Peskett and Vinoth Ramachandra