The vision represented in this resource is a vision that is realized in glimpses, over time, and in the context of a community that is willing to undergo a journey together. There is no straight line to glory. In the words of Eugene Peterson, it is "a long obedience in the same direction." Becoming a Community in Mission is a series of zigs and zags and regressions that threaten to bring the whole thing to ruin. If there is a progression, it looks something like three steps forward and two steps backwards.

We lift up the baptismal shape of the journey of CiM and the paradigm shifts it must undergo. We also name the eucharistic practice that sustains the journey of a CiM, but truly, there is no right way to get there. The key is to cultivate shared desire and lean in.

If becoming a Community in Mission is something you would like to live into more fully, we recommend that you find ways to share and discuss these ideas. For example, if you lead a more established organization ready to reimagine itself, consider gathering a small group from your leadership team to read sections of material and discuss the reflection questions together over the course of several weeks. Or, if you are trying to launch a new community, you could invite people who have shared concern about the worrisome changes they see in society to read this introduction. You might then discuss whether or not these concepts and vision offer a direction they’d like to consider more deeply.

If after engaging the vision there is a shared hunger to live into it more fully, we encourage you to reach out to Street Psalms for support and additional resources.

A Community in Mission is a living, breathing paradox of creative tension. The things that sustain community may at times seem at odds with the things that sustain the mission. This creative tension is not a flaw, but one of its essential features. It’s what generates momentum and makes it work. Throughout this resource we will explore this creative tension and offer a series of questions that call it forth and sustain it.

Sustaining the creative tension requires courage, compassion and a growing capacity to forgive and then forgive again. Why? Because a Community in Mission is always a work in progress made up of people who are a work in progress, in a world that is a work in progress, all of which evolve by undergoing being loved and forgiven by One who is not scandalized by our imperfections. This requires a spirituality of imperfection that can hold and heal our imperfections. This is how creation unfolds and gives glory to God.

For now we want to emphasize that when modeled after the life of Christ, CiMs imagine themselves not as the provider of religious goods and services to passive consumers, but as the gathering of those who are actively undergoing a gospel that frees them to love and serve. In doing so, this shifts the identity of its members from passive consumers to active participants, undergoing a huge, open-ended adventure in which we are true co-creators helping design the adventure itself. It re-energizes, re-members, and re-centers the faith community to become a living example that models the very reason it exists. It does so by freeing its members to love and serve, not in the shape of a closed system, but in ways that honor the vocation and call of its members and seek the common good of all and participate in the ongoing act of Creation itself. CiM’s are not private clubs that promote their own cause. They are public gifts that widen the circle of human concern and call forth a shared humanity so that everyone belongs. This resource is designed for faith communities, churches and other types of faith-based communities alike, who are responding to that call.