My dad told me that when he was a kid he believed that God lived in Whitchurch (a village south-east of Bristol) and his name was Harold! He thought that the first line of the Lord's prayer was giving God's address and the second line was his name!
Our Father, Whitchurch, in Heaven
Harold be thy name.
However nice Whitchurch may be, it could hardly be described in any shape or form as being Heaven!
So many of us trot off the Lord's prayer without realising that the key to the mission of the Church nestles there in the lines after those first two sections. Jesus encourages his disciples (and us) to pray
Your kingdom come,
Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
If Jesus wants us to pray for this to happen, then surely he also wants us to work to being it about. In this way of thinking, mission is less, trying to convince people to have faith and go to heaven and more bringing heaven down to earth.
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