Checking for mission drift 

From an article by The Institute for Faith, Work & Economics (IFWE)

Every organisation should regularly review what has happened in the last period and what’s coming in the future This is a great opportunity to look to the future with hope, but it is also another chance for mission drift to pull us off course, often without us even recognizing the danger.

Mission drift is one of the greatest threats for Christian leaders and organizations. Whether in church ministry, compassion ministry, or the corporate world, leaders will regularly fight the temptation to become focused on things - even good things - that are not in alignment with the organization’s primary purpose. Many organizations that are productive are adrift from their mission. Mission drift does not mean an organization is not producing anything good, but it does mean they have left their first love.

Look at the message given for the church in Ephesus in Revelation 2:
“I see what you’ve done, your hard, hard work, your refusal to quit. I know you can’t stomach evil, that you weed out apostolic pretenders. I know your persistence, your courage in my cause, that you never wear out. But you walked away from your first love - why? What’s going on with you, anyway?" Rev. 2:2-5, MSG

Notice the church in Ephesus was productive in many ways. They were doing good works, enduring, and they were not tolerating evil influences. Yet they were experiencing a sort of spiritual mission drift as they became increasingly distant from their primary love. If you were to survey people in the church and ask them how the church was doing, they probably would have thought things were going well because lots of good stuff was being accomplished. The key performance indicators looked pretty good.

However, the wrong questions were likely asked, and this is possibly true for many organizations today. Instead of focusing on good works alone, leaders and organizations regularly need to ask, “Are we remaining faithful to our calling? Are we fulfilling the primary reason for why we exist?”

Here are two principles to help leaders and organizations remain faithful to their calling:

1. Don’t replace the root with the fruit. Many organizations do a lot of good that is a by-product of their primary mission. However, organizations will go astray if they become focused on the fruit at the expense of their primary reason for existing. For example, take a local church that does tremendous good in their community by addressing poverty and meeting tangible needs. These are biblical matters that deserve our utmost attention, but if these matters become divorced from the gospel, the root is separated from the fruit.
2. Leaders must be willing to have difficult conversations. When an organization has a clear mission, and when individuals in that organization begin doing or saying things that depart from the mission, leaders need to be willing to love these employees with graceful and truthful conversations. Most leaders do not enjoy having these types of conversations with employees, but they need to view these conversations as opportunities for growth and clarity.

In today’s fast-paced world, there are countless ways leaders and organizations can find themselves distracted from their primary calling. Mission drift is not something that has to happen overnight. It can be a very slow process where small decisions divorced from the counsel of the organization’s mission and vision become large problems.

Read the full article here.