Missional Match Partnerships
Christmas was just around the corner, so the offer of help was not a surprise. At that point, Micah’s Backpack was feeding roughly 150 students a week with the help of nearly 100 community partners and several hundred volunteers. The Director fielded calls and emails almost daily from folks offering to help. Unfortunately, this offer was one that the organization had to turn down.
The church that wanted to help called to tell the Director that they were willing to provide candy canes for each bag of food the week before Christmas break. They were excited to let her know that each candy cane would have a card attached to encourage the students to think of the candy cane as a letter ‘J’ for Jesus and to invite the students to believe in Jesus. The person who called was surprised when the Director politely declined the offer. While the Director would have been happy to take the candy canes, Micah’s Backpack could not include the cards referring to Jesus and the donor was only willing to donate the candy canes if the cards were be included.
Now to be clear, Micah’s Backpack is sponsored by a Lutheran Church and has plenty of churches who are partners. The name Micah’s Backpack is inspired by Micah 6:8, but Micah’s Backpack also partners with public schools, local businesses, university groups, and non-Christian faith groups to accomplish its mission of feeding students over the weekend. While the Director was a follower of Jesus, she knew that the mission of Micah’s Backpack was not making new Christians. If she had included the explicit invitation to believe in Jesus with the gifts of food, she would have risked losing the broad-based support in the community that allowed the ministry to provide food so effectively.
In the simplest terms, the potential donor’s mission was to create new Christians. Micah’s Backpack’s mission was to feed students over the weekend. In this particular case, the organizational missions didn’t match and so a partnership couldn’t be formed.
In today’s world, nearly every congregation needs partners to accomplish the ministry God is calling it to do. The key is to look for partners whose mission aligns with your own. You may be able form a partnership that works in the short-term around a common interest or a shared problem, but in the long run if there isn’t a missional match, the partnership won’t be successful.
To check for a missional match, ask yourself questions like these:
- What mission are we trying to accomplish?
- What mission is the potential partner trying to accomplish?
- What is motivating this partnership?
- How does this partnership benefit both parties?
- What outcome are the parties in this partnership hoping to achieve?
- Is this partnership about survival or about mission and ministry?
Every partnership will have growing pains, but if you start with good missional alignment, you have a much better chance for success.
Reflection by Pastor John Wertz, Jr.
Questions for Reflection:
- Who are your congregation’s current partners?
- Pick one of the partnerships and consider the questions above. How would you describe the missional alignment between your congregation and existing partners?
- Where do you see the potential for new partnerships?
- Name two potential partners who might align with your congregation’s mission?