Blacknall’s Missional Commitments

Our Story

God’s very character is missional, as the root of the word mission is “sent.”  Within the Triune life of God, the Father sends the Son, and the Father and Son together send the Holy Spirit. The Father, Son, and Spirit send the church as an extension of the person of Jesus, the body of Christ on earth.  The Bible itself is both a witness to and a product of God’s missional activity with humanity.  The Church is missional because God is missional.

Our Call

The guidance of Scripture provides the lens with which we understand our mission.  Christ sends us to “go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28), including being Christ’s “witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of all the earth,”    (Acts 1:8).  We are urged to “not be conformed any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2 and the rest of the chapter).   Indeed, from the beginning of creation, God declares, “I will bless you…and you will be a blessing…and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (Genesis 12:2-3).  (See also, Colossians 1:28, Luke 4:18-19, Deuteronomy 6:5, Leviticus 19:18)  Indeed, we believe that all of the Bible reflects God’s commitment to mission. Based on the fundamental conviction that God’s desire in Jesus Christ is to reconcile the world to himself (2 Corinthians 5:18-21), we find the following commitments to be descriptive but not exhaustive of God’s mission for Blacknall.

Our Response

• Worship and prayer surround and permeate our mission. As we worship a missionary God, our worship inspires our participation in God’s work in the world. God’s calling on our lives is a process of on-going discernment that takes place in a worshipping community. Ultimately, only the power of the Holy Spirit can transform our intentions into the true work and ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ.

• God calls all believers to mission, not just a few. Rather than reserving mission solely for select “missionaries,” God blesses and equips all Christians to participate in God’s mission in the world.

• Christ calls us to mission both in other countries and in our own communities. All Christians have a missional calling in their families, homes, neighborhoods, campuses, and workplaces. Our church’s location helps define our common mission. An important aspect of Blacknall’s calling is to be an incarnational presence of God on the corner of Perry and Iredell, and in the city of Durham. Both international missions and other cross-cultural interactions open our hearts in a distinctive way to the presence of God.

• Christ calls us to serve according to our gifts, as members of Christ’s body. We have the responsibility to help each other discern our gifts and calling as we work together, both in our church and with other organizations that make up the body of Christ. Mission in community and unity is itself a witness to the Kingdom of God and serves as a challenge to the individualism of the surrounding culture.

• Our community life is a missional embodiment of Christ’s love for our neighbors. Congregational life is not in competition with our missional calling, but interdependent with it. The quality of our love for one another demonstrates the gospel to our neighbors. One of Blacknall’s missional strengths is our community life into which we can invite our neighbors.

• We both bear and encounter Christ. Because of the great gift that we have received, we witness to and invite others to be transformed by the life-changing power of a personal relationship with Christ. At the same time, we are open to encountering Christ through those to whom we witness, leading to the transformation of our own hearts. Mission is a pilgrimage, a journey of conversion toward deeper intimacy with Christ.

• We seek to meet needs holistically as a witness to Christ. Following the example of Jesus Christ’s earthly ministry, we will preach good news to the poor, proclaim freedom for the prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind, release the oppressed, and proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

• The gospel is shared through friendships and makes us friends. Friendship requires long-term relationships of mutuality, interdependence, vulnerability, and love. As co-laborers with Christ, we move into mission in friendship with fellow Christians in our congregation and in partner mission and service organizations. In a broken world, mission also heals and reconciles children of God to one another, making us friends.

• As we share Christ’s sufferings, we proclaim the hope of the resurrection. We meet the crucified and risen Christ as we suffer together with our suffering neighbors, those who suffer physically, emotionally, and spiritually. We offer ourselves as a living sacrifice, suffering with Christ for the sake of the world, and proclaim hope to all of creation that suffers and groans in this present age.