Risk-Taking Mission

Recent study and discussion about Risk-Taking Mission has taken me to a new depth of struggling with my faith as I seek to know and do God’s will. In the spiritual life, struggling with our faith helps us to learn and to grow closer to the God who is in the midst of all of our struggles, leading us and loving us.

At a recent workshop on Missions, someone asked me about a phrase I used. I made a reference to the “prophetic voice.” The following meditation emerged from my struggles since the workshop. I hope it will help people understand what I mean when I use the expression “prophetic voice” and to enter into our discussion.


In Matthew 13:45, Jesus says, “The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.”

The formation of a natural pearl is almost a miracle: a fragment of an irritant gets embedded on the inside of an oyster shell, and the oyster works to surround that irritant with countless layers of mother of pearl to organically produce a rare and precious jewel. The evocative beauty of pearls has attracted people since ancient times.

In a long teaching discourse, with eschatological (end-time) overtones, about the kingdom of heaven, Jesus uses the rare and precious pearl to make a point. So shall I …

The prophetic voice is the irritant. It is the voice that gets under your skin. Certain sources call the irritant a foreign substance. A prophetic voice is one that sounds a message that is so provocative that people react to it with voices of their own! Just as the oyster works to expel and overcome and enfold and embrace and finally include the irritant within itself to produce the pearl, the healthy community works to listen, understand, speak out and engage the prophetic voice to produce risk-taking mission.

If the oyster is able to expel the irritant, there will be no pearl. If the community silences the voice, there will be no risk-taking mission. If the irritant kills the oyster, there will be no pearl. If the voice kills the spirit of the community, there will be no risk-taking mission. After time and work the oyster will produce something new: a pearl of great price. After time and work genuine community will produce something new and only God knows what “risk-taking missions” will one day produce a “pearl of great price.”

At the workshop, I asked people to pray … Perhaps you might open your heart and your mind to the Spirit of God in Christ and pray this communal prayer right now … Most Holy and Gracious God, send your Spirit upon the world … Help us to love and care for one another and for others as Jesus loves and cares for us. Help us to work together so that your will is done. We are not asking for the whole picture but we are asking you to show us the next step on the way to the kingdom … Amen.