Coming Together through Mission

by Craig Gould, Director of Youth & Young Adult Ministries in the Archdiocese of Baltimore

Before he worked for the Catholic Church, Craig Gould spent five years on staff for Young Life, and three of those years he served Young Life in Alaska.

At 7 pm on a cold February night in Anchorage, Alaska, two women and I are walking around a middle school, praying for the young people at that school to know Jesus Christ. I am white. The women are African American. I am 23 years old. The women are middle-aged. I’m a Roman Catholic praying quietly. They are Pentecostal, praying in tongues.

It was at that moment that I realized the unifying power of mission. Culturally, denominationally and even prayerfully, we were very different. I’ve never spoken in tongues, but I can say the Our Father fast enough where it almost sounds like I can. Despite our differences, we ventured out on a dark winter night to walk around an empty school because we shared this passion for young people to walk with Jesus as friend and Lord of their lives.

In the relationship between Protestants and Catholics, the focus has often been on what we have in common through belief—articles of faith and dogmas. This is an exceptionally important area for conversation and reconciliation. We only need to look at the Joint Declaration between Catholics and Lutherans to recognize how critical these agreements can be to the Body of Christ.

However, there is another way to look at our relationship and that is through the shared lens of mission. When you are working across denominational lines through the shared lens of mission, differences in church doctrine really take a backseat to the task at hand: spreading the Good News. And I’ve noticed marks of shared mission that echo the four marks of the Catholic Church. These create the unity we seek. In mission together, we can find agreement through:

Presence
Whether we are Young Life leaders in the halls of schools, Catholic priests serving remote parts of Asia, or missionaries in US cities, we have all left the comfortable places of our past and have journeyed into unknown territory to love others on behalf of Jesus. In an increasingly digital world, the power of being physically in front of another person is central to our mission.

Sacrifice
Some people sacrifice a Friday night to build relationships with middle school students by taking them bowling. Some sacrifice their personal space to live in community with others as part of a post-college volunteer program. Others give up celebrating holidays with their families because of vows they took to a religious community. In all these cases, missionaries give up something to answer the call God has placed on their hearts.

Students of Culture
If our mission is to engage the culture with the Gospel, then learning to speak another language, learning what clothes are appropriate for which setting, and learning to celebrate the strengths and address the weaknesses of a society, are the hallmarks of a missionary. This desire to become like the “other” in order to share Jesus Christ is central to mission work.

Dependence
Each missionary learns quickly that all resources belong to God and that they are simply stewards of what God decides they should have. Sometimes, as Saint Paul said, they are blessed with much. Other times, the blessings are slim. Missionaries in any capacity rely on the grace of God, which is often enacted through others. And missionaries know themselves to be constantly in need.

While this list is certainly not comprehensive, I believe it’s a good place to begin to stack hands. We can unite around our desire to be present, to make sacrifices, to be students of culture, and to depend on one another as we lean into God’s grace. This certainly seems to be what unified the early disciples who were at least as different as a Catholic New Englander and two Pentecostal Alaskans.

May we be one, in mission.