Matt Norman, CBF field personnel member, moves beyond conventional, limiting definitions of mission and reflects on mission as an entire way of being to which God calls us. Matt and his wife Michelle will transition to Greece this summer to serve among Albanian immigrants through PORTA, a spiritual and cultural center for Albanian immigrants in Athens.

I continue to learn many things on this mission journey I know as life. Less and less do I think of mission as something one does in a far off location or in one’s own community. Rather, I think mission is really a way of being. It is a life orientation, an outlook, a modus operandi. And it seems that like any habit it requires practice and discipline. Living missionally grows as a way of being over time.

This “growth into being” does, however, stem from actual practice and action in a location. Some “practice” or act by going to a far-off location, volunteering in their local community or by crossing some boundary, be it ideological, cultural, religious, social or economic. It is through such intentional action in faith that we expose ourselves to formation by God. Such faith is a dangerous thing. Faith challenges our words and actions to mean something when we claim it. Faith shapes us to be a part of the message we proclaim to hold in…faith. Faith changes us, holds us accountable and pushes us further than we think we can possibly go.

Before we realize it, we are different people. We are a people shaped and formed, changed by the very mission we participate in – the mission of God. We become more and more the person God created us to be.

Mission is about discovering a way of being. God calls us to see the image of God in others and in doing so we discover who we are, and of the God that made us. We discover mission is not a call to fix people, but a call to serve, listen, pray together, walk beside, play, learn, hope and suffer together. We discover mission is a call to transformation by God.

The question is, do you want to be transformed?