I’ve gotten to know a gaggle of mission developers in the last several years, (I’m pretty sure that gaggle is the correct name for a grouping of mission developers), and there seems to be one main continuity between them.  There’s a common prayer that we pray.  The exact words might vary, but the sentiment is the same.  I pray this one every morning:  “Dear God, please help me not to **** this up.  Thanks.  Amen.”  (fill in your choice of expletive)

I’m genuine about it, and I think so is everyone who is involved in this ridiculously demanding, taxing, heartbreaking, thrilling, pioneering work called church planting.  It is a requirement for a mission developer to be slightly off kilter.  Any given day I swing from being utterly exilerated to deeply depressed.  One sunday three new families show up, our group of children double I think to myself, “Amazing!  This is exactly what we prayed for.  Thank you God!”  Then the very next day I have to cancel a really well planned event because out of 400 invited people, only six people confirmed that they will attend.  The life of the mission developer is zero to sixty to zero every 24 hours.

One mission developer friend of mine made this confession to me.  It’s what every mission developer feels, but no one has the guts to say it out loud.  She said, “I know I’m not supposed to feel this way, but I swear, every sunday I feel like I’m throwing my own birthday party and no one shows up.”  There’s no way to totally remain above all the chaos.  You are in it.  Your heart sinks and rises with every motion of the ministry.  You pretend to create a ten year plan, five year plan, one year plan, one month plan…  but the ground is moving under your feet so quickly that you’re on plan G by lunch.

And that’s when you get an email that says, “Can we meet for coffee?  I’ve shifted a lot theologically and no longer feel connected to the Christian Church.  It’s not that anything bad happened at Beloved, in fact it’s been really redeeming, but I can’t honestly say that I’m a Christian any longer and I’d like to mark this ending with you.”  What will you say to this Beloved?

And then you receive a small comment that seems like it could energize you for months, like when a young woman, who has never been a part of a church before tells you after theology pub one night, “You know, I’ve been looking for a community like this all my life, but I never thought I would find it at the foot of the cross.”  And right then and there you know that if this thing ends tomorrow, you know that something just happened, that Christ was revealed in the drinking of beer and the God-talk between strangers made friends.  That just happened!  Church of the Beloved could lose all funding in a heartbeat, but the world is different because that just happened.  That might seem like the smallest of miracles to you, but to me, I still draw energy and hope from the smallest of words like that, because it tells me that God has acted and I trust that God will act again.

I’ll take it.  I’ll take whatever I can get, because there is so much demanded by the role of Mission Developer.  Things no one tells you about and things that you are not qualified to do:

You Must Be an Entrepenuer – able to make a new connection between what the times are calling for and what innovation is necessary to meet that need.

You Must Be a Web Developer – able to create an interactive online space because you know that %90 of the people that come into contact with your community will have read almost your entire website before even the first visit.

You Must Be an Evangelist – able to boldly tell others about a good thing and relentlessly invite others… also known as…

A Marketing Director – able to accurately and compellingly represent who your organization is and what it is that you do.

You Must Be a Theologian – able to tease out the God-longing within each person.

You Must Be an Administrator – able to create infrastructure to support operations and programs.

You Must Be an Event Planner – able to organize educational, invitational, community building, arts and culture happenings.

You Must Be a Proclaimer – able to publicly speak Christ and his story of mending the entire universe.

You Must Be a Pastoral Counselor – able to hold people’s glory and darkness and not shrink back.

You Must Be a Community Organizer – able to network and connect people’s passions together with local needs.

You Must Be a Fund Raiser – able to write grants, present proposals to foundations, establish relationships with donors, organize auctions, and court partner congregations.

You Must Be a Communications Director – able to deliver consistent and pertinent information through a myriad of electronic and print mediums – tweeting, texting,  blogging, eNewsletters, eVites, survey monkey, posters, flyers, newspaper articles, phone calls, house calls, and coffee calls.

And I could mention another ten or twenty hats that the mission developer must wear and I still get the comment, “So, what’s your real job?”  My answer now is, “On which day?  I have twelve.”  But who can possibly do all these things?  I can’t!  I wake up in the morning and before I am fully awake I find that my mind is already at work.  I was having a team meeting in my early morning dreams, deliberating on “How to become sustainable in the next two years, how to address the needs of our young families and their children, how to become more accessible and attentive to our neighborhood.”

What one person can do all these things?  I can’t!  Of course!  You must have a team.  And not just warm bodies!

So you add one more hat:

You must be a Team Leader: Able to identify the gifts of your community, individuals with the capacity to lead and manage projects and peoples, and unify their activity, because you know that not all motion is forward motion.  Some motion is just commotion.

But even with your dream team in place, at the end of the day, it will still be true that you are the one doing work in your sleep while you should be dreaming.  You are the one whose responsibility it is to listen to the people, listen to the Spirit, listen to the culture around you, listen to the word within the Word, cast a vision, say, “Lord, have mercy” and then move decisively into God’s future, praying that people follow.  Because God has placed both the joy and duty of leadership upon you.

But this is still not the most difficult part of being a mission developer.  The most difficult part is stopping and remember that God is God, and this is God’s Church.  The Church will not fall a part while you rest, I mean Geeze, even God took a rest on the seventh day.  So this a reminder for myself.  ”I know it’s difficult, but just stop, take a deep breath, take a walk with your spouse, waste time with your son…  Sure, there’s lots to be done, but Jesus already saved the world.”

And that is my confession.