Our present situation has developed over centuries wherein the institutional Church has tended to pay more attention to its own structure than to mission. We maintain buildings, programs, and employ clergy and other professionals to minister primarily to those who are already among the faithful. We attempt to maintain a high degree of comfort for those already included. We even misuse the word mission. We equate it with our attempts to maintain the churches as institutions.
Mission is our response to the fact that the fields are ripe for harvesting.
All of us are called to labor to bring in that harvest. I sincerely hope and pray that the spirituality of the 21 st century will enable us to redefine ministry in ways which will return us to the ancient understanding of the community of the baptized. I see many positive signs in this direction. My diocese is only one of many which is more pointedly defining mission and making it clear that mission is very different from maintenance , which at best supports mission and at the worst drains all energy and resources from it. An increasing number of dioceses are in dialogue about how to make mission central and how to communicate the Christian faith in the world.