SEND holds “Family Conferences” in many places in the world each year. These are times to gather together and worship, soak in God’s Word, have fun with each other, hear what God is doing around us, and in some cases take care of a little business.  The “family” feeling is strong, reflecting our commitment to relationships with one another.  Our kids grew up in Japan calling our teammates “uncle” and “aunt”.  Even today they have one man they still refer to as “uncle”.  In Japan we celebrated birthdays and holidays together with teammates and even went on vacation together.  Within a mission “family” there is trust and care and commitment that goes much deeper than the normal workplace relationships.

While we exhibit many characteristics of a “family,” our aspiration is to be much more.  At SEND we aim to be a covenant community on task.  Over the next few blog posts I would like to unpack what this means in our context, but let me briefly describe here what makes a covenant community on task different from a family.

In a family you are bound together for life.  You are born into it, and grow and develop under it.  A family accepts its members for what they are and even tolerates “weird Uncle Harry” because, well, he’s family!   A family doesn’t necessarily live close together or meet regularly.  Roles are determined naturally, without policies or elections.  Clear and regular communication is not necessarily aspired to or even desired. 

By contrast, in a covenant community on task, you apply to join and pass through thorough screening to make sure you are a good “fit” for the community and for the assignment.  Your commitment may be for short term, long term, or even career.  A covenant community has a clear purpose and specific direction.  It assigns roles based on skill and passion and the Spirit’s leading.

 A covenant community on task does not tolerate ongoing inappropriate behavior because it holds people accountable.  A covenant community deliberately seeks multi-directional communication and works for continuous improvement.  Most of all, a covenant community seeks to accomplish the task for which it has bound itself together – in our case SEND exists to establish reproducing churches among the unreached. 

At SEND we enjoy each other like a family but we are much more.  We are a covenant community on task!

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