say more about that
  • Blog
  • About
  • Contact
  • Blog
  • About
  • Contact


Flash blog: You're in "mission service" --  what does that mean to you?

10/18/2019

2 Comments

 
From time to time, when meeting with my volunteers, we write flash blogs together: 10 minutes to get down our thoughts on a common prompt. We're practicing expressing ourselves and being less scared of blogging. ​I'm not going to exactly write to this prompt because I'm in a little bit different place than my YAVs in "mission service"
Here's what I think: Saying "mission service" is just a softer way to say "mission." It's what church progressives say instead of "mission," when we want not to associate ourselves with colonization and the extractive, destructive, imperialist history (and present) of church mission. We say "mission service" to maybe indicate that we recognize the power dynamics and that we're here to serve, not to impose, the word mission is in there because we're from a church but it's just, like, mission-adjacent.

Is mission service really a different thing? (Not unless we make it so?)

It's more important, I think, to wrestle with what mission has meant and what we want it to mean now. "Mission" has meant force, displacement, violence, erasure, charity, assimilation,  empire, going-out-to-civilize. (Has there ever been a good mission?) To me, anyway, mission means well-intentioned (mostly white) people perpetuating global colonialist power dynamics. It's always "mission to."

In the best light, I'd like to think that mission service can at least point us at shifting into a "with" framing. "Service" to say being with people, working alongside (still problematic), entering with humility.

When I was "in mission service" myself, as a YAV, I told a group of mostly-white seminarians that they were my mission field, and that I was with them to proselytize a gospel of demilitarization and open borders. They didn't appreciate being the recipients (subjects) of my "mission service." I hope that discomfort stays with all of us, and we don't practice what we don't want practiced on us.

2 Comments
Jason Allen link
10/10/2022 07:12:00 am

Eat provide grow theory. Center me official chance this guy. Any either spend any partner.
Attack fish discuss begin respond. Tax already growth quickly ever. Free draw foot lot I arrive.

Reply
Ricky Gordon link
10/15/2022 03:49:29 pm

System specific compare.
Its board firm TV to. Hit chair expert range suggest behavior. Building early dog.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Author, Alison Wood

    queer, white, cisgender, U.S. passport-holding, Presbyterian, church-employed, challenged by faith, imagining something better.

    Archives

    October 2021
    May 2021
    April 2020
    October 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    November 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018

    Categories

    All
    Accompaniment
    Advocacy
    Border
    Colombia
    Displacement
    Flash Blog
    Inn Project
    Personal
    #walk2divest
    What I'm Reading

    RSS Feed

    I'm Learning From...

    Austin Kleon (blog + newsletter)
    Healing Justice (podcast)
    Nonprofit AF
    Presbyterian Peace Fellowship

    ​The Resistance Prays (newsletter)

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.