Interfering with the mission

I came across an interesting article by pastor and author Dan Kimball. His church is currently in a sermon series about what a disciple of Jesus should look like. This week, they focused on describing the mission and what a missional disciple should look like. He made this interesting observation:

The more I am studying and being aware of the "church" at large I realize how easy it is to put tradition, personal preferences, style, and denominations over mission. I am not talking about historic, orthodox theology or doctrines over mission as they actually determine the need for mission. I am talking about the passion to do whatever it takes provided it does not compromise Scripture for the sake of the gospel of Jesus impacting people's lives. Personal preference or tradition, or denominations are not bad in themselves at all and have richness and beauty to them. But if they get in the way of mission, they then no longer are beautiful or rich, they can even be death.

I think that it is worth remembering that just because we always do things the same way at our churches, or our personal preferences about how to do things, are not necessarily the only way to do things. In fact, it's even possible that they are not the right way. If our preferences, or if the way our churches always do things get in the way of the mission -- which is to reach the world for Jesus -- then they stop being a beautiful or helpful thing. Instead, they become part of the problem.