No Pain, No Gain?

I've been thinking about pain. Consider this statement: "We spend so much time and money on health care that a therapeutic bias emerges, and we begin to believe that we should avoid sacrifice and suffering at all cost." (Paul Borden. Direct Hit: Aiming Real Leaders at the Mission Field. Abingdon Press, Nashville. 2006. Page 97.) Borden suggests that a mindset that presumes all pain is bad has affected the primary aim of many churches. Of such congregations, he says, "They do not see their congregation as a mission outpost designed to reach lost people; rather, they believe it exists as a place where the converted may be safe from the larger, evil world."

When a church moves from business as usual maintenance to responding to God's call into a lost and hurting world, pain is inevitable. It hurts to adapt old ways of doing things or to abandon them altogether. It is uncomfortable to engage people who are different than we are. It's painful to be pushed out of our comfort zones. If we presume that pain is always something bad, as Borden suggests we do, then we naturally will presume that the causes of pain are to be avoided. If reached people, discipleship growth, and risk-taking mission create painful adjustment, then these things must be undesirable, and it would be far better to defend the status quo.

On the other hand, if churches really are mission outposts, then training for those in mission is part of what they do. Training, in athletics or the military or whatever, presumes pain at some level. The pain isn't a measure of something bad. Pain in many instances indicates muscles and tissue being used and strengthen, instead of being allowed to atrophy. I'm a runner, albeit a ploddingly slow one. If I stopped running because of pain, I wouldn't run at all. Mediocre as it may be, my running is stronger because of running through pain, not because of avoiding pain.

I'm kind of thinking out loud here. Is there a pain-free way for a church to fulfill it's mission of making disciples for Jesus? I'm inclined to say no. What do you think? I'll see you around the next bend in the river.