Serving the Sent: Using your Space

The church is not the building; it is the people! This is true, but people live, worship, and operate in space, and today we will talk about how you can use your space to serve your missionaries. It is easy to overlook the use of space in serving our sent ones, but it should not be. The use of our worship space is similar to how we dress. Do you dress sloppily? Do you dress in a sharp, put-together way? What do you emphasize with your clothes? Your body? Your attitude? Professionalism? Clothes communicate something about us, and how your church uses her space says something about the church too.

The church’s people need their environment to give them important reminders about their faith and mission. This is often demonstrated through the church’s mission statement displayed; a cross erected, words of praise, or quotes of inspiration or theological weight being prominent in the church. The most prominent is the pulpit. Churches orientate the pulpit or preaching space to remind people of the importance of the word but also to the musical worship we participate in as a family. 

The place the mission occupies in this space communicates how central the great commission is to the church, especially the church leadership. If missions have space in classroom 2B in the back hallway of the fellowship hall that no one goes to naturally, that says something. Your church’s participation in the Missio Dei should have a prominent place corresponding with the importance of the Missio Dei to the church.

What does a prominent place mean? For our purpose, think of a space where people come through or come to naturally in the life of the church. Within that space, find a location easily seen and with room for interaction. That is a prominent place and speaks to the church’s commitment to her mission. Any space that is simply a static display has the danger of becoming a familiar piece of background that is no longer noticed for its presence but noticed only in its absence. When that happens, the space stops being useful to remind people of their commitment to missions and becomes part of the background furniture at best.

People make spaces live, which is why we mentioned in the discussion that a prominent space needs to be easy for people to interact. Consider using events, having missions-minded people greet others from the church, and finding ways to center attention on your “Missions Space.” Whether it is on Sundays or for special occasions, the space comes alive. People will check it for new features or see if something is happening; they will learn not to treat it as static space but as an area that needs to be acknowledged and examined. People will see and notice new information and updates, and in doing so, they will remember their missionaries and be prompted to pray for them, think about them, and mention them to their children. 

By using your space well, your mission team will have an anchor to hold on to for their outreach efforts to the church at large and parameters for their creativity. The church is the people but the space the people operate in is still worth, even an essential element, to be thinking about.