At my core, I know that I am a broken, sinful, and selfish person. I have a bent towards what it easy and cheap. Left on my own, I drift from God and toward my own desires on a regular basis. This is why I am so amazed that 1) God would love me at all, and 2) that He would not only forgive my sins, but go as far as to call me into His service in ministry. What I see in myself as disqualifying character flaws, God sees as redeemable testaments to His goodness and grace. I never want to lose my sense of awe over the scandal of grace that God has given me in Christ. It’s out of this overwhelming thankfulness that I want to do everything I can to serve and honor the One who has given me more than I’ll ever know.
In Matthew 25:14-30, Jesus tells a story about a master who gives bags of gold to his servants, then after returning from a trip, expects those servants to have gained a return on what he had left in their care. I love this story, and in it I see that although God gives gifts out of his goodness, not because we deserve them, he also expects a return on those gifts. I am very confident that God has given me gifts worth far more than gold and that He expects me to use these gifts in a way that produces spiritual fruit for the sake of the gospel. He has given me a specific burden to use my gifts to lead others in the truth of Jesus Christ, helping to edify the local church, His bride, through preaching the word, equipping his people, and walking alongside men, women, and families as they seek God’s will for their lives. God has blessed me with gifts of leadership, preaching, and exhortation, and I want to use those gifts for His glory. He has also given me a vision for taking the gospel beyond Pine Hills Church. By launching a church plant and sharing this message with people I have yet to meet, I hope to fulfill the Matthew 25:21 call to live as a “good and faithful servant."
Sunday, March 29, 2015
Why Start New Churches: A Practical Mandate
It has been reported that of the 250,000 Protestant churches in America, 200,000 are either stagnant (no growth) or declining. Approximately 4,000-8,000 (potentially more) churches close their doors every single year. For these reasons and more, the practicality of planting new churches may be at an all time high. As churches disband or close, the remnant of believers left behind need new church communities to engage in and call their own. Additionally, too many of the stagnant churches are merely coddling comfortable congregations while doing no outreach or evangelism to the world outside it’s doors. As the millennial generation grows more and more convinced that today’s Church provides no relevance to their daily lives, many churches seem content to sit idly by with arms crossed, doing nothing to correct this assumption and reach out to this next generation of potential Christ followers.
Is it any surprise that the command to make disciples is as true and necessary today as it was 2000 years ago? As churches close their doors and those remaining open report falling numbers, it’s vital that mature believers step out to plant Jesus-centered communities of believers in the fields to which God has called them. This is why we're doing what we're doing.
Is it any surprise that the command to make disciples is as true and necessary today as it was 2000 years ago? As churches close their doors and those remaining open report falling numbers, it’s vital that mature believers step out to plant Jesus-centered communities of believers in the fields to which God has called them. This is why we're doing what we're doing.
Why Start New Churches: A Biblical Mandate
In what may go down as one of the most eternally significant, yet momentarily ambiguous commands of all Scripture, Jesus, before his ascension, directs his disciples simply to “go and make disciples…”. He gives no help regarding the “how” other than to instruct baptism and the relaying of his previous commands to all they would reach. Then He was gone.
Little did the disciples know that this command would birth a movement that would change human history for all eternity. Following the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20), we’ve seen billions of people come to saving faith in Jesus Christ and hundreds of thousands of individual churches come into existence with the goal of reaching others with His gospel. Yet the command still hasn’t been completed. For as long as there are those with “ears to hear,” the command to make disciples persists. As long as we have friends and family members, co-workers and teammates who have yet to meet Jesus, we are called to be faithful to Christ and be his witnesses “in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to all the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8).” It’s for this reason that we must continue to not only reproduce our faith one-on-one, though personal evangelism, but also reproduce healthy churches worldwide.
One of the first examples of one gospel community birthing another is found in Acts 13. The early Christian leaders at the church in Antioch were worshipping the Lord and fasting when the Holy Spirit spoke to them by calling them to “set aside” Barnabas and Saul for the work to which they were being called to. And what was this work? To be faithful to Christ’s command and expectation that His followers be faithful in making disciples who in turn, make more disciples. So this is exactly what they did. The leaders continued in fasting and prayer and then sent the men off to preach in Cyprus and beyond. It was during this time of preaching and planting gospel seeds that the influence of the early church spread, grew, and developed. This pioneering gospel community would set an example for how followers of Jesus could put hands and feet to the formerly ambiguous command to “make disciples” of all nations for centuries to come.
Little did the disciples know that this command would birth a movement that would change human history for all eternity. Following the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20), we’ve seen billions of people come to saving faith in Jesus Christ and hundreds of thousands of individual churches come into existence with the goal of reaching others with His gospel. Yet the command still hasn’t been completed. For as long as there are those with “ears to hear,” the command to make disciples persists. As long as we have friends and family members, co-workers and teammates who have yet to meet Jesus, we are called to be faithful to Christ and be his witnesses “in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to all the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8).” It’s for this reason that we must continue to not only reproduce our faith one-on-one, though personal evangelism, but also reproduce healthy churches worldwide.
One of the first examples of one gospel community birthing another is found in Acts 13. The early Christian leaders at the church in Antioch were worshipping the Lord and fasting when the Holy Spirit spoke to them by calling them to “set aside” Barnabas and Saul for the work to which they were being called to. And what was this work? To be faithful to Christ’s command and expectation that His followers be faithful in making disciples who in turn, make more disciples. So this is exactly what they did. The leaders continued in fasting and prayer and then sent the men off to preach in Cyprus and beyond. It was during this time of preaching and planting gospel seeds that the influence of the early church spread, grew, and developed. This pioneering gospel community would set an example for how followers of Jesus could put hands and feet to the formerly ambiguous command to “make disciples” of all nations for centuries to come.
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