4 Things that Help us Live on Mission Without Getting Busier {#31Days of Living Missionally-Day 2}

With three young children and one on the way, I often struggle to keep up with my own life. Kinda feels like riding a mo-ped in the fast lane. In the last few years, I’ve often thought that the craziness would soon pass or that this was just a “season”.

I think I was in denial. That is until one day when my husband gently suggested that “perhaps this is our new normal”. We needed to figure out how to make life work at this new pace.
I know most of us can relate to the feeling that there are just not enough hours in the day. Whether it’s children, or a full time job, or volunteer work, we are barely able to keep all the plates spinning.

So for any of us attempting to become more missional, it can seem like an overwhelming task. Where do we start? And how do we even add another spinning plate without them all coming crashing down?

Four things that can help us become more missional without getting busier.

1. Understand what being missional isn’t
When many of us set out to be missional, we often end up just adding more service projects to our already bulging to-do lists. Monday: Go to the gym, Tuesday: Bible study, Wednesday: Do something missional.

This might work for a while but if we see missions this way, we will quickly burn out and become ineffective. I often say that being missional is NOT a diet, it’s a lifestyle change! We want a mindset that will carry us for the long haul. It really can’t be just another plate you add to your collection. Missional isn’t something we do. It’s something we are.

2. Understand what being missional is
Being missional is really about being a Christian. Jesus commanded us to go and make disciples and to love our neighbors as ourselves. Our faith is supposed to be a living, breathing, active faith that reaches out and brushes up against the people around us. After all, we serve a missional God. He is working with a clear purpose for a clear end! Being missional is recognizing that as long as we have breath in our lungs, there is a reason for it. {Tweet this} When we start to grasp that God has a purpose for us and “assignments” for us every single day, we begin to see life differently. It’s not about adding more things to our calendar (though sometimes we may do that). Many times, it’s about seeing the things we already doing with new purpose.

3. Schedule time for disruptions
It’s so ironic but often times, we are literally stepping over opportunities to love others, sometimes while we’re hurrying to be more missional! I know I am often so pushed to the margins that there’s little room for a change of plans or “disruption”. But opportunities to live out our faith will often come in the form of disruptions in our current schedules.

Being missional means we begin to actually welcome disruptions. I know – crazy right? Give yourself a little more wiggle room in your day to invite these opportunities in. Ask God every morning to help you see the world as He sees it. What if the things we are viewing as set-backs are actually the reason we woke up this morning? Being missional gives us a new view of the world, but we have to live with our eyes open!

4. Don’t be afraid to be small:
Ok I have another confession. In addition to thinking about being missional as something to DO, I also often think of being missional as something to do – in a really GRAND way. We all hear stories of women who’ve dropped everything and moved to Africa to take care of orphaned babies, or families who serve together three times a week at soup kitchens. Though inspiring, sometimes I can feel discouraged by these stories, because I feel like I’ve failed if I don’t do something this “big”.

But being missional can look really small sometimes. Here’s a great example: My daughter was to bring in a book for a gift exchange at her school. Right as I was headed out the door to drop it off, my mom suggested, “Why don’t you grab an extra book in case there’s a child at school who couldn’t bring one?” I hate to admit it, but a part of me struggled with heading all the way back upstairs to grab another book (Disruption!) but I knew my mom was right. When I dropped the books off, the teacher was incredibly grateful. As it turns out, there was a child there without a book, and this “little” extra effort was very much valued and needed. Our lives our made up of our days. And each day is made up of moments. It took me two extra minutes to head back up those stairs. You’d be surprised how many missional opportunities there are in the “little” places of our lives.

I hope you find this encouraging! No matter how busy we are, every single one of us can wake up tomorrow with a new mindset, ready to live life with our eyes open, and looking out for opportunities to be missional in even the smallest of ways. Sometimes God is calling us to a radical change in our calendars, and sometimes He’s simply waiting to meet us right where we are.

Read more of the 31 Days of Missional Living.

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About Nicole

Nicole is a wife and stay-at-home mom to three energetic children in Lake Villa, IL. In addition to writing, she enjoys serving as the Care Team Leader for her church's MOPS group and is also a part of the Sunday worship team. Other interests include performing Improv, venturing outdoors...and pretending to be a chef, thanks to the Food Network. Nicole has a heart for "getting real" with other women and helping them discover Jesus through honesty, empathy, and the power of "me too". Connect with her at MotherhoodConfessions.com

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