{"id":37021,"date":"2021-11-19T11:42:00","date_gmt":"2021-11-19T11:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/mission-mode-vs-maintenance-mode-and-titanic\/"},"modified":"2021-11-19T11:42:00","modified_gmt":"2021-11-19T11:42:00","slug":"mission-mode-vs-maintenance-mode-and-titanic","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/mission-mode-vs-maintenance-mode-and-titanic\/","title":{"rendered":"Mission Mode vs. Maintenance Mode and the &#8216;Titanic&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Did you know there were two boats that responded to the <em>Titanic <\/em>when it was sinking? One boat, the <em>Californian<\/em>, was about 20 miles away. They turned off their radio about ten minutes before the <em>Titanic<\/em> hit the iceberg. They saw rockets and flares shoot off in the distance. They couldn&rsquo;t figure out why another boat was shooting rockets and flares, but they didn&rsquo;t turn on their radio, and they didn&rsquo;t investigate. They saw the boat&rsquo;s light turn off, but thought it was just turning its light off for the night. The crew of the <em>Californian <\/em>were so in maintenance-mode with what they were already doing, they couldn&rsquo;t imagine the <em>Titanic <\/em>sinking. For the rest of their lives the crew members of the <em>Californian <\/em>had to wrestle with why they didn&rsquo;t go.<\/p>\n\n<p>But there was another ship, the <em>Carpathia<\/em>. It was 58 miles away. But its radio was on, and when it got the call that the <em>Titanic <\/em>was sinking it powered up all its engines and headed straight for the <em>Titanic<\/em>, navigating around icebergs in the night. It ran full-power ahead for 3.5 hours. When the crew showed up at the scene of the disaster, many had already perished, but they saved 705 lives from the life boats.<\/p>\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading is-style-article-subhead2\">Possible Preaching Angle<\/h2>\n\n<p><em>The <\/em>Carpathia <em>was in mission mode. The <\/em>Californian <em>was in maintenance mode. Which would we rather be? The <\/em>Californian <em>? Or the <\/em>Carpathia <em>? A church just trying to get by? Or a church on a mission, saving lives?<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[411],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3547,3897,4060,4096,4140,4370,4476,4477,4482,4530,4532,4808,4877,5178],"tax_ctp_topics":[386],"class_list":["post-37021","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-carelessness","tax_ctp_tags-evangelism","tax_ctp_tags-global-missions","tax_ctp_tags-great-commission","tax_ctp_tags-help","tax_ctp_tags-life-death","tax_ctp_tags-mission","tax_ctp_tags-mission-of-church","tax_ctp_tags-mistakes","tax_ctp_tags-need-for-salvation","tax_ctp_tags-neglect","tax_ctp_tags-rescue","tax_ctp_tags-salvation","tax_ctp_tags-tragedy"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Mission Mode vs. Maintenance Mode and the &#039;Titanic&#039; - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/mission-mode-vs-maintenance-mode-and-titanic\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mission Mode vs. Maintenance Mode and the &#039;Titanic&#039; - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Did you know there were two boats that responded to the Titanic when it was sinking? 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They couldn&rsquo;t figure out why another Read more...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/mission-mode-vs-maintenance-mode-and-titanic\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CTPastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2025\/12\/ogimage.png?resize=1200,628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@CTpastors\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/mission-mode-vs-maintenance-mode-and-titanic\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/mission-mode-vs-maintenance-mode-and-titanic\/\",\"name\":\"Mission Mode vs. Maintenance Mode and the 'Titanic' - CT Pastors\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2021-11-19T11:42:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-11-19T11:42:00+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/mission-mode-vs-maintenance-mode-and-titanic\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/mission-mode-vs-maintenance-mode-and-titanic\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/mission-mode-vs-maintenance-mode-and-titanic\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Mission Mode vs. Maintenance Mode and the &#8216;Titanic&#8217;\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/\",\"name\":\"CT Pastors\",\"description\":\"Timeless wisdom for pastors with forward-thinking solutions\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Christianity Today\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2025\/08\/logo_ctpastors_black.svg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2025\/08\/logo_ctpastors_black.svg\",\"caption\":\"Christianity Today\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CTPastors\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/CTpastors\"]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Mission Mode vs. Maintenance Mode and the 'Titanic' - CT Pastors","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/mission-mode-vs-maintenance-mode-and-titanic\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Mission Mode vs. Maintenance Mode and the 'Titanic' - CT Pastors","og_description":"Did you know there were two boats that responded to the Titanic when it was sinking? 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