By: Katie Harmon-McLaughlin

Why is this call to the peaceable kingdom, Zion, so critical to our identity and mission? Look around you. Listen. There is a desperate crying out for peace, but there is no peace. Nations rage against nations, religions against religions, and people against people. People are living, acting, and reacting out of fear rather than hope. The cause of Zion, the peaceable kingdom, is a compelling, desperately needed vision of hope for creation that we are called to lift up and proclaim with all of the energy and resources we can muster.

There are many diluted and shallow expressions of the gospel in the world today that lead people to believe that the message of Jesus Christ is just about “me and my salvation,” apart from the plight of others. The cause of Zion is the ultimate call to repentance from self-worship. It is about growing in righteousness, love, and purity of heart. It is about learning to share generously to meet the needs of others. It is about opening our hearts and minds to new insights and understandings about others. It is about embracing hope for the earth as a sacred place where the will of God is to be done. -Steve Veazey, Community of Christ President

Have you ever noticed that congregations LOVE vision and mission statements? I think it comes out of a desire to have a sense of purpose or direction in a world that is heavily influenced by corporate models of achieving goals and having success. There is nothing inherently wrong with these statements. In fact, it can be a good exercise for a congregation to come together and vision for the future. 

The problem is that as Christians in the United States today, we want desperately to be in control. We want to plan for the future. We want to measure our “success” in the church, and if we aren’t “successful” we want to know why! 

What we often forget is the story of our God throughout history working in the most unlikely of people and unlikely of places, messing around in people’s lives and causing transformation in ways that before may have seemed impossible. The Spirit cannot be tamed, controlled, analyzed, planned, or measured, which can be very frustrating because it is when we follow this wild Spirit of God that we are living mission.  The truth is that we do not need a mission or vision statement. We have already been given a mission, the mission of Christ in our world... here... today. Our mission is to recognize and help bring the peaceable kingdom of God into reality, and that starts by dwelling constantly in the heart of God, the one who calls us to follow God’s mission in our world. 

And perhaps what is most important about living this mission is that we cannot do it alone. 

To live the mission of Jesus Christ, we must be in community with each other. 

Yesterday, we had a visioning Sunday at our congregation. We shared on important topics. We were nourished by a delicious, warm breakfast. Then, we worshipped together. We sat close to one another, and we were open to the Spirit moving through our lives. And in that moment, as I looked out at our congregation united in our common desire for God, I saw the kingdom coming into being. 

It was that simple. 

We were BEING the kingdom. We were living the vision, simply by being REAL with each other in community and by opening ourselves to the Spirit of God wherever it might lead. We sang together- Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on me. This is where it all begins; in our relationships, in the details of our lives together, in our willingness to be melted, molded, filled, and used. 

May we learn to recognize the Spirit of the LIVING GOD in our lives more abundantly each day, and may we continue to align our mission with Christ’s mission- to bring the peaceable kingdom HERE in this place in this time.