Missional

Many years ago a young couple married and had a son. They named him “Odd”. Odd hated his name and as he grew old and approached death, he gave instructions that his name not be placed on his tombstone, only his birth and death days. To this day, people visit the cemetery where he’s buried, see his tombstone and say, “that’s odd”.

He couldn’t get away from who he was. You and I can’t get away from who we are either; and we don’t want to because we’re the missionaries that God has chosen to carry His Beautiful Gospel to this part of our world.
“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)

That’s what Serve, Strengthen and Start really means. It is “The Commission” restated for our lives. We Serve the Kingdom through Evangelism, the first step in making a disciple. We Strengthen through making disciples, the very essence of the Commission and we Start through planting because if we’re doing the first two well, we can’t remodel our existing buildings fast enough to hold all the Believers!
It is “The Commission” restated for us as a family of Churches. It is “The Commission” restated for us as a Church. And, it is “The Commission” restated for us as individuals.
It is your and my first, best destiny!
It begins with Serving the Kingdom through evangelism.
I was taught to view evangelism as a presentation, but as I heard recently, in our time, evangelism is now a conversation.
• It is first a conversation we have with our Father when we pray, “Lord fill me with Your passion for souls and help me witness to all who cross my path.”
• It is second a conversation we have often with one another for accountability and encouragement.
• It is third a conversation we have with those we encounter as we unpack the Gospel for them day by day in the context of relationship.
It continues with Strengthening through discipleship.
I was saved at eight years of age but didn’t begin true spiritual discipleship transformation until I was in my late twenties. I spent all those intervening years in Sunday School and truly thank God for those dedicated teachers. Those teachers were doing just what they had been taught to do; they were disseminating information. When I was in my late twenties, our Pastor took myself and two other men and began to personally disciple us. We meet weekly and what happened during those times was not a dissemination of information but a facilitation of transformation. What’s the difference? In Sunday School, we simply learned about God; in personal discipleship, we encountered God.
True discipleship occurs when two or more persons are engaged in regular and earnest Bible Study and prayer (daily) and one is leading the other(s) to submit to the Holy Spirit’s conviction on their lives that they each become progressively and measurably more like Christ. It is parenting Believers into Christian maturity. A discipler must have been or be being discipled. You cannot lead where you have not been, or where you do not know the direction to go.
Here are three non-negotiables regarding discipleship:
1. It is intentional. Jesus taught many but only discipled a few and he did it intentionally.
2. Sunday School can be retooled to become discipleship
3. It is a life-long process.
We Serve through evangelism Strengthen through discipleship and finally, Start through Planting.
There was a time in the past when other Christian Churches existed in this area and yours did not. If there were already other Churches, why was yours started? The answer was to reach more people for Christ. Our most conservative demographics show at least 32,000 lost people in our two counties. Our strategy is to reach them all. We incorporate those new Believers into existing and new Churches. We can only seat about 5000 in all our existing Churches. Even if we all went to two services next Sunday, we’d still have 22,000 who couldn’t get in the door. It has been, is now, and always will be a “both/and” proposition.

Serve through Evangelism, Strengthen through Discipleship, Start through Planting.
The Great Commission restated for us as individuals, Churches and an association.
So, how does it become reality for us?
We know WHAT do to make disciples---serve, strengthen and start.
But do we know HOW to do it?
The seeds of revival for every soul in our world are not in the field of trying harder, working smarter, doing better or being more motivated.
The seeds of revival for EVERY soul in our world are in the field of PRAYER.
PRAYER is the place where Jesus Christ sowed seed every day of his life here on earth!
After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. (Matt 14:23 NIV)
They went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to his disciples, "Sit here while I pray." He took Peter, James and John along with him… (Mark 14:32-33 NIV)
One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles: (Luke 6:12 NIV)
About eight days after Jesus said this, he took Peter, John and James with him and went up onto a mountain to pray. (Luke 9:28 NIV)
Prayer was the foundation of Christ’s life and ministry and he taught his disciples that it must be the foundation of His work in their lives. That’s why we read in Acts 1:14:
They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers. (Acts 1:14 NIV). They were praying for revival and God sent it in His time in the form of a great Pentecost!
Scripture and history reveal one inescapable truth: God never sends revival until Churches fully humbler themselves in fervent, corporate prayer. We cannot program, promote or strategize our way into revival.
The seeds of revival for every soul in our world are not in the field of trying harder, working smarter, doing better or being more motivated.
The seeds of revival for EVERY soul in our world are in the field of PRAYER.
If you want to begin to meet as a Church for a different kind of praying,
If you want to begin to embrace corporate repentance and deep personal cleansing,
If you want to begin calling on the God of the Universe to send revival right here, right now,
Then we will begin to hear from heaven, be forgiven of our sin and see the healing in our land.
Then we will begin to see people come to Christ in larger numbers.
Then we will begin to see as urgent the need to make disciples
Then we will begin to see the need for new Churches
Then we will experience the power of God!
And I hope you’ll invite me to join you because there’s NOTHING I love to do better in Church than to pray.
For years, I’ve prayed FOR you, now I’d like to begin to pray WITH you!
If you want to begin to pray:
• Father, fill us with a PASSION to know You and love You with all our hearts.
• Lord, teach us to view prayer as the heart of our relationship.
• God, please enable us to pray from Your perspective and not our own.
• Grant us the desire to be holy because YOU are HOLY.
• Teach us to die to ourselves and trust Christ to live through us.
• Baptize us in Your mighty power and fill us with your passion for souls.
• Lead us to embrace personal and corporate repentance and deep cleansing by the Holy Spirit.
• Lord, teach us to pray with clean hands, pure hearts, right minds and obedient spirits.
• Lord send revival in our world!
Then call each other and then call me and we’ll pray together, serve together, strengthen together and start together; for the Glory of God until Jesus comes!