One missionary I spoke with had
changed the focus of his ministry from planting churches to making disciples.
“The Great Commission doesn’t tell us to evangelize and plant churches, it
tells us to make disciples.” This change of direction appears is taking hold on
more than a few mission fields and missionaries are talking in terms of
building relationships, rather than building church memberships. “The idea is
that we are to multiply, to reproduce ourselves.” The concept has merit, but I told the
missionary it was a scary thought when you consider that there are some of us
that just should not be reproduced. He laughed and made a great point, “Then maybe
they need to be discipled!”The Great Commission: “Therefore go and make
disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey
everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very
end of the age.” (Matt 28:19-20 NIV)
1 comment:
Gail;
-----One of the evidences by which I know God as God is His ability and penchant to work through what is available as if it were always a part of His design. We are far less than perfect, and the things we do for Him do not rise too high off the ground. Yet He plugs whatever specific He chooses of what we’ve done into the matrix of what He’s building as if He’s found a naturally fitting part.
-----“Church” has long ago and ever since become a massively bloated, overly complicated, and errantly enthroned, mostly human shaped organization. So, the way we do it, it has to be planted and watered and cared for like a shrub. For the government has a bit of a template our new church must fit, or we won’t feel it’s a legitimate church. Then our particular denomination has more template it has to fit, or we won’t feel it’s attached to anything. Then the public has to apply her makeup, or they won’t recognize it.
-----Therefore, we reach into our little box of church seeds and find the pouch that is for the country our mission is in. We sort from it seeds shaped like the denomination of our alignment, and select from them the seed having a color the community likes. We plant that one, as if all this makes it a church. And God accepts it and moves within it in spite of the fact that a mostly corrupt government has interjected say into what it is, as has this other strange structure called a “denomination” (itself crossing the bounds of Paul’s imperative to not follow people,) as also has the community been allowed to smear ghastly lipstick upon it.
-----And so sprouts another entity for people to go to. But God did not perceive of church as an entity for people to go to. He perceives church as people together in Christ. It is something to be, not go to. It is attitudes towards others, practices for edifying others, generosity to help others, efforts to please others, and an association with others flowing more of Christ’s nature into effecting the struggles and fears and hope and knowledge for anyone’s successful maneuvering through the affairs of this life into the eternal bliss of the way God made things to really be.
-----Making disciples and teaching them everything Christ has commanded His followers is actually the greater part of planting churches. For the disciple is the church. And Christ is always in Him, such that wherever he meets another disciple church happens. The one small step remaining before we can say, “I planted a church!” is to make sure the disciple has a nearby gathering of other disciples for his spiritual strength, and that the gathering has at least a few men who are skilled enough in living and understanding God’s Word to influence and inspire others into the same. Now a church has been planted!
-----Would it be so bad if the government gave a party and nobody came? Would it be so bad if a denomination said, "Jump 10 inches," and we sat down. I think it is a little important that the community puts on Her lipstick. After all, She’s there for them, as long as Her wise men know the Lord more than they know “church”. And yet God works through all His “churches” in spite of they’re intoxication with the government parties, jumping up and down to denominational tunes, and having faces made up a bit more clownish than respectable.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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