Recently, a guest on our campus gave us a nice compliment. He said no matter what is happening in the Southern Baptist Convention or the larger Evangelical world, when he connects with Gateway he hears a steady focus on our mission of sharing the gospel around the world. At Gateway, we consider that high praise!
Mission focus is challenging for every organization, including a seminary. We state our mission this way: we shape leaders who expand God’s kingdom around the world. That’s more than a slogan on our website; it’s the reason we come to work and class every day. We shape leaders who expand God’s kingdom – specifically through evangelism, disciple-making, church starting, church strengthening, and leadership development. We believe the primary problem in our world is spiritual lostness, the primary solution is the gospel, and the primary task with eternal consequences is sharing the gospel with more lost people.
There are many other competing issues and agendas, many of which are genuine problems that deserve some consideration. The challenge is giving them appropriate attention without being distracted from our mission. At Gateway, we comment on important issues but fixate on our mission. We are concerned about, and have expressed ourselves clearly on gender, marriage, sexuality, racism, abuse, and dozens of other social, moral, and political issues. We are cognizant of these issues and believe they are best answered with the gospel.
We are also not interested in virtue-signaling every time one of these issues becomes a trending topic on social media. Once we have staked out a position, incessantly repeating ourselves seems counterproductive and more like grandstanding than truly defending the truth. Staying focused on our global mission also helps keep some of these issues in perspective. What Americans are hyping on social media is not always that important in light of the global nature of our mission.
Mission discipline is a challenging essential for every church, ministry, or denomination. Yet, without demonstrating this resolve daily, your organization will devolve into confused chaos—chasing popularity through rapid engagement with the social media-driven issue of the day, rather than purposeful action to really fulfill your mission. That’s wearisome at best, and for churches and ministry organizations, eternally counterproductive at worst. And, missing the eternal part of that equation is too high a price to pay!
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