Risk-Taking?

Today's blog was contributed by Joy Anderson, Associate Pastor of Missions

When I think of risk taking mission, I picture those experiences that call for sacrifice on the part of the participants or difficult situations for the volunteers or team members. I don’t necessarily think of any of our missions as risk-taking. But maybe we have been doing them so long that they have become routine and/ or normal to me. However, after reading the chapter on risk-taking mission in the book Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations and the devotionals in the book we are all reading, I realize that there is another way to look at risk-taking mission. Risk-taking pushes us out of our comfort zone into areas where we might not have been before. What might seem normal to me might be risk-taking for you. A couple of years ago when we were doing Body & Soul I had a church member tell me that he wasn’t comfortable going there to serve the homeless. Later he stepped out in faith and risk-taking service and started participating. For him that was moving beyond his comfort zone into a new area of service. He stretched himself and found that he enjoyed being a part of that ministry.
Mother Teresa spoke of “carrying our Lord to places where he has not walked before.” This means that the community of faith must always be a risk-taking community that is willing to move beyond the boundaries of safety and security. Christians must be willing to be there for those whom mainstream society may ignore, neglect, or even despise. We as Christians become the voice for the voiceless, a friend to the neglected, and an advocate for those who are treated unjustly. We are called to help in any way we can and to serve with love and compassion so that those whom we serve see Jesus.
It was risk-taking for FUMCR to underwrite the Sunday Body & Soul program financially and with volunteers. We stepped out in faith that the money would come through and people would volunteer. It was risk-taking to rush to New Orleans to help with the disaster recovery just after Katrina happened, because none of us had ever helped in that kind of situation previously and we didn’t know what we were getting into. It was risk-taking to start ESL classes last September not knowing if we would have anyone sign up for classes or not.
What is risk-taking for you? How can you stretch yourself to reach out and serve others? How can we do better as a church in our risk-taking mission? Where could we serve that we are not now serving?