"Focused on disciple-making nations rather than just building churches."
"Focused on disciple-making nations rather than just building churches."
The Gospel; Inside looking Out
Though I can't entirely dismiss passing evangelistic crusades, but convinced that every believer (follower of Christ) is a potential leader with the innate DNA of God-given abilities to be moderately well, to serve/lead at some capacity while living the gospel life. As a result they process into becoming disciples who produce other reproducible disciples influencing their local and global worlds. And in our commitment to grow further to love God, scripture, hurting people and living the gospel life, we discover our functional calling is objective for sake of the world and less of ourselves (Philippians 2:3). Normally this happens in a most familiar setting by way of relational disciple-making that starts within a micro church NT (new testament) concept. Passing crusades initiates a conscious awareness of being needy of God's unconditional love, as proved me, yet short, to put it kindly, in cultivating a root system (Colossians 2:6-7,) to love, encourage, nourish and challenge the believer to discover their God-giftedness in their relational journey with God. And as Church we're called to raise up one another for the works of ministry (Ephesians 4:11-13) not merely to maintain having healthy believing communities, which is foundational, but having the objective to see a world that Christ bled for outside the perimeters of the brick and mortar Church. I find it interesting that Paul's letters to the churches were actually written prior to the gospels, at least the first three starting with 1Thessalonians somewhere around 50 through late 52 AD. Besides it's rich doctrinal content regarding the life, death, resurrection and return of Christ, he seems to have been mission-motivated while answering to the cultural philosophies and yet minimized his time in dragged-out traditional debates of the day (Galatians 3:28, Acts 17:16-33). Paul's conviction was urgent to take the gospel among marginal communities that the elect thought untouchable while God in His great love thought otherwise touchable. It was a love that far exceeded a closed religious system that needed to see beyond itself and into the lens of the expansive kaleidoscope of God's redemptive heart. It was stated that the Church's message then and today is the only hope that the world has. And that her success is measured externally where what's discovered and revealed on it's inside should actually be engaged on its outside.Why Repetitive local/global Disciple-Making?
Unfortunately, what appears to be promising in television, use of digital technology, social media, and 24/7 Christian networking, there still remains substantially large groups of people untouched to the simple yet profound gospel and the need for discipleship. Adding to that the exodus (leaving) of many pre as well as post Christians making their way through the exit doors of churches today is outright astounding! Consider recent research by the Barna Group - Christianity across the globe has been on a spiraling decline and to compound that is a hefty portion of those groups are no longer assumed just in distant countries, but rather on the very soil of our own nation. Recently I came across an article that in 2017 the West celebrated the 500th anniversary of the Reformation and noted Europe's 20 solid centuries of the Gospel. Here in America it's five centuries of expressed forms of Christianity in varying Western contexts. But in spite of the great preaching, pristine devotional inspirations, polished theology, impressive church services and strong defense for the faith, it's evident we still lack the transformational impact that were turning points in our rich Christian history. As discouraging this may sound all is not loss. My conviction holds that in biblical history God has always leveraged his purposes by using repetitive disciple-making churches be preeminent in the first century and remains to be the same intentionally into the twenty-first century. Let's take into account the Lord's clarity to 'make disciples' understandably places priority over simply making converts (Matthew 28:19-20)? It would seem as if making disciples by way of relationship encounters will eventually bring about genuine conversion of the heart - because that's where the real issues of life needs to be address and not necessarily, yet plausible, in passing crusades but shown more effectively in some time invested, relational engagements. With no pun intended hea, I feel at this point there is no need to be that whining child demanding attention on another Barna research on that one (Proverbs 4:23, Matthew 15:19).
And so with major dips currently among conventional church attendance today there are other findings that ushers in hope to the situation at hand. Sorry, more whining but with hope. Barna further estimates by the year 2025 membership in conventional churches will be cut by fifty percent, while the alternative approaches (home churches/micro-churches), currently coined as missionary church movements, will possibly grow to thirty to thirty-five percent of all Christians in the nation. If in time those predictions hold true, then there appears to be a rise, or interest for that matter, in the micro/cell approach that are seriously intentional in repetitive disciple-making with a vision. I believe people need vision. For one, to put it bluntly, people are perishing. The vision (purpose/principles) I'm referring to places reproducible disciple-making principles in-bedded within our messages, or at least in part, in our overkill of analogies and palatable story-telling approach in preaching today. Noticed I said overkill because they are powerfully useful and at times I admit going overboard using them. However analogies, well intended, either appear trivial in comparison to the text or more often, because of their strong impression with the changing of generations unique worldview and experiences, analogies can easily overwhelm the imagery of the original text. Dee Hock puts it this way, "Purpose and principle, clearly understood and articulated, and commonly shared, are the genetic code of any healthy organization." Without aligning the original principles meant in scripture into our understanding of mission, we gradually lose momentum in maximizing our purpose that we where designed for. Much has to do with members finding, taking ownership and being released in their calling during the process of not just being disciples but disciples that are reproducible - we need to see that churches should be launching pads in preparing disciples to multiply into the world. Being the existing paradigm that has held us for centuries dominates our perception of church will take time for the conventional church to process or even be enlighten for that matter. And what will determine this readjustment is a church's leadership to believe the reality of what's presented and the interest and passion needed to counter respond to what's ahead. Unless the leadership, because it initiates there, is intentionally assertive in discovering the churches unique calling with an eternal sense of accountability as the 'sent or called out' than we are impotent to foster in that vision to materialize transformation. And if that's the case we can at least retire on the promises of saving grace and say we did okay minus the joy of that final affirmation (Matthew 25:21). We know that in the end the Lord rewards faithfulness over claims of being simply secured, well balanced, and knowledgeable believers of professing faith. Anyway, we need passion to be proactive to continue being vibrant missionary-movements that refuse nestling between the cracks of secular Western culture and the old-fashion church culture of respectable conservatism. Could it be that we have subconsciously settled for less forgetting we have so much more that God has inherently blessed us with so that in turn we can or should be a blessing to the world! (Genesis 12:2-3, Ephesians 4:7-13 ). There seems to be a need to once again become disciple-making churches that are reproducible resulting in multiplication that equates to the transformational commission of communities but also of nations.
Hopefully optimistic; In the world yet not of it
Though I am grateful for what God has done in my last three visits to Africa having seeing 780 or more converts to Christ, my concern now is the local leadership to disciple these new believers (converts) in discovering their calling and function as a way to continue a life-moving momentum towards long term expansion. My hopes and prayers is that the locations of these new believers (gospel-receiving souls) would establish reproducible leadership having the concept of reproducible-disciple making as their paradigm that establishes their launching bases. This can happen with the existing leadership acting as a training hub coming alongside a minimum of two individuals each representing these varying communities who then process into being pastors relaying the same vision and values (DNA) with the relentless objective to multiply. We are talking gospel/discipling saturation of a local-global kind enveloped in corporate prayer, scripture, and reasonable accountability that leads to a solid sense of calling and freedom to be released for missions. Calling is a personal awareness of one's gifting between the believer and God. Functioning is more of a action to integrate that calling to function within support of a given corporation; the Church. I see this as effective and a probable comparison to New Testament Kingdom advancement outside of the sad statistics in church growth today. I don't think its another ball room pep rally, building project nor just another planting of a church but more so making disciples that are reproducible and geared to birth new churches with the capacity of repetition of re birthing itself with it's evolving leadership. At this point we may ask ourselves - Do we realize how lavishly God has invested into every believer, His Church, for His purposes? The thought of the potential that's there whenever I'm in a fellowship environment blows me away! But with the promise of the Holy Spirit's help, we begin to see the gifts that God has given along with its vision for the Church and has continued to sanction all of it, not part of it, as effective and strategical commission for today. And what better avenue to express the fullness of this commission by way of relational disciple-making found in pockets of the micro church approach! As the apostle Paul addresses the churches he started in Asia Minor and Mediterranean Greece he was not speaking to large mega churches but more so mega-pockets, if I may, of home churches that were rapidly multiplying themselves as partly due to the dispersion of persecution. In fact, it was persecution that ignited infant stages of reformation towards existing religious structures (Christendom AD 320) of the day. Christians were scattered yet still retaining it's earlier ethos (NT) ways of life and refused never to becoming a centralized, religious institution but rather a radical grassroots people movement with a passionate mission from God. Ecclesial synagogues, of course, were still existing for the purpose of providing worship and teaching (Acts 17:1-2) but their real ministry (calling) was it's objective to saturate the outside world as truth was discovered, reproducible disciple-making in tacked and the commission as their external expression of obedience in their worship of God. It was these that went relentlessly viral across landscapes they knew as the ancient world (Roman Empire). In light of God's intended purpose for the church and into the world, I think that missiologist Allen Hirsch rightly envisions it this way,
I do know that God proclaimed himself as a missional God and has placed us in the world to do the same. His message was of goodness and hope and this was shown through the most common of all people with a passion to mimic their Saviour resulting in the worlds greatest movement better known in the 20th century as the Jesus Movement. The same God who sent his son into the world to proclaim this message has sent us who follow His Son having that same message.(2Corinthians 5:18-20, John 17:20-21). Are our communities and social institutions any different because of our presence there? After all, wouldn't that be a significant translation to the prominence and sovereign working of God through the church in any given society..."your Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven?" And why is it no longer a common thread for the Church to retain it's missional passion that it once possessed? There are factors we may consider that were partly in discouraging this vibrant mojo and viral-like movement that the church once was. It would be beneficial in sense of recalibrating our thinking to reconsider how these factors over centuries played us into shaping our paradigm of churches across America and the world today...and to think we are exempt to it's overarching influences will only keep our heads in a hole within the grounds of a subtle yet strategical enemy at hand - But we were created to be set free!
The Straw that Broke the Camel's Back: The Rise of Christendom
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Looking back to the Future - Dream on Rac!
I may be premature in saying this yet without apology. Would this be a sad scenario that the church is in slumber and holds to a mid-eighties reference to the sleeping giant whose urgency is to be awakened? You would agree that we need to be part of the solution rather than the problem at hand - right? I believe that flame of the Great Commission can be rekindled today as we look back to the first century Church as a vibrant, thriving living organism and not a frozen institution. God has never birth chicks to be left in a freezer. But if this is the case, then we have deluded ourselves as seeing missions and commission as being cold, dated ideologies in midst of 21 century Westernized sophistication - a kind of delusion that has out-smarted the working of the Holy Spirit right out the exit doors of our churches!? Can we love or what it means to once again love God and our neighbor as ourselves in a way where we become living epistles salting the earth with grace? I believe so because He has created us to be restored with a sense of completeness in our personal lives regardless of how we feel about ourselves and it's not just a spiritual idea but truth that is founded of God (Colossians 2:9-10). And in a corporate sense, God is abundantly gracious and will resuscitate whats latent (asleep/dormant) in us (the Church) that grants us access to function (Eph.4:7-13). I'm convinced it begins with a paradigm shift in leadership. We need to rethink our present definition of Church coupled with incarnated lives (living the truth) as we reflect on the early, yet relevant Church life of the past. For sake of application; lets assume these traits characterized the first century Church - loving God, people, ourselves (emphasized too much today), scripture and prioritized reproducible disciples were forms that drove the first century Church in high gear. If this is a fair description, which is adaptive to any culture at any time, we discover an organic, revolutionary Spirit-empowered-people-movement with a magnitude that transformed the world (Greco Roman) for the good of all humanity! This would've been of less effect under a centralized hierarchal Christendom template (controlling religious empires) but rather happened among simple folk whose faith in the author of their gospel was to literally dominate the ancient world with it (1Corinthians 1:27-29) ! In other words, they understood the gospel as having the authority and power to overwhelm a darkened world orchestrated by the forces of wickedness in high places. (Ephesians 6:12). That said, I see the planting of micro churches beyond a church but is really the planting of the power of the gospel (Romans 1:16), intertwined in the fabric of relational disciple-making. These two forces must be inseparable as if a well unified and strategical army in the midst of spiritual warfare. And with challenges on the horizon the church faces today, I would say it couldn't have been or can not be anything less than what radically transpired in the past to be significant and pragmatically true for our future. And yes, I've been told I'm a dreamer except a dreamer with his eyes open knowing that the Church was never on the defense against darkness but rather an offense of terror in tearing down the gates of hell (Matt.16:18)!
Gifted for a brighter yet Daring Future
I see how the need for a revolution to recalibrate (adjustment to think) our true identity in Christ and how we function within the framework of that identity as in a corporation interactively engaging the existing skills and gifts within that body of corporation. God created the institution of corporation principles. Each part engaged doing it's job for the whole and purposes to the vision and values of God. And if the church's track record is evident of success of this vision and values then it should be interlaced with it's founder. Not to say a church can't be unique in how this vision fleshes out but it should preserve the underlying momentum of it's former apostolic response to the Great Commission. Most leadership of churches are unaware they possess this potential for ministry capital simply due to their bias presumptions to define what a church is, it's structure and why it exist. Based on the five indwelling gifts in Ephesians 4 and it's complimentary gifts, services and works revealed in 1Corinthians 12 we see how integration is key to maximizing maturity to function as God's original design for the Church and into the world. It's like having possession of a car engineered with 5 cylinders to only sadly be running on just two. More on that later as we look further into the five-fold gifts in Ephesians 4. There are times however where God uses unpleasant means to shift things in its proper gear. Persecution of the early Church was one of them. It was like a God-disruptive flywheel that thrust the gospel forward into regions of the world beyond the confines of an exclusively laxed, bias Jewish community. And while the persecuted Christians that were scattered were defaulted into evangelizing the outside world, the apostles, or sent ones as its title refers, remained secured in Jerusalem - I could never fully understand why they remained stationed at a time the commission was engaged reaching a world that was also called into the promises of God (Acts 2:39). Within a short period of time, we see this massive and likely reckless evangelism proceeding the stoning of Stephen in the 8th chapter of Acts. This was later followed by Peter's encounter in the home of Cornelius, a gentile (Acts 10:22-48), then culminating with the conversion of a insecure Pharisee prosecuting followers of the Way; Saul/apostle Paul assigned into the gentile world (Acts 9:1-15). Jeff Christopherson serves as Vice President of the North American Mission Board for the Send Network lays it this way;All for One, One for All: APEST (Apostles, Prophets, Evangelist, Shepherds and Teachers)
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Why Church Multiplication
This is the content Tag for articles on church multiplication: a biblical perspective in first century church movements and its relevancy to the preservation of the Great Commission today.
The Team - Meeting physical and spiritual needs
This is the content Div Tag of images of what transpired during these long and short-term missions and why I perceive bi-vocational pastoring as a biblically sound and strategical approach to kingdom movements today.