Category: Mission

Developing a Culture of Mission in the Local Church – Part 7: Be an Ambassador

 

 

 

 

How Jesus connected with people is truly amazing. It is well known that the most unlikely people loved him; while, the religious sorts despised him. Why was this? How was he able to set a very high bar regarding ethical and moral conduct; yet, those whose morals and ethics were suspect were often very comfortable in his presence?

Jesus was the model ambassador for God’s kingdom. He wants to teach us how to fish for people as he did.

The message God has given us is a gracious invitation to be restored to a right relationship to him.

And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. 19  For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. 20  So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!” 2 Corinthians 5:18-20 (NLT)

Although there is a proper time and way to point out people’s sin bluntly and fearlessly, the kingdom message is essentially conciliatory.

Those whose hearts are open will understand and respond. Those whose hearts are closed will resist.

Ambassadors are known for their wisdom and tact. They often face hostile officials and must counter their aggression and resistance with words that can defuse a explosive situation and move people to accepting his government’s proposals. This is very similar to how we should engage people with the gospel one on one.

By nature, people tend to resist truth. Denial is part of the human condition. People without God live in darkness, resist truth, and need assistance in coming to the light.

The Holy Spirit works inside people while we engage them externally. Our words and behavior can either help or hinder the process. We do not want to distract people away from what the Spirit is doing inside them by acting unwisely. For some people this comes naturally, but to others it takes a lot of effort and commitment. The gospel is difficult enough to accept without our making it harder.

A great example of what I am talking about is actually the process in reverse, but you will get the idea. The Canaanite woman who asked Jesus to heal her daughter was initially rebuffed by the Lord.

He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” 25  But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” 26  And he answered, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” 27  She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” 28  Then Jesus answered her, “O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed instantly. Matthew 15:24-28 (ESV)

This woman was an outsider, a Canaanite, with no inherent right to God’s kingdom. She approached the Lord in humility and desperation, but he turned her away. Right here is where the tact of an ambassador was needed. Instead of going off in a huff, she overcame her pride and pressed the issue. Getting help for her daughter superseded everything else. She humbly countered what Jesus said with words of wisdom. Jesus saw her heart and faith and compassionately responded.

When people resist our message, we need to listen to the Spirit for the right words that can overcome their hostility. People need to know that we are not arrogant or self-righteous, as are many who name the name of Christ. Instead we want them to see that we are truly concerned about their well-being. Words of wisdom can open hearts and defuse negativity. I have watched this happen many times, but only if we are not easily offended or taken aback. Love presses on.

Missional churches commit to training their members how to fish for people the Jesus  way, using wisdom, grace, and tact, and relying on the Holy Spirit to lead the way.

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Developing a Culture of Mission in the Local Church – Part 4: Be an Answer to Prayer

 

 

 

 

Jesus understood that the task of reaching “unharvested” people is great. He also realized that his time here on earth was short and that his personal ministry was limited in scope by the fact that he could only be one place at a time. He asked his disciples to pray that God would raise up more workers to join him in the harvest. The beginning of the larger answer to this prayer occurred on Pentecost Sunday, when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the disciples, thereby launching the church’s apostolic / missionary efforts in the world. After the Holy Spirit filled multitudes of his disciples, Jesus’ ministry was greatly expanded.

Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; 38  therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” Matthew 9:37-38 (ESV)

By context, in the above passage we understand that Jesus asked God to send people with a shepherd’s heart to help the harassed and helpless who fill our communities. Many of us think that officially designated evangelists are the ones who bear the responsibility for reaching the harvest, but this is not what Jesus prayed.

The Holy Spirit is raising up an army of compassionate shepherds to enter the world of lost and hurting with a gospel invitation to be reconciled to God.

In their desperation many lost and hurting people cry out to God for help. I have knocked on more than one door to find out the resident had been praying for God to send someone to them. What a privilege it is to be the answer to someone’s prayer! What a responsibility we have when we begin to pray for God to raise up laborers in the harvest. Why would we imagine that we are not among those who should be at work? It is one thing to pray, but quite another to obey.

If our prayers for the lost do not result in our inserting ourselves into the harvest field, we are only playing at church, shadow boxing so to speak. Prayer should lead to doing.

Will you be an answer to your own prayer? Will you answer God’s call?

And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.” Isaiah 6:8 (ESV)

 

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Developing a Culture of Mission in the Local Church – Part 3: Seeing with a Shepherd’s Eyes

 

 

 

 

For the hearts of these people are hardened, and their ears cannot hear, and they have closed their eyes— so their eyes cannot see, and their ears cannot hear, and their hearts cannot understand, and they cannot turn to me and let me heal them.’ Matthew 13:15 (NLT)

How we see is a function of the condition of our hearts. Hearts filled with compassion see people quite differently from the way hardhearted people look at things.

Mission starts when we understand and embrace Christ’s Great Commission. It gains momentum when our hearts are gripped by compassion for the lost and hurting.

How Jesus saw people is recorded in Matthew’s Gospel.

And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. 36  When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Matthew 9:35-36 (ESV)

As Jesus went (the “go” part of the Great Commission), he encountered people who were hungry for what he offered – the good news of his kingdom combined with healing and deliverance.

We see that Jesus’ motivation for ministry was compassion for the shepherdless masses, the harassed and helpless.

The Jewish leaders viewed the common folk as the great “unwashed,” ignorant, relatively worthless crowds, who were not really worth their energy and attention. Jesus, however, was willing to invest himself in the most unlikely of characters. He saw past their ignorance, sin, and shortcomings right into their hearts. He offered them what they longed for – love, healing, forgiveness, and someone to follow and serve. If we inject ourselves into the lives of those who live around us, we will encounter the same sort of people.

God wants us to understand, as did Jesus, that every person has a story worth hearing and every life has untold value with God.

Our Lord also understood that he was sent precisely to those whom the Jewish leaders despised, the spiritually sick.

But when Jesus heard this, He said, "It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick. Matthew 9:12 (NASB)

It is natural for us to desire to put some distance between ourselves and those who are spiritually sick, but a shepherd goes after those who most need him or her. Harassed and helpless people often appear to have little to offer, but that does not deter a shepherd. The spiritually sick may drain our energy, resources, and time, but the potential reward is great. These are the people who may become the greatest advocates for Jesus and the most devoted disciples. Who could have guessed that the woman at the well in Samaria would lead an entire village to follow Christ?

A local church’s culture of evangelism and mission will be directly connected to its developing the ability to see people through the Shepherd’s eyes.

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Are We Developing Disciples or Coddling Immature People?

 

 

 

 

Without constant attention and steadfastness, pastoring a church can easily devolve into enabling codependent, lazy, and fearful churchgoers who want nothing to do with the Great Commission besides paying it lip service.

Jesus, the greatest shepherd of all time, taught his followers that a good shepherd would leave the flock in order to go after missing and lost sheep. This seems strange to many pastors, who make it their life mission to tend to every need of the already safe sheep. (Matthew 18:12-14)

If we think of pastoring as raising children, things will probably get clearer for us regarding our pastoral priorities.

One of the worst things parents can do is hover over their children in order to try to protect them from every danger imaginable, instead of allowing them to explore and learn on their own, under limited parental supervision. A derivative of this kind of unintended parental “abuse” is to do everything for the child, which sends the perhaps unintended message that the child is incompetent to manage life on his or her own.

Parents harm their children by doing for them what they can and should do for themselves.

Well-intentioned parents can hurt their children despite having the best of motives, if they fail to understand that their mission in child rearing is to produce responsible self-governing adults, not permanently dependent offspring.

Sometimes pastors adopt the same misguided strategies and make it their goal to keep people in a constant state of needing them.

Instead of training their church members to read, understand, and apply the Bible’s teachings for themselves and to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit for themselves, they want their people to rely on them for guidance and wisdom. Instead of equipping and teaching their people to take initiative in sharing the gospel with those who yet do not know the Lord, we may train them that the extent of their missionary responsibility is to bring people to church so that the pastor can do all the ministry. The list could go on. What are we trying to do? This is certainly not how to make disciples.

What if pastors taught their people that their main duty and occupation is to learn what they need to learn in order to leave “the 99” to go after those who are lost or straying? How would our churches be different if pastors prioritized preparing their people to be active disciple makers instead of passive churchgoers? Would it cause our churches to lose members, or would it infuse them with new life and vigor? Probably both. The ones who want nothing to do with growing up into spiritual adulthood will be able to find other pastors who will coddle them, but the ones who relish the challenge of being a disciple who makes disciples will be very grateful.

We cannot make it our top priority to gain members, if we embrace making disciples. Instead our goal is to prepare and send out Great Co-missionaries.

Missional pastoring will lead us to nurture, equip, motivate, and launch people into their communities to go and make disciples. Our programs and priorities should be reevaluated regarding how they help make and send disciples. Our people should be told that our goal is to help them grow up to spiritual maturity, which is the work of missional pastoring.

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Developing Missional Churches – Part 3: Using the Equipping Model for Mission

 

 

 

 

In the first article in this series entitled Developing Missional Churches, I looked at some tensions that challenge our attempt to fulfill our God-given mission. The first is the tension between attracting consumerist church shoppers to meetings and making disciples. For those churches which choose to be missional, a second tension involves choosing between using the attractional model to win people to Christ or using the equipping model to train people to do ministry themselves. In my second article, I examined how some missional churches use the attractional model to effectively preach the gospel to large numbers of seekers. This article looks at how the equipping model can be employed to make disciple-making disciples.

Leadership Goals of Equipping Churches

I have already established that Jesus charged the church to be missional when he gave us the Great Commission. Mission includes going, preaching, teaching or equipping, and launching. Whereas missional-attractional churches often are very successful at presenting the gospel to those who are drawn to their services, with many surrendering their lives to Christ, they may struggle to produce disciples who can minister in their own right. This is why the equipping model is needed.

The above continuum places attractional churches on one end and equipping churches on the other. Of course, real life churches are going to be somewhere in between. My continuum places what I call a “hybrid network” in the middle. I will talk about that later. Pure equipping churches do not employ attractional techniques or strategies. In fact, Hugh Halter, pastor of Adullam in Denver, sometimes deliberately makes his services less than perfect just to remind people that we do not go to church to be entertained. At LifeNet, we never have to try to do that. It comes naturally.

Equipping churches seek to develop disciples by giving them adequate Bible knowledge and competent ministry skills and launching them into the community to do the work of ministry.

And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, 12  for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; Ephesians 4:11-12 (NASB)

Instead of adopting a strategy to invite people to church meetings to hear the gospel from a main speaker, equipping churches develop disciples who are competent to share the gospel themselves outside the four walls of the church.

Leadership Strategies of Equipping Churches

Leaders of equipping churches necessarily will be missional, and they also must be committed to training. This is the biggest difference in leadership strategy. Instead of maximizing their own pulpit time, they will seek to step aside to make room for their disciples.

This means equipping churches are willing to put less polished speakers and worship leaders in the forefront in order to develop them. This runs counter to the accepted attractional strategy, which always puts the best of the best in front of the crowd.

Think “teaching hospital” when you think of the equipping church. Think rock concert when you conceptualize the attractional model.

Equipping churches can be led by any of the “five-fold” ministry, but missionally-minded teachers always will have a large role to play.

Equipping churches do not rely simply on classroom or lecture style teaching. Instead, they use Jesus’ method, which blends instruction with demonstration and application.

This means their disciples will be able to effectively share the gospel, pray for the sick, cast out demons, counsel, and do other facets of ministry. The doing is part of the learning. Until the disciple does, he or she is not a disciple. Unless churches develop a way for people to have “hands on” opportunities to practice their ministry skills under supervision, equipping will not take place. Obviously, listening to a talking head for an hour each Sunday will never accomplish this. Equipping church meetings are designed to maximize disciple making. The small group setting is ideal; although, it is quite possible to break a large church down into small discussion groups on the fly. In order to facilitate the application of teaching, ministry opportunities must be created, ideally outside of the church meeting. All sorts of creative options are available, everything from door-to-door visitation to men’s nights out, to starting or joining some sort of affinity group or club.

A necessary part of equipping and launching disciples is decentralization.

Nothing bottlenecks ministry as much as forcing all decision making through a top-level choke point. Equipping churches expect to produce mature ministers who have the wisdom and courage to be spiritual “entrepreneurs.” Just as natural dads release their sons and daughters to establish their own families, equipping churches adopt a strategy of equip and release. For this to work ideally, launched disciples will maintain a healthy relationship with their mentors and launching churches, having the same values, mission, and strategies.

Integrating the Attractional and Equipping Models

Neither the attractional nor the equipping model is perfect. Both have strengths and weaknesses that can be complemented by the other. In his book, AND – The Gathered and Scattered Church, Hugh Halter advocates creating a hybrid church that incorporates elements of both. (You can read my summary here.) Having pastored both types of churches, I am intrigued with the possibility of integrating the two into one “mean, lean missional machine.”

Larger attractional model churches usually have nice facilities, established programs for youth and other sub-groups, and resources. Equipping churches, especially the small group variety, may have none of the above, but be rich with missional vision and committed people. The blending of the two can provide pastoral stability (modality) with missional passion (sodality).

Such a hybrid makes room for people who may not be willing to go the more radical missional route of the equipping church, but who support it. It also provides programs and resources not otherwise available to smaller equipping churches.

Such hybrids will necessarily be led by those who see the need for both expressions of the church.

The leadership team will need to make room for the more fluid expression of missional sodality within the protective covering of the modality, the larger “mother” church. Disciples and leaders that come out of the equipping ministry of the hybrid church, can be plugged into the various small groups as leaders or be encouraged to start their own through evangelization.

Hybrid missional churches will be able to conduct schools of ministry for training and equipping future leaders. This training will include hands on mentoring in the doing of ministry.

Hybrid leaders will need to resist the desire to “rein in” the more sodalic expression of the church, and sodalic leaders will need to properly relate to the modalic church. This will have to be worked out over time, but the possibilities for mission are huge and probably worth the effort.

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Developing Missional Churches – Part 2: Using the Attractional Model for Mission

 

 

 

 

The church was created for mission, namely the Great Commission, which requires the church to…

  • Go – There is an apostolic mandate on the entire church to take the Gospel to the ends of the earth.
  • Make Disciples – Disciples are followers of Christ who obey his teachings, his Spirit, and the Great Commission.
  • Teach them to obey – Disciples must train their disciples to do as they do.

Missional churches embrace the Great Commission and focus their resources and energy toward that end.

We live in a culture that has been warped by consumerism and has produced a church “clientele” that begs to be entertained. Recognizing and capitalizing upon this bent, attractional churches use their resources to provide the most attractive church services possible in order to gather the largest following. In this article, I assume their motivation is to advance the kingdom of God.

Ingeniously many very large churches use the attractional model missionally as a platform for preaching to seekers. I call these missional-attractional churches.

Many people are being drawn to these churches and are responding to the Gospel, and many of these churches take spiritual development and growth seriously. These churches are most likely led by apostles, evangelists, or missional pastors.

The Missional – Attractional Leader

Anyone who is an Ephesians 4:11 “five-fold” or “ascension gift” minister / leader (apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, or teacher) may be primarily pastoral or missional. Every true apostle will impart an apostolic (sent or missional) mindset to the churches they oversee, making them apostolic in their own right. By looking at Paul’s and Peter’s apostolic ministries, we also observe a strong pastoral element.

Apostolic churches will take care of their own people while maintaining an outward thrust of evangelism and discipleship of new converts.

Evangelists are by nature missional. Prophets and teachers may be either. Pastoral leaders naturally focus on the well-being of the sheep under their care and can easily be consumed with doing so, at the expense of the Great Commission. However, Jesus advocated missional pastoring in his parable about the one lost sheep.

So he told them this parable: 4  “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? 5  And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. 6  And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ 7  Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. Luke 15:3-7 (ESV)

The Christlike missional pastor never loses sight of the lost, and even prioritizes his ministry toward them, but his work with those outside the church will always have a pastoral touch to it. Jesus exhorted his followers to pray for more shepherds to be sent out into the harvest.

And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. 36  When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37  Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; 38  therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” Matthew 9:35-38 (ESV)

These laborers by context are clearly shepherds. Hurting people cry out for caring individuals to wade into their world of sorrow and pain, bringing pastoral grace and ministry with them.

Caring for lost sheep is just as pastoral as taking care of the church.

Missional churches can be led by any form of the five-fold ministry, as long as mission is prioritized. But if only the core leaders are missionally minded or if the church’s ministry focuses on the use of the gifts and abilities of a select few, is that really being true to the Great Commission? Attractional churches that focus on winning the lost by effectively leveraging their resources and the talent of a few may win a lot of people to Christ, yet miss the mark when it comes to developing disciples who make disciples. We are seeing today what happens when attractional churches succeed in gathering lots of people who are not committed disciples. The center cannot hold in those churches. Either the people will leave or the leadership will cave to the soulish demands of their clientele.

There is a difference between serving the Great Commission by marshaling members to support the local church’s Sunday services and serving the Great Commission by equipping and launching all the members of the church into the harvest field as ministers in their own right.

Although I admire the effectiveness of attractional churches in drawing the lost, I still question their effectiveness in discipling them. The Great Commission is not to win the lost: it is to make disciples of the lost, which requires equipping. Equipping churches will be the subject of my next article. I hope you will continue on this journey with me.

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Developing Missional Churches – Part 1: Tensions

 

 

 

 

Developing missional churches is one of the great challenges facing modern church leaders who live in a consumerist world system.

By missional I mean prioritizing the pursuit of the Great Commission, Jesus’ marching orders to the church. This article will address two of the major obstacles to achieving this missional goal.

Tension #1: Attractional vs. Equipping

In the United States, we live in a pronounced consumer culture, in which people are trained from an early age to view life from a “what’s in it for me” vantage point.

This consumerist mindset has infected the church, too, resulting in many people having rather shallow reasons for attending or not attending a local church.

The culture has molded our people to look for a church that provides the most return on their investment, which is often measured by how a particular church blesses them personally. Unfortunately, because we are mostly selfish in our orientation, we gravitate toward those churches that are attractive, comfortable, and impressive. To put it another way, people will “shop” churches to find the one that offers the best programs, facilities, worship experience, preaching, and other benefits, such as being a place to network with other successful people in the area. Not surprisingly such a search often leads consumer Christians to the biggest and most successful churches in the area. This is to be expected because the church growth movement that began in the 1980s taught leaders how to market their churches to the masses. This leads us to a very important point that has proved to be a disaster in many cases.

Churches that want to attract Christian consumers must choose to provide the things for which people are shopping.

Consumers need to be attracted, which has led to the development of the attractional model of doing church. This way of operating tries to present the very best Sunday service possible in order to attract the largest number of seekers and church shoppers, as well as provide a great experience for its members in order to retain them. The disastrous aspect of this model is that many leaders have compromised the gospel to “keep ’em coming.”

In stark contrast, Jesus taught his disciples that they must be willing to lose everything for his sake, which is a direct attack on consumerism.

So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. Luke 14:33 (ESV)

The opposite of the consumerist church is the disciple making church, which prioritizes training and equipping its members to do the work of the ministry.

Comparing attractional churches to equipping churches is like contrasting going to a concert with going to school. It’s pretty easy to guess which one most people will choose. Disciple making churches cannot be consumer oriented by definition. The two ways of doing things are diametrically opposed.

Strong disciples are built through teaching them self-denial for the sake of the mission, which will alienate consumers, whose purpose in life is to consume blessings for themselves.

What draws consumers will pull disciples off track.

Leaders who wish to prioritize the Great Commission will have to face the giant of consumerism and choose to turn their backs on its allure in order to make disciples.

Tension #2: Modalic vs. Sodalic

A writer named Rob Yule, from New Zealand, wrote: “A modality is the static or geographical form of the church, the church as a local or regional community. A sodality is the mobile or missional form of the church…” Another, perhaps, better way to conceive of the difference is that modality is a function of the pastoral ministry of the church to its own people; whereas, sodality is its outward (missional or apostolic) thrust toward those who do not yet know Christ. This second definition is how I use the two words in this article.

Church leaders, because of calling, gifting, training, and/or personality, usually emphasize either modality or sodality in their ministry. These two ways of seeing and practicing church seem to be in opposition to each other, creating some tension in the church world.

Jesus launched a worldwide missionary organization called the church, whose marching orders are found in the Great Commission.

And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19  "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20  teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." Matthew 28:18-20 (NASB)

He promised his disciples that the gates of hell would not be able to withstand its missionary advances. (Matthew 16:18) The preaching of the Gospel turned the world upside down in a very short time, as bands of early disciples, often led by apostolic (sent) ministers, went forth with the sole objective of preaching the good news of Christ’s resurrection and lordship and establishing churches whenever groups of disciples responded to the message.

But just as a conquering army must organize and consolidate its gains, the church found that tending its new converts tended to be a full-time occupation.

The Apostle Paul probably spent more time tending the newly formed churches than he did in active evangelization of unreached people. Nevertheless, he never lost his zeal for and commitment for taking the Gospel to unreached areas. (Romans 15:20) He used established churches as bases from which to launch and sustain his ongoing missionary endeavors. (Romans 15:24) In terms of a conquering military army, churches can be viewed as outposts from which greater advances can be made while maintaining conquered areas.

Both the pastoral (modalic) and the apostolic (sodalic) callings are fairly all-consuming. Paul was one of the few, it seems, who was able to keep both front and center in his life.

It is my belief that true apostles have this calling and ability. They are essentially missionaries who care deeply for and maintain a pastoral relationship of some nature with the churches they help start.

Unfortunately, however, many churches are led by pastors who may unintentionally stray from the Great Commission and settle for being modalic self-absorbed institutions. This is because it is difficult to maintain both sides of the equation – mission and pastoring.

The tension between the pastoral and apostolic calling is a second challenge in developing missional churches.

Most church leaders I know are in favor of reaching out with the Gospel to those who still do not know Christ, but fewer feel the need to devote their resources and energy toward motivating, equipping, and launching their members into the harvest field. Those who have prioritized mission are divided between using an attractional model or employing the equipping model. Which is better at making disciples? Which is better at bringing in new converts?

Two questions will be addressed in the following articles in this series.

  • Should church leaders equip the entire church (modality) to become members of a Great Commission harvest team, or should the Great Commission be delegated to specialized sub-groups (sodalities) in the church?
  • Should churches rely on drawing people to evangelist-led attractional meetings or focus on equipping average followers of Christ to competently penetrate their neighborhoods and relational groups with the gospel in order to make disciples?

I hope you will stay with me as I look at these two questions in the next two articles.

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The Genesis of God’s Mission

 

 

 

 

In Genesis God gave his newly created couple three main priorities or life purposes: multiplication, dominion, and tending. These priorities are important for the church, too, which is his new creation in Christ. My belief is that making  the Great Commission (multiplication) our top church priority through the Gospel proclamation of Christ’s Lordship (dominion) will work to bring the church to spiritual maturity (tending).  Conversely, if we make tending (helping people achieve spiritual maturity) our top priority, we may fail to pursue the Great Commission (dominion and multiplication) with the vigor it deserves.

Both the missional (dominion and multiplication) and maturity (tending) perspectives can point to important scriptures to bolster their positions. The missional view typically uses Matthew 28:18-20 for its foundation; while, the maturity perspective uses Ephesians 4:11-16. Both are vital aspects of the Holy Spirit’s work in the church. Romans 8:29 states that all things are working towards conforming us to Christ’s glorious image (growing us to maturity). God wants to make us into “little Christs” or Christians who represent and glorify him as wonderfully as possible. In addition, Christ commissioned his followers to go into all the world to make disciples who will make disciples.

The Holy Spirit is working in us believers to conform us to Christ’s image. Christ assigned the church, however, to pursue fulfilling the Great Commission.

If we make mission (the multiplication of disciples) our top priority, the Holy Spirit will concurrently do his internal transformational work. If we focus on character transformation and biblical literacy to the neglect of the mission, we may miss God’s main priority and inadvertently promote a self-centered and consumerist version of Christianity.

Genesis and God’s Purpose

The first few chapters of Genesis answer the five most important life or worldview questions.

  1. Origin: From where did I come?
  2. Identity: Who am I?
  3. Purpose: What is my purpose in life?
  4. Morality: How do I know what is right and wrong?
  5. Destiny: What will happen to me after I die?

The purpose question, which is the focus of this article, is answered in the following verses.

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Genesis 1:28 (ESV) 

Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. Genesis 2:15 (NASB)

The basic purpose of humankind can be summarized in three points: multiply, take dominion, and tend the garden.

These commands were specific to Adam’s and Eve’s situation, but a case can be made that they are still in effect, since there is no record anywhere that God rescinded them. The “garden” should now be understood as the entire earth in which we live, tainted as it is by sin.

While these purposes apply to every human being in a practical and natural way, I also believe that they apply directly to the mission of the church.

Fruitfulness and Multiplication

It is important to note that the top priority, based on the order in which these commands were given, is to be fruitful and multiply. This command was restated after the flood. The earth then and now needs to be populated. The Great Commission was another restatement of this foundational command after the resurrection.

“Go and make disciples” is another way of saying, “Be fruitful and multiply.” The earth now desperately needs to be populated with born again believers who seek first God’s kingdom and righteousness.

The rebellious world system argues incessantly against obeying God’s command to be fruitful and multiply. The reasons given are many.

  • There are already too many people. If we don’t cut back on births, the earth will be over populated, which will usher in many calamities, such as famine starvation. This is part of what motivates the world’s love affair with killing babies through abortion.
  • Children are too expensive. We cannot afford to have kids. This excuse is also used to justify abortion.
  • Children are too much trouble. They keep us from pursuing our own priorities in life. This is another often used justification for abortion, which works against God’s priority.
  • The world is too evil to bring children into it. Misplaced compassion for the not yet born motivates people to avoid having children. Obviously this is very short sighted and shows disregard for God’s ability to redeem and bless his creatures.

Western nations have embraced abortion, birth control, fear, unbelief, and a self-centered lifestyle in direct defiance of God’s command to be fruitful and multiply, causing the West to teeter on the brink of cultural non-viability because of low birth rates. World dominion will go to those groups which continue to have large numbers of children.

In the natural realm, multiplication leads to dominion. The same is true in the spiritual realm.

Our nation and culture have embraced an anti-God mentality. Unwittingly, many churches have adopted variations of these arguments. Below are some examples.

  • We disobey the Great Commission when we choose to no longer reach out because we feel we have already maxed out our facilities and capacities.
  • We disobey the Great Commission when we invest most of our finances in maintaining the building, programs, and operational costs of maintaining the church plant, instead of spending time, energy, and money on pursuing the Great Commission.
  • We disobey the Great Commission when we think that having a missional lifestyle is too much trouble. It is far easier to contribute money or volunteer to serve in crisis intervention programs than to get involved in the lives of people who have untold needs and will make unanticipated demands on our time and finances.
  • We disobey the Great Commission when, rather than put our people at risk by asking them to immerse themselves in lifestyle evangelism and connecting with broken, unsaved people, we opt for the safety of the Christian fortress called the church.
  • We disobey the Great Commission when we devise so many programs and activities for our members that they are worn out and have little or no time or energy for pursuing the Great Commission.

These arguments are used by some churches as a form of “birth control” to circumvent their obligation to pursue the Great Commission.

We sometimes place building and strengthening the local church, the command to tend the garden, ahead of the Great Commission. Having great meetings (the internal work of the church) may become more important than spending time with the unsaved and unchurched (the missional work of the church).

Only by re-prioritizing the Great Commission will the church become the missional force God intends it to be and grow to spiritual maturity. Self-centered people and churches never fully mature.

Taking Dominion

When Jesus rose from the dead, he took dominion back from Satan. Although God’s ultimate rule has never been in question, man’s place in the kingdom of God had been jeopardized when Adam relinquished authority to Satan. When Jesus arrived on planet earth, he became the Second Adam, the progenitor of a brand new edition of humanity through the genesis of the new birth. He powerfully rose again from the dead as the Lord of Lords, to whom all authority in heaven and earth has been given. As representatives of Christ, we administrate his authority. The Gospel message is a proclamation of Christ’s authority to forgive sins and set the captives free. In the limited scope of this article, I use “taking dominion” to refer to our proclamation of the Gospel of Christ’s dominion or lordship in order to harvest people out of this fallen world who can be developed into disciples.

The proclamation of the Gospel, therefore, is a necessary prerequisite to making disciples, which is God’s end game for the church.

Churches which fail to adequately emphasize, train, and launch their members into Gospel proclamation will probably never become disciple making churches in the fullest sense.

Tending the Garden

People need responsibility. Taking on responsibility creates an environment in which we more rapidly can grow up or mature.

Just as having children forces young couples to grow in all sorts of ways, having spiritual children through proclaiming the Gospel will provide us with wonderful opportunities for spiritual growth. Putting mission (preaching the Gospel and making disciples) first, will end up requiring us to spend large amounts of time tending the garden, or helping them to grow to maturity. Part of the Great Commission is “teaching them to obey all that I have commanded.” This makes tending the garden a very important part of the Great Commission and disciple making.

Tending the garden means caring for the sheep, but always with an end game in mind – that they also become disciple makers in their own right.

Tending sheep is never supposed to be the end all. Just as young children are prepared for life as adults and sent off into the world to start their own families, disciples of Christ should be taught, prepared, and sent to multiply themselves.

The Great Commission, the Church’s Top Priority

We cannot simply tell young men to “grow up” and expect that to happen unless we put them into situations that require them to mature. Boot camps place men and women under extreme pressures to produce qualified soldiers.

Whenever people take on greater responsibility, it will foster growth to maturity.

In the church, we should not expect our people to grow to maturity without their embracing the Great Commission responsibilities of preaching the Gospel and making disciples who make disciples. Instead of making the Great Commission priority one, we have substituted other things: Bible study, moral development, leadership training, and serving church programs. When we do this, we produce caricatures of true disciples.

  • Prioritizing Bible education and theological training ahead of the Great Commission may end up creating a modern version of the Pharisees, who considered themselves to be guardians of the truth, but at the same despised and excluded the very people Jesus loved and pursued.
  • Putting character and moral development at the top of our priority list runs the risk of producing self-righteous and self-absorbed legalists, whose focus is on their own spiritual development and who demand that others adhere to their standards of behavior, while looking down on those who do not measure up.
  • Teaching people that their main priority is serving church programs can make the church inwardly focused and sap the energy and time that could otherwise be given to pursuing the Great Commission’s first point: “Go.”

In the West, we long ago adopted the Greek system of education, which demands vast investments of time in lectures, studying books, and testing in order to prepare and equip people to enter into responsible positions in society and the church. Jesus used a much different approach, which was more “hands on” and action-oriented, what might be called apprenticeship. He taught and then immediately required his students to use what they had been taught. Putting what we learn into practice is the best way to increase understanding and retention. Often we think we know something until we have to use it or teach it. Then we find out what we do and don’t know or understand.

Disciple making the Jesus way is action and ministry oriented.

Discipleship is best done in a “hands on” manner, in which the mentor teaches, demonstrates, oversees, and, finally, launches. Our disciples will learn far more after they have been launched than they did in the secure environment of having the mentor readily at hand.

Young parents learn how to parent by doing. They become much more open to advice when they see the need for it. What may have seemed boring and academic suddenly has a real life application! Likewise, when we help people to get out of the safe confines of the local church and into their communities in obedience to the Great Commission, we place them into an environment in which they must sink or swim. Immediately they will find out what they do and do not know. Hopefully they will thirst to grow in the knowledge of the scriptures and in their ability to minister to others through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Pursuing the Great Commission will excite our desire to grow to maturity in the Lord. Forting up in the local church context may allow people to stagnate while feeling good about themselves.

Have you ever noticed that young couples without children are often experts on how to raise and discipline other people’s children? They are sometimes critical of how parents are doing their job. But once they have kids of their own, they find out how difficult and challenging parenting is.

We must beware of creating theological monsters whose only understanding comes from a theoretical classroom context, instead of a “boots on the ground” experience.

Pursuing the Great Commission as our top priority will help ground our people in real life applications of God’s Word and preserve us from spiritual pride. It’s difficult to be proud when we are helping people wrestle with real life problems which often confound even the wisest in our midst.

Conclusion

Prioritizing the wrong things can torpedo our best efforts and cause us to miss the mark. Making tending the garden our top priority can end up frustrating God’s purposes.

Far too many capable and promising followers of Christ have been deceived into thinking that God’s highest purpose for their lives is growing in biblical knowledge and serving in the local church. However, when we make the Great Commission our top priority, everything else falls into place.

Embracing the Great Commission draws us to grow in our knowledge of the Word and the ways of the Spirit that will help us to connect with people, share the Gospel effectively, minister in the power of the Spirit, and teach others to do likewise. This is the essence of what it means to make disciples.

When young married couples have children, they learn to give their lives away for others. Having children, natural or spiritual (disciples), changes our lives in a most fundamental and rewarding way. In old age, there is no greater joy than being with our offspring, especially if they are in unity and serving the Lord, and seeing what they are doing in life and ministry. We do not rejoice if our children never leave the home: rather, we prepare them to leave the “nest” to start their own families. This is how we fulfill the command to be fruitful and multiply. The church likewise must think in terms of launching people to start their own church families, which will also reproduce. This can be done at a small group level or larger church level.

Let’s make the Great Commission our top priority so that we, like Paul, can rejoice in our spiritual children and grandchildren (disciples of disciples)! Let’s make God’s first priority from creation onward our first priority and watch how everything else falls into place.

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Matthew 6:33 (ESV)
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