We should be on a mission from God: Jesus doesn't call us to seek refuge from the world but to engage and transform it.

IF YOU OFFER WIDGETS FOR SALE, YOU ARE GOING TO attract mostly widget buyers. The better your widgets the more customers you will have.

This obvious marketing truth can also be applied to the church. One of our most prevalent and successful recruitment strategies is to offer people a refuge from the pain and difficulties of daily life. For example, an e-newsletter from the Parish Evaluation Project recently suggested that one of the "essential elements" for getting people to reconnect with the Catholic Church and with their local parish is providing "a safe and reassuring refuge."

The idea behind the "refuge from the world" strategy is that people are overwhelmed by the complexities and demands of daily life and need a place to get away from the world, at least for a while. And so we build our churches to look like fortresses or monasteries; offer a variety of ministries to people who are divorced, grieving, unemployed, or ill; and suggest that everyone go with us on a retreat or at least take a day of recollection.

There is nothing wrong with this strategy in itself. Some people do need a refuge from the world, and most of us need it at one time or another in our lives. But there are others who do not feel a great need to get away from the world and are not going to be attracted to a church that presents itself that way.

Let's take my three teenagers. They are all in high school and just beginning to think about college, career, and family. As far as I can tell, they feel very little desire to escape the world. Someday they may see the value of having someplace to get away from it all, but my wife and I really don't wish that on them. Instead, we hope they will each be able to find a fulfilling occupation, a nice home and neighborhood in which to live, and a great spouse and children of their own. In fact, if our children never feel the need for a refuge from the world, that would be fine with us.

The one thing our teenagers definitely need, however, is a mission worthy of their lives. It is something they are searching for, even if they can't articulate it very well. Wouldn't it be nice if our church could offer them that as well?

Of course, it already does. All of us, by virtue of our Baptism and Confirmation, already have been sent by Jesus himself on a more-than-worthy mission. It is a mission to the world, not away from it. We have been called to do nothing less than help bring about the reign of God "on earth as it is in heaven," as Jesus taught us to pray. "Strive first for the kingdom of God," he says in Matthew 6:33, "and all these things will be given to you as well."

At the end of each Mass we are sent forth on this mission to our jobs, family, and civic lives, although sometimes it's easy to miss it amidst all the "refuge from the world" talk and symbolism. If the mission were really important, then our dismissal rite would not be so perfunctory.

"Let us go in peace to love and serve the Lord," the priest or deacon says, usually fairly unenthusiastically. "Thanks be to God," we all mumble, rather than accepting our "mission impossible" with a mixture of joy and trepidation. We should feel as if shot out of a cannon, and our response should be "Lord, help us!" as well as "Thanks be to God!"

IF OUR MAJOR STRATEGY FOR RECRUITING NEW AND RETURNING members to the church were to 'sell" them on joining our mission to the world, then we might attract far different "customers" from those seeking a refuge from it. We would appeal to those who are looking for a mission--and a community of people with whom to carry it out.

As I read the gospels, that sense of mission was what attracted the original disciples. Jesus didn't offer them much of a refuge from the world. He did just the opposite: He sent them forth to help transform it. They did, and so must we.

That kind of meaningful purpose is exactly what my kids are looking for. It is what my wife and I are looking for. Isn't it what you are looking for?

When you need a widget, you go to a widget-maker. When you need a refuge, you go someplace that offers one. When you need a mission, you look for someone who will send you on one. Jesus has already called us to that mission.

Let's make that call of his an essential element of our parish recruitment strategy. We can start by celebrating a dismissal rite that reflects that we all really are being sent somewhere to do something worthy of our lives.

By GREGORY F. A. PIERCE, president and co-publisher of ACTA Publications in Chicago.