Ed Stetzer talks about his experience with the similar idea of culture shock. Disorientation steps onto the scene when individuals and groups who take short-term international mission trips experience unfamiliarity of a location, language, food, culture, etc.

When it comes time to help the travelers adapt to their new location, Almost an M says you can only hope those individuals realize their need to adjust. Otherwise, how do you explain to someone how different it really is in the place where you landed compared with the place you left? When people look the same–but the paradigms they maintain are radically different–how do you explain the invisible interpretation process they go through?

The truth is, you can reorient people only after they realize they are disoriented.

Sure, disorientation can be a little scary, but it can also be very rewarding as you set aside preconceived, inaccurate thoughts and allow yourself to adequately adapt. Almost an M says it’s all about your response. Positive and negative models of biblical examples of disorientation can be found in stories such as the prodigal son (positive) and his brother (negative) in Luke 15:11-32, Habakkuk (negative and then positive) in Habakkuk 1-3 and the rich young ruler (negative) in Matthew 19:16-30.

The bottom line is disorientation is a prerequisite for meaningful change. How you respond to it makes all the difference.

Now take this idea beyond that of a mission trip. Where do you need to admit you’re disoriented and want help adjusting for the sake of the Kingdom? If you’re not sure, this Michael Frost video discussing disorient exiled Christians and Almost an M’s suggested follow-up questions may help.

The pray-ers tend to be diligent, watching the various prayer request channels (CompassionNet, Wycliffe Prayer Focus, etc.) like a broker watches a stock ticker. The givers are usually anonymous benefactors who somehow connect with a particular ministry or worker. The go-ers are either kids on a mission trip, or the strange ones we don’t know what else t do with. For the most part, missions is done by the pray-ers, the givers and the go-ers.

But what about the missional believers who see themselves as missionaries in their everyday lives? Must we make such a sharp distinction between doing (praying, giving, going) and, well, just being?

Churches are starting to get more directly involved in missions by creating their own options, according to the direction of the Holy Spirit. Here are some examples:

• Churches are doing “reverse mission trips,” where they study language and culture before hosting exchange students in their homes for a week, month, semester, year, or longer. The students become members of their host families, and both can be profoundly influenced by the experience. (For the record, we know of churches that have been planted in very closed places by young nationals who came to faith while studying abroad.)
• Virtual Mission trips. Churches are sending cybernauts with a purpose as missionaries to the virtual world. There are full-time internet missionary church planting teams operating among hundreds of internet-connected people groups around the world.They connect through social networking websites, and use tools like message boards, Skype, instant messenger, and Twitter to share the gospel.
• Strategy Coordinator Churches. Churches across the country (and around the world) are doing the work of the missionary by developing and implementing the strategies needed for missionary engagement. This tends to make many professional missionaries quite nervous, but it shouldn’t. The local church is designed for missions: a variety of gifting and experiences, spiritual leadership, accountability, community, discipleship.
• Real people with real jobs. Okay, so technically this one might fall under the “going” catagory, but it’s not the same. Mature believers everywhere are deciding to relocate for the purpose of kingdom-building. These aren’t “missionaries” in the traditional sense; they work real jobs that put them in constant interaction with unbelieving nationals. (By the way, these are the folks who acquire language better and faster, and integrate into the community better than any missionary might.)

In the end, missions is about obedience- going where God leads you to go and doing what He leads you to do. The Upstream Collective is about encouraging one another as we do just that. But we must never allow others to relegate us to limited (and unbiblical!) options that keep us on the sidelines when it comes to the Great Commission.

What defines a church? Most denominations have their own definitions of church. Many mission organizations have documents on what defines a church.

But I think sometimes we have the tendency to add things to the truest definition of church.

I like this section of Scripture in Acts 2:

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.   (Acts 2:42)

I think the early church kept its understanding and definition of church pretty simple:

• They devoted themselves to prayer.
• They devoted themselves to community (doing life with one another).
• They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching.
• They devoted themselves to the Lord’s Supper.

Do you think we as Christ-followers in the 21st century make church more complicated than it needs to be? If so, why?

These are not rhetorical questions. I would love to read your opinions, if you’ll be so kind to chime in with your comments.

Is church about having a certain number of people?
Having a building?
Our weekend services?
A full-time paid pastor?
A staff or ministry team?
Programs or ministries?
Multiple sites?
Our approach to missions?

I write this blog entry out of my own journey. I know I have made church more complicated than it needs to be. One danger in complicating the church and getting caught up in our forms of “doing church” is that we forget the function: being church. The function of the church should remain simple.

A result of our complication of church is that we can limit reproducibility.  The church, if it is to truly grow – not by addition, but by multiplication – needs to be easily reproduced. The more complicated the church becomes, the harder it can be to reproduce.

Of course, reproducibility is another missiology and church planting topic altogether, but what are your thoughts on the church today? Do you view it as simple or complicated? How can we make it more simple in function even if the forms vary?

Outsourcing is normally done when a company needs something done by someone outside the company.

For the company, it is usually cheaper, thus more effective, to do it that way. I have friends who outsource administrative work like payroll, an answering service, and so forth.

The outsourced service is usually something the company cannot do on its own, so it hires someone outside to do the task. Outsourcing can be an efficient and effective way to expand a company’s abilities.

But, going back to my opening statement, I believe the our Lord gave the church the responsibility for the Great Commission. While parachurch agencies and mission organizations can definitely enhance the work of missions, they are not to take the place of churches.

I do a lot of speaking and teaching in churches, as well as to mission organizations, about mobilizing people to be on mission. I hear people tell me that it was the mission organization who told them where to go. I think that needs to be something the church does.

In Acts 13, the church is the one instructed by the Holy Spirit to set apart and send Paul and Barnabas.

It has become such a business for many mission organizations to be able to have the right branding, and so all a person has to do is click a button and fill out a form on a Web site, and that triggers the process of sending him or her to a mission field.

Most of the time during that process, there is at least one reference that the person must give to acknowledge that he or she is part of a church, or perhaps it is a letter of recommendation from the pastor. The missionary candidate will most likely need to sign a doctrinal statement.

My fear is that in that process, I am seeing less and less about the church and the sense of a calling in the context of one’s community. What’s your take on the outsourcing of the Great Commission?

• Where is your church in this process?
• How is your church part of its missionaries’ formation and preparation?
• Does your church identify and affirm people’s giftedness, including the giftedness to live out the Great Commission overseas?
• If someone in your congregation felt called to go overseas, how would your church support the individual/family?