Becoming a Missionary Diocese
A sermon for the opening mass of the XLIXth Synod of the Diocese of the Holy Trinity, held June 20, 2025 at St. Matthew’s Church in Newport Beach.
Our synod mass today is (again) a Mass for Missions because we are a missionary diocese—even if we are not canonically defined as a missionary diocese. Our biggest challenge is to embrace this new identity.
We inherited a tradition of establishment in three forms: Our English Anglican heritage, our Episcopal Church heritage, and our Anglo Catholic heritage. For even the Anglo Catholics in the Episcopal Church were established as “thing” that people looked for.
Now, we are a missionary church that must live and preach the gospel in a way that bears effective witness in our time. Mission is part of the Christian vocation. Our baptismal identity makes us witnesses for Christ in the world.
Isaiah 2:2-4
Today’s lessons highlight the two central movements of our mission vocation. The first movement is God’s formation of his people. Isaiah writes
“The mountain of the Lord’s house Shall be established on the top of the mountains, And shall be exalted above the hills; And all nations shall flow to it” (Isa. 2:2).
Isaiah’s prophetic ideal is that Israel will walk in light of the Lord and become a light to lighten the nations. They will see the glory of God in her and will be drawn to the Lord’s house.
This means that the communal life of Israel, living in obedience to the Torah, in harmony with God and each other, will draw people to her. She will be attractive in the best sense of that word.
This ideal is revealed in in the early church. Acts 2:42-47 describes a church that was faithful in its prayers and doctrine and generous in sharing with those in need. It’s members lived together with a sense of singlemindedness and joy. And Acts says, “The Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.”
This teaches us that the first movement of mission is the spiritual renewal of the Body of Christ. This is the work of spiritual formation or progress in holiness. We pursue holiness by reorienting our lives away from all the things we want to pursue or change in the world and towards God in prayer and self-examination.
The question is not “How am I or we going to change the world?” The question is “How is God changing me so that I can be a faithful witness for him in the world?” The church’s mission begins with the spiritual renewal of each member.
The reorientation toward mission requires a serious commitment to the New Commandment Jesus gave us on Maundy Thursday: “That you love one another as I have loved you. By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:35). This is not just love between the likeminded. It is the vocation to love those who are different than us, but with whom we have been made one in Christ.
Some churches are known more for their anger and contentious presence on the internet than for their interior holiness and communal love. To embrace the mission vocation, a church must decide that living out the gospel is more important than winning a culture war or an internet argument. When we look like the world, we have no mission to the world.
Our faith will not be judged by whether we are doing things just the right way, or have expressed our doctrine perfectly on our websites. Our faith will be judged by its fruit in our communal life. “By their fruits you will know them” (Matt. 7:20). “By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” Progress is virtue and holiness is the one legitimate measure of our churches and ministries.
Bp. Scarlett:
A reorientation towards mission requires a new attitude that takes an interest in people as people, not just as potential members. Churches focused on self-preservation tell seekers and visitors about what the church believes and does. Missionary churches ask seekers and visitors about what is going on in their lives: “How can we pray for you and serve you?”
St. Matthew 9:35-38
The second movement of mission is illustrated by the gospel. As Jesus traveled from city to city preaching the gospel, He was aware of the spiritual needs of the people. Matthew tells us that “He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd” (Matt. 9:36). In this passage, God’s house, the Word made flesh, is not a static location to which people are drawn. Rather Jesus is seeking out those who are lost.
To fulfill our mission vocation we must have a heart for the lost and wounded who are not now a part of our communities. Our focus must not be merely on church growth. We must have real love for people. It is not the job of the lost sheep to help the church maintain itself. It is the vocation of the church to offer the lost sheep a safe and healing home.
A reorientation towards mission requires a new attitude that takes an interest in people as people, not just as potential members. Churches focused on self-preservation tell seekers and visitors about what the church believes and does. Missionary churches ask seekers and visitors about what is going on in their lives: “How can we pray for you and serve you?”
The interior focus of Isaiah and Acts unites with the exterior focus of Jesus’ ministry in this way. It is precisely because we are living a life of prayer and God is at work within us and in our communities that we have something to offer to those who are outside. “Come, experience God’s presence and grace with us.” But we cannot offer what we do not experience.
What We Are Doing
Hospitality is central for our mission. A church that is living a life of prayer together and growing together in Christ as a community will enjoy being together. As we enjoy life together, we will invite those who outside our communities, those who are wearied and scattered, to join us. This is not a marketing tactic. It is a sharing of love. We invite others into our lives, just as God had invited us into the life of the Holy Trinity.
Ineffective mission lacks one of these two things. There may be an interior focus on the development of the community, but the community is self-focused. It is not open to or interested in those who are outside. Or, there is a focus on marketing and advertising, on bringing people in, but there is no life of prayer, no experience God’s presence, and no celebration of life in Christ to offer those who come.
Our vocation to mission combines these two things: A focus on the pursuit of holiness through our life of prayer in community, and heart for the wounded and the lost that desires to share what we have with others. I call this “A parochial Benedictine community.”
Inwardly, we focus on living our life of prayer by the Benedictine Rule of the Book of Common Prayer, with a ministry focus on spiritual direction and growth in holiness, with a very Anglican emphasis on enjoying and celebrating our life together.
Outwardly, we practice hospitality. We desire to share what God has given us. We invite those who are outside to join us, and we take a real interest in them when they do. We commit ourselves to helping those who are in need.
For the last decade, our primary method for cultivating this dual mission vision has been our Pastoral Ministry classes. These are not the only way to cultivate interior formation and outward mission.
However, the necessary reorientation around the pursuit of holiness leading to mission does not happen by osmosis. It cannot be established by reading a few books or attending a conference. There must be a purposeful and persevering effort to reorient the church around interior formation and outward mission.
Conclusions
The mission vocation can sound daunting. But it shouldn’t.
Mission is not a grand and complex program. It is an organic process. It starts small, within the heart of each believer, with a renewal of our personal experience of God’s love and grace through a commitment to prayer and God’s word. It is cultivated in community as we share our experience of grace with each other. It moves out into mission through our communal practice of missionary hospitality.
We are not called to save the world. We are called to be faithful to the particular vocation God has given to each of us. Let us prayerfully consider what God is calling us to do, both individually and in our churches in the coming year. As Jesus said, "The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest" (Matt. 9:37-10:1).
