Jesus’ last words to his disciples were to go into all the world, preach the gospel, and make disciples. This Great Commission has created passionate outreach, sacrificial foreign mission work, and sometimes a sense that the church may not be doing enough. Despite these sometimes mixed feelings, the mission of the church is the Great Commission. When thinking about this commission to mature and multiply believers and churches and what it means to CMC and to me personally in the context in which I pastor, I strive for several ideals:
- First, the majority of church services should be designed to bring about maturity in believers. All seekers should be welcomed warmly, but messages should be designed for those who are believers. This ensures that believers are getting sound teaching that brings about maturity.
- Second, personal evangelism is not an optional add on to maturity. Sharing one’s faith is a mark of maturity. Mature believers share their faith with others as they go about their daily lives. This is the first step in making disciples.
- Third, mature believers need to be willing to share their inheritance. In the parable of the prodigal son, the younger son takes his share of his father’s wealth and goes and wastes it. He comes back to the father completely broken and helpless. The father throws a huge party for the prodigal son. He gives him a ring. He gives him new clothes. He kills the fatted calf. The older son comes home and is angry. The father tells the older son that all that he has is his. So in reality, the father throws the party and gives the gifts at the older son’s expense. This often happens in the church. God welcomes and forgives the broken and the sinners, but they will only become a meaningful part of the church family if mature believers are willing to give up some of what they consider their own to bring about maturity in others.
- Fourth, we must cultivate in our churches a vision for God’s work both locally and abroad. There needs to be a conviction that God’s name must be known in every culture and people group. Our churches need to understand that missions are “everywhere to everywhere,” and that the gospel most often moves through similar cultures rather than geographically. This means that strategic church plants domestically can sometimes be just as effective in reaching the nations as sending workers abroad. CMC is a mostly rural conference. For CMC to reach our goal to mature and multiply believers and churches, we likely will need to find ways to become more urban in our outreach. This means that as our young people leave our rural churches and move to more metropolitan areas, they will be equipped to either plant a church or partner with a church that is already ministering among the nations.
- Fifth, not everyone I minister to will be best discipled in my church. Even in areas where there may not be significant cultural differences, some people will simply not fit into your church culture. As you minister to these groups of people, the kingdom of God may be better served by starting a new church plant that can take on the culture and character of this group. This will allow the kingdom of God to be more dynamic in the way it reaches people.
- Sixth, if churches are going to mature and multiply, leaders will need to be willing to give up and send our best. This can be a scary proposition because folks who are best to send usually are the ones who are the most active in the church. They are doing the work in “my” church and I don’t know what I would do without them. It is in these times when we need to remember that it is not “my” church. The church is God’s; he is the Great Shepherd and we work for him.
My prayer is that through the power of the Holy Spirit our churches will live out these ideals, and that we will increase in effectiveness as we share the great inheritance from which we have been so richly blessed.
