How do you keep such a large ship like CCC aligned when there are so many different personalities, contexts, needs, and demands?
Liturgy offers one response.
"A liturgy is the customary public worship done by a specific religious group, according to its particular traditions."--Wikipedia
That which is customary and/or traditional can often (especially by me) be seen as archaic. Yet if a ministry or movement can be clear on one or two key liturgical practices that capture the heart and vision of their group then it can be an extremely powerful tool.
At Chico State our most sacred liturgy is ministry mode evangelism--the practice of going out on campus and initiating conversations with students we do not know with the goal of sharing the Gospel clearly.
In addition to responding to the Great Commission ministry mode evangelism accomplishes the following:
- Clearly demonstrates our heart and values to those outside and inside the ministry. Those outside hopefully see our passion for Jesus and desire to authentically engage them; those inside hopefully see that we take our call as a missions organization seriously and are committed to pursuing those that may not be pursuing us.
- Provides a clear line in the sand to organize and filter students into leadership. Otherwise in the words of one of Carly Higgins, one of our student interns, "leadership just becomes a popularity contest." In CCC there is often talk of financial support raising being a healthy filter on who joins our org. I see evangelism as a local expression of this same principle.
- From the staff leadership perspective it is a tangible and practical way of answering the question "what can I and only I do as staff member?" in relation to evangelism. So often staff pretend that they are still students in their practice of evangelism--let's be honest--it's weird for a 30 year old to go into a dorm room and try to build a relationship, let alone be evangelistic. Instead of doing evangelism staff should be mobilizing as many students as possible to be more effective at evangelism (which of course involves doing it in the process.
Liturgy provides an anchor for a ministry seeking to align a broad range of people and contexts.
photo courtesy of usarmyafrica
