Sending global missionaries is one of my favorite topics of conversation with pastors and church leaders. Having been an international missionary myself, it always does my heart good when a pastor or church leader starts asking questions about how to get engaged in the Great Commission overseas. In fact, I’ve been surprised in recent months at the amount of excitement this particular conversation has incited here in Houston. For the last few months, I’ve been working on some plans to help local churches equip potential international missionaries in partnership with the International Mission Board. As this has come up in conversations with various pastors, missions pastors, and regular church folk, I can honestly say it has produced more excitement than any other topic I’ve addressed with churches since I began working at the association. I think more churches are interested in this than we may know. Perhaps the most significant first step for a local church is developing specific partnerships with a global missions team overseas. Partnering directly with a missionary team on the field provides many significant benefits for a local church that cares about reaching the nations with the gospel. To that end, here are five key benefits of developing specific global missions partnerships with missionary teams overseas. It’s Good for the Local Church Leaders When it comes to global missions, many pastors both understand the importance of it and have a desire for their church to be actively engaged in the work, and yet they often feel they lack the expertise necessary to lead a church in a right direction. Having a partnership with experienced missionaries goes a long way in helping local church leaders develop a healthy vision for their church. The missionaries on the ground can be a vital sounding board for the local church as they develop their ministry. Furthermore, pastors will get to learn firsthand about the work of international missions through the deep relationships that can develop with their missionaries overseas. It’s Good for the Missionaries on the Field Speaking as someone who has lived overseas, far away from family and church, it can be lonely or isolating at times. Church partners can be, and should be, a crucial lifeline for the missionary team. Healthy church partners provide significant support and care for their missionary teams through prayer, communication, and sending short term and mid-term volunteer support to aid in the work. Impacting the same place over time reaps a better harvest on the field. A local church’s missions strategy should be a fire hose, not a water sprinkler. When we hop from place to place, attempting to land on a new continent each time we go overseas, we overlook the importance of persistence in the same location. A healthy short term missions strategy for a church is like chopping down an oak tree. With each subsequent team, the church learns more about the area, understands better ways to engage in gospel proclamation, begins to pick up language and culture, and has the huge advantage of returning to continue ministry with the same people. When I was serving in West Africa, we had long-standing church partners that had visited the same villages for over a decade. Those churches had watched children in those villages grow up into adults. They had important relationships, and it allowed the work to progress in a way that trip hopping simply cannot. Helping without Hurting By now, I imagine a good number of pastors and church leaders are familiar with the book When Helping Hurts, by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert. If not, you should [check it out]https://amzn.to/3LufYQx). Corbett and Fikkert point out that sometimes, despite our best intentions, we provide aid in a way that actually hurts more than it helps. This is especially true when we cross significant cultural barriers to provide that aid. However, being in a real partnership with a missionary team on the field provides your church with cross-cultural workers who know that location intimately and can help you make wise decisions about what you’re doing there—that is, as long as the local church listens to the missionary team concerning best practices for their engagement. Identifying your own for sending through international missions partnerships. Finally, and perhaps most significantly, long term partnerships with missionary teams overseas provide an important foundation for sending your own to the nations. It is rare that I speak with an international missionary whose personal story does not recount the significance of a short term mission trip in their own calling. When done well, engaging your own congregation in the work of global missions through time spent with a missionary team introduces them firsthand to the missionary task. Furthermore, missionary teams become partners in the work of identifying, equipping, sending, and supporting more from inside your own congregation. Clearly church partnerships with missionary teams are a key component in developing a healthy mission vision in a local church. The benefits above are only a sample of the rich reward that comes to a church when it links up with missionaries on the field to send and support. Of course, once a church is convinced of the need to develop these partnerships, the next step is figuring ou how to find the right partners. And in the next article, I will provide five simple questions to guiding a church in finding the right missionary partners. Further Reading

Few terms have captivated the missional imagination of the church in North America like the Nones. The term None became our shorthand for the nonreligious, or those who would not select any particular relgion on surveys about faith. This was a change from the past, when people would usually at least select the religious tradition in which they were raised. So Nones are different from people who are nominal in their faith, or those who claim a religious tradition and simply do not follow it. Instead, Nones instentionally claim to have no religion at all. At this point, reems of commentary exist on the “rise of the Nones.” Of course, the material on the topic ranges from helpful analysis to wild speculation, and it falls into every genre from modern anthropology to hype marketing. It seems everyone has a hot take on the Nones, America’s unreligious. For many, this category personifies their fears of church decline in the United States, a looming threat of what is to come as America slides into irreversible secularism. For others, the Nones are the missional horizon, the new frontier for American evangelism. And yet, despite the widespread adoption of this term, it remains rather ill-defined. What exactly is a none? Beyond the basic understanding that they select no religious affiliation on surveys, the cohesion among this large population segment appears to be thin. Contrary to the idea that Nones represent a widespread movement of like-minded people across the United States (and increasingly the world), a monolithic demographic called the Nones may be an imprecise label. Perhaps instead of one group, there are actually four. At least that is the argument recently made by Ryan Burge and Tony Jones.1 After reading their initial claims and seeing their methodology, I am sympathetic to their position. It seems very right to me that such a large group of people being categorized together based solely on one datapoint will likely conceal as much as it reveals about them. Burge and Jones have recategorized this large swath of unreligious Americans into four distinct categories. If their research is correct, they’ve provided a great service by clarifying distinctions within this group that can help us better understand the worldviews that are inevitably represented. That matters for those of us called to the task of making disciples among our neighbors and the nations. The researchers propose four new classifications: None in Name Only (NiNos), Spiritual but not Religious (SBNRs), the Dones, and the Zealous Atheists. In forthcoming articles, Burge and Jones are unpacking each of these categories. However, in their initial proposal they provide a basic definition and profile for each. I would encourage you to read their explanation for yourself. My purpose is not to rehash or merely summarize their conclusion. Instead, I aim to ask some questions and point out some areas of significance for local churches concerning this new perspective on the unreligious in our communities. In short, how do we as ministry leaders think critically about this development in understanding? If Burge’s research is correct and these four categories of Nones hold, then here are four initial things we should consider. No Silver Bullets to Work with Nones We need to start here. It sounds like a truism when you write out something like that above, but different people with different worldviews and sentiments will respond differently to ministry. For too long, the Nones have been treated in materials and resources for local church ministry as some monolithic black box. Once given the key to unlocking its secrets, you can now effectively minister to all of them with a single set of ministry methods. Unfortunately, this is never true in ministry. Having clarity here can help. Nones are not a single group of people but actually a cluster of groups that all share one same position on organized religion, and that means these various of people will have varied responses to ministry methods. It’s always been true, but missions and ministry are not one-size-fits-all. From Burge’s introductory article, it is already possible to discern different levels of receptivity among the various subsets of Nones. Take the NiNos category as a case example. Nominal (in name only) Nones make up just over 20% of the group. That’s a significant portion, and of course there would be nominalism among the Nones, just like any other religious worldview. Many in this group apparently pray daily. To whom, I have no idea. But, it stands to reason that their responses to ministry methods will be markedly different than the Zealous Atheists who are looking to pick a fight (a much smaller group, by the way). And the existence of nominal Nones leads to my next takeaway. You may have Nones in your church. Literature on Nones leads one to assume the last place you will find one is inside the doors of a church, but the initial research here would suggest otherwise. More than one category demonstrates limited attendance at church services. Both the NiNos and the Zealous Atheists demonstrate some church attendance. Of course, it’s limited attendance. Perhaps they show up a couple of times a year, for special occasions, or when family talks them into it. You know, like a number of folk that you may consider on the periphery of your church. Here’s the point: we don’t need to think of Nones as always being the angry world “out there.” There’s a chance you have family members of regular attenders who flirt with being there every now and then who would actually self-identify (more likely on a survey than to you) as being Nones. How do we consider this in the way we teach and preach? Some Nones are open to Spiritual Matters Burge points out the spirituality of some Nones in his explanation of the SBNRs (Spiritual but not Religious), after all, it is in the name of this category. Many Nones are interested in spirituality, whatever that means, even though they are not interested in institutional religion. The simultaneous fascination with spirituality and skepticism of traditional religion among this category serves as both obstacle and opportunity for gospel ministry. For SBNRs, a distrust or disdain for assembled worship gatherings and official church functions presents a barrier to local churches ever interacting with them. If the only means of engagement your churches uses are “come and see” models of gathering people for events, then this category of Nones will live mostly out of reach for your church. However, the fascination among SBNRs with spirituality can be an opportunity for churches willing to engage on that front. This engagement will most likely not happen in the doors of your church, at least not in the beginning. Instead, a “go and tell” method engagement. Here’s one key to engaging this way: drive past the focus on crystals and new age hoodoo to understand what it is about those things that generates the fascination. In other words, don’t engage on the importance of institutional religion (though it is important) and do engage first on what they are ultimately trying to achieve by adopting their practices. Asking why becomes a superpower in this type of engagement. What longings and needs are they attempting to fill with spirituality, however they have it defined? Probing these ideas in conversation, a topic many would be willing to engage in because they’re fascinated by it, will allow you to understand the worldview supporting these practices of spirituality. Then, the gospel presents a clear confrontation to the false promises provided by practices of spirituality. Only the gospel meets the needs of the human heart, and behind every spiritual practice not rooted in biblical Christianity lives a little idol turning the heart away from God. Find the idol in conversation, and engage in evangelism there. But Some Nones are just Angry at Religion Again, a lot of literature seems to claim all Nones are spiritual but not religious, and this research demonstrates that is not true. While SBNRs are the largest single category (36%), they do not make the majority of the group. In fact, it appears there is no majority and at least some of them are more than disinterested in traditional religion–they are now mad about it. Two of Burge’s categories seem antagonistic toward Christianity: the Dones and the Zealous Atheists. Of the Dones, Burge writes, “Does everyone yearn for God? In the case of the Dones, we feel confident in saying that there is no clearly articulated “God-shaped hole” in the hearts of these folks.” There may be lots of reasons why this is true, but I bet a common thread may be prior engagement with nominal Christianity at some point that has led to a “post-Christian” attitude. If that’s true, for many Dones a poor experience with established religion leads to a strong distaste for it. Zealous Atheists are another category altogether. Burge notes that he wanted to call the “evangelical atheists,” but knew that would be too confusing. His point is simple: these people evangelize for atheism. Not only are they mad at religions, most assuredly Christianity, they are the slim minority that want to pick a fight about it. We should see a couple of important trends about these angry Nones. First, most Nones are not angry Nones. These Zealous Atheists represent only 11% of the total group. Most people who claim atheism or some form of agnosticism are not angry about it. That should give us confidence in engaging with them in open conversation about the gospel. Second, and perhaps a little surprising, I’m not convinced angry Nones are a bad target for gospel ministry. I believe it would be a mistake to assume that their zeal in atheism translates into no chance that the gospel can change their heart. In fact, I know too many personal stories of devout Muslims, Hindus, and atheists who aimed to prove Christianity wrong only to become some of it’s best ambassadors. Often, those most zealous for a false worldview are the ones trying hard to convince themselves, and once that barrier falls, that zeal is placed on the right gospel foundation. The four takeways above are just scratching the surface when it comes to the significance of this new, more detailed, approach to discussing Nones. I would encourage you to read more as Burge and Jones continue writing in detail about each of these groups. I am optimistic that this will provide us with better ways of discussing gospel ministry among a really large portion of the American, and increasingly the global, population. Ryan Burge is posting new articles about this research at his Substack, Graphs about Religion. I’ve linked to the initial article in this post, but you can follow more of his work on this at his site. ↩

Our world is not as it seems. We go through our days, worrying about the present circumstances, one eye on our social feed and the day’s news cycle. Inevitably, there is another political controversy. Someone of notoriety that you’ve vaguely heard of before is now in the middle of scandal, self-inflicted or otherwise. The economy is worse, or better, it’s hard to tell depending on who is speaking. And in the middle of it all, your real concern is figuring out how to get all of your emails answered, the kids off to school or practice, the leaves raked, and that rotten spot on your deck railing fixed. Our thoughts of this world consume our days. In the middle of this mundane madness, Paul’s words interrupt our train of thought. This world is not as it seems. As the capstone of his letter to the Ephesian believers, Paul draws their attention past what the human eye can see. Paul wants to sober his readers’ thoughts and steel their nerves. Underneath the surface of it all, behind the veil of this physical world, a war is happening. It’s not a distant war, either. This is not some conflict between two far away groups with no immediate bearing on our lives. This war is happening right around us, and whether we like it or not, it involves us. Life is War In Ephesians 1, we are introduced to a sovereign God who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing. He has given us an inheritance. In chapter 2, we who were dead have been made alive. We discover that God has created a people from no people; he builds his church. In chapter 3, we see the purpose of that church. The manifold wisdom of God is made known through the church. The mystery, hidden for ages, is now revealed, and unbelievably, God does so through his church. More specifically, through little churches all over the world, God’s cosmic plan is revealed. In chapters 4 and 5, Paul then challenges those of us who are members of God’s church to walk in a manner worthy of the gospel. Christ-followers, together as the church, are how God makes known the good news of the gospel. Then, of course, that means we must live a certain way. After all of this, we find ourselves in chapter 6. Paul concludes his challenge to the Ephesian Christians with a warning and it’s an abrupt transition. It’s supposed to be abrupt, because it’s an announcement of war. His words take a sharp turn in verse 10. Here, Paul calls attention to the opposition. The reality is harsher than one imagines, worse than one can see. Paul lands at this grim reality, as though all he has said before in this letter is preparing us for this realization. You were bought, made alive, drawn near, and collected into a people. You were made a citizen of a new kingdom, but it is a kingdom presently at war. And you, as a citizen, have been drafted into the battle. From now on, or until Christ returns, we find ourselves members of a kingdom at war. God’s kingdom is inaugurated, begun in Christ’s death and resurrection, but the battles still rage on until he returns to put all things under his feet. This is where we find ourselves, in the time between the times, with a God-given mission in the midst of a war. In Ephesians, Paul leans in to give us life-saving advice. For those of us who find ourselves on a battlefield we did not know existed, in the fog of war, Paul gives us the secret to making it through this battle in one piece. It’s a posture we should take as we live out our days in service to the Great Commission. Stand Against the Devil Paul informs the church in Ephesus that there is only one appropriate missional posture as we fight this battle. It is so simple it should stop us in our tracks: stand. The only way to approach this present age is to stand in this present darkness. If you want a little more, Paul summarizes this whole idea in verse 13: “For this reason take up the full armor of God, so that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having prepared everything, to take your stand” (Eph 6:13). Paul’s point is so clear it is almost impossible to miss. This emphasis is even more obvious by looking at the original Greek text. Back then, if a writer wanted to emphasize an idea, he would repeat the same word multiple times. For example, if something was more than big, he would say it was “big big.” Paul does that in this passage. Not once, not twice, not even three times. Four separate times in this one passage, Paul repeats the warning, the exhortation, the challenge: stand. Put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil, spiritual forces in the heavens. For this reason take up the full armor of God, so that you may be able to resist [withstand] in the evil day, and having prepared everything, to take your stand. Stand, therefore… Four times. Paul is practically screaming this command to that little church in Ephesus. Why? Because they are at war, and Paul loves them too much to see them mowed down by the enemy. Paul’s warning matters as much today as it did for those first Christians who received it in Ephesus. Rest assured, this enemy is still about his work of accusing the brethren and seeking whom he may devour. Paul’s words help us to do exactly what he told the Ephesian church to do: stand. He tells us what to expect. Anticipate the Schemes Our enemy schemes. Peter agrees with Paul’s sentiment in one of his letters in the New Testament. He writes, “Be sober-minded, be alert. Your adversary the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for anyone he can devour” (1 Peter 5:8). The image given by both biblical writers is a personal, active enemy who looks for opportunity. He schemes. The devil plans and strategizes. He looks for people, personally, to devour. As Stott noted above, he preys on the weak. Schemes disguise intent, and that is how the devil works. Klyne Snodgrass spoke of it this way, Evil rarely looks evil until it accomplishes its goal; it gains entrance by appearing attractive, desirable, and perfectly legitimate. It is a baited and camouflaged trap.1 How true this is of temptation. Sin is indeed a baited and camouflaged trap. By these schemes, the devil destroys his prey. He brings down the Christian. The consequences of this can be disastrous. Consider the casualties racking up today. Week after week, we hear the story of another moral failure in ministry leadership. I fear the day quickly approaches when these reports do little to stir our emotions simply because of their frequency. We find this destruction no less prevalent when we leave the rarified air of headlines and celebrity Christians. This is the fabric of all of our churches. Consider in your church, among the churches in your town and city, the number of marriages that are presently eroding. Consider the disastrous stories of affairs and addictions. Pause to consider the churches being torn apart by division over matters of culture and society. Evil rarely looks evil until it accomplishes its goal. The devil schemes, and then he destroys. In order to stand, we must anticipate his schemes and prepare for his attacks. Resist the Winds Of course, the alternative to standing is falling. Paul does not provide a third option in this passage. We stand or we fall. There is no middle ground where we somehow opt out of the attacks of the enemy. We cannot choose the sidelines, watching others navigate the war. The war is fought in our heart, and the moment one thinks they can merely avoid it, they have likely already fallen. John Stott, said it this way, Wobbly Christians who have no firm foothold in Christ are an easy prey for the devil. And Christians who shake like reeds and rushes cannot resist the wind when the principalities and powers begin to blow.2 And the winds do blow. Wobbly Christians cannot stand and those who cannot stand get eaten. This sounds like drastic language. You may be tempted to see Paul’s words and classify this as an overstatement, to assume the use of hyperbole to motivate his audience. Paul may be using figurative language when he describes this war, but there is no hyperbole in his words. The Christian faces an enemy more sinister than he can comprehend, and more deadly than he can fathom. There is only one way we stand against the schemes of the devil. There is only one way we hold up against the winds and powers of the enemy. It’s by acknowledging our weakness and standing firm in God’s power. Kent Hughes says it this way, “We must imitate Gideon’s going from 32,000 warriors to 10,000 to 300 armed only with trumpets and lanterns (Judges 7). This divestment of natural strength enabled the putting on of God’s power—and a mighty victory!”3 God’s power comes when we lay down our own arms and put on His. The victory belongs to the Lord. Klyne Snodgrass, Ephesians, NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, Mich: Zondervan, 1996). ↩ John Stott, The Message of Ephesians (Downers Grove, IL, London: IVP Academic, 2020). ↩ R. Kent Hughes, Ephesians: The Mystery of the Body of Christ, Preaching the Word (Wheaton: Crossway, 2013). ↩

“We need more planters.” I hear it more than in the past. I can remember, only a few years ago, speaking with representatives at some of our national church planting agencies (and even some of the smaller church planting networks) and hearing they were at capacity. At the time, the conversation  was centered on increased efficiency in equipping. Processes needed to be streamlined in order to run through more planters. Capacity was the issue back then. Today, the conversations I have with other network leaders are taking a different tone: scarcity. Now, to be sure, many networks are planting more than they ever have. Church planting is definitely on the mind of many. But now that pipelines are more efficient than ever, the hopper for some is looking less full. We do need more planters. I’m thankful for NAMB and other organizations that take seriously the need to equip planters for the work. However, this general acknowledgement of a shrinking pool of planters now that pipelines are happening all over the place raises some important questions about how we view the task of church planting (or sending for the Great Commission in general). Regardless of how much time we spend talking about multiplication, it is merely rhetoric unless our systems provide appropriate sending pathways. A recent study by the Send Institute backs up this reality. It appears a lot of churches, networks, and denominational agencies speak regularly about multiplication but still enlist models of sending that are primarily additional. Perhaps we need to change our paradigm. What exactly is a “sending church” anyway? Sending language is now the lingua franca for many of our churches and agencies. As Baptists, we have the Send Network, that facilitates our church planting efforts in Send Cities, and we are constantly calling our churches to be “sending churches.” Alongside the prevalence of missional language, it is becoming a well-known fact that good churches are missional churches, and that means being a sending church. To be clear, this was a needed shift. While this language is a major step forward from the days when churches didn’t think they should be involved in planting at all, I’m afraid the language is largely aspirational. In other words, we talk about the importance of being a sending church, and many churches even don the title without a significant shift in practices. Too often, I’m afraid our current understanding of the “sending church” falls short of where we must be to hit multiplication. Take, as an example, a conversation I have more times than I can count. I have served in a number of roles where church planting sending and equipping are a large piece of what I do. I have worked at one of our SBC seminaries, in the missions department no less. I have worked as a missionary for one of our national agencies. Currently, I serve the Union Baptist Association in Houston, one of the larger regional church networks in the country. In all of these roles, I have been deeply involved in the church planting conversation, and in each of these roles I regularly field the following phone call: “Hello, we are XYZ church and we want to be a ‘sending church.’ Now, do you happen to have a church planter equipped that we can send to plant in XYZ city?” Again, I am thankful for churches understanding the importance of sending. Even more, I appreciate a church that is willing to extend resources to a church planter. However, the church that calls an agency, a network, or a state convention and asks for a planter is not actually a sending church. It is, at best, a supporting church. We need supporting churches, but we must not confuse those with the church that actually produces their own sent out ones. Sending church language must mean more than recruiting a planter if we ever want a shot at approaching real multiplication. Sending church language is helpful with one very important caveat. If we’re going to use “sending church” in this way, it must mean “sending from within.” It cannot mean, “sending someone else’s planters.” In fact, NAMB has started using the term multiplying church in order to try and make this distinction. Regardless of the term, sending must be about not only deploying people (providing the resources to go), but also developing people from within our own congregations. In this way, a sending church rightly understood develops from within and deploys out. These two main phases of church sending rest on four primary responsibilities of the sending church. In order to truly be a sending church, a congregation must: identify, equip, send, and support those from within the congregation. Sending is about more than supporting. Specifically, without the process of identification inside the local congregation, multiplicative sending cannot occur. Our best pipelines can only produce addition unless sending churches begin to grow their own sent out ones. Ironically, we have talked about leadership development in the local church for a long time now. It usually goes hand-in-hand with the discipleship conversation. Unfortunately, the assumption is often that these developed leaders are being developed to scale up the ministry of the local congregation. Leaders to lead small groups and potentially serve in ministry roles in a congregation are important; but we must also consider how we are identifying and developing those leaders that a church will send out from the congregation for the work of the ministry. This goal is the true heart of a sending church. As J.D. Greear so eloquently puts it, it is gaining by losing. Recruitment vs. Development For too long now, our sending paradigm has been one of recruitment. And, our churches, our networks, our conventions, and associations have all played a part in doing it this way. Our organizations tasked with planting simply become recruiters. Churches that want to take part in sending often do the same. In this way, the sending church is involved in identification, but it is identification from outside. Everyone wants an equipping pipeline these days, but after it is set up, they begin looking outside of themselves for the people to fill it. Recruitment is zero-sum. In other words, recruitment alone can never be multiplicative. A church that recruits their next planter from outside did not add another planter to the pool, they merely moved one discovered by another church. For every planter recruited and gained from the outside, another equipping system loses a planter. Cooperative equipping strategies with national sending agencies (like the Send Network), through state conventions and associations, and even boutique networks are good and needed, but we must address a root problem: a waning supply of people to fill them. Multiplicative sending will only occur when identifying planters inside the local church becomes the norm and not the exception. As these sent out ones are identified, then agencies, seminaries, pipelines, etc. all serve a vital function. Instead of churches calling conventions or seminaries asking for planters, we need churches that know how to grow their own and send them through these cooperative equipping processes. A rising tide lifts all boats. If sending by recruiting is a zero-sum game, then we must change our sending paradigm to adjust for multiplication. We must move past recruitment to development at the local church level. If we attempt to outsource the development of leaders to networks and agencies, then we all suffer. Again, these agencies have a crucial place in the process of sending, but the process must begin and end with the local church finding its own people from within its ranks. Changing paradigms is no small feat. A paradigm is a fundamental outlook, and most often people do not even realize they operate in one. Shifting from a recruitment paradigm to a development paradigm in sending requires a complete shift in church culture. While there is much that needs to adjust, I believe we can all start with the work of identification. Simply put, your church has members God would send out. Do you know who they are? Are you willing to let them go? To help them go? In our North American church circles, we speak often about leadership development, but how often do we speak to our congregation about the development of sent out ones? Even more, how often do we set that expectation for the individuals in our church? Do our sermons make this kind of sending a practical application point? Do we challenge the people in our own pews to consider being a missionary, a church planter, or a replanter? As Danny Akin likes to say, “The question is not why should I go but why should I stay?” How often is that the tone of the teaching in your church? I long for a day when it is normative in our North American churches for every member to be confronted with that question through the practice and teaching of their church. That kind of culture leads to multiplicative sending, because it constantly calls members from within the body to consider being equipped as sent out ones. This article originally appeared on the Union Baptist Association website, where I served as an Associate Director before returning to Southeastern.

In our current season of ministry, it would be tempting to remove our focus from the core missionary task of sending laborers into the harvest. It should go without saying, during a time of social distancing the means through which we fulfill the Great Commission and the proclamation of the gospel with those yet to accept it must look different. However, we cannot stop the crucial work of examining those within our own congregations to one day be launched out as church planters, replanters, and missionaries. I’m a sucker for alliteration. It’s one of the ways you can tell I’m Baptist. There’s just something that warms a preacher’s heart when he can cram his points into terms that all begin with the same letter without doing too much damage to their meaning. Today, I want to introduce you to the Three Cs of Sending. Sending language is becoming common parlance in church circles nowadays. Like “missional” before it, most churches know that it’s good to be a “sending church.” Unfortunately, the term is often stretched to mean something that may not actually be real sending. If we’re not careful, we’re just using a rhetoric of multiplication. Real multiplicative sending is not merely supporting, but requires a church to first look inside of its own congregation for those they would send. Real sending means sending your own. Becoming a real sending church begins long before you commission your first members to be missionaries, church planters, or replanters. In order to send, you must first identify those among you that you would equip to go. But if the sending process begins with identification, then that raises an obvious question: What are we looking for in potential sent-out ones? Enter the Three Cs: character, calling, and competency. When looking inside your church for those you would send out, these three categories are both biblical and indispensable for assessing those you would send. Character Character is far and away the most important quality to consider in identifying sent-out ones. Ironically, it’s often the least considered when looking for potential church planters or missionaries. We often first evaluate someone by how they perform a certain way, such as being a good public speaker or having a dynamic personality. This may be well-meaning, but it puts the cart before the horse in identification. A person’s godliness is much more important than their ability to gather a crowd. In I Timothy, Paul makes this point clear. Paul provides Timothy with instructions for identifying new pastors from within the house churches in Ephesus. His list of qualifications is very telling—it’s almost completely character-based. Paul provides a whole list of qualities to look for in a ministry leader, and only one quality relates to a competency: that he is able to teach. When identifying potential sent-out ones, we must follow Paul’s guidance. Character comes first. Before even considering someone, know about their spiritual formation. Do they truly know and love God? Do they abide in Christ? Are they disciplined in the habits of grace such as Bible study, prayer, and biblical community? Do they possess the fruits of the Spirit, the virtues of the Christian life? Finally, do they already obey the command to make disciples? Calling Calling is where we Baptists start to get mystic. I don’t want to discount some divine communication here, but we need to understand that there’s more to it than that. In fact, I believe there is a good deal of confusion that surrounds this idea today. All Christians are called to the mission of the church. Full stop. Everyone is called to participate in the Great Commission. Everyone is called to make new disciples. Everyone is called to share the gospel. Everyone is called to serve Christ by serving their church. But some people are called to be sent out for their church to other gospel ministry in the form of planting a new church, replanting or revitalizing an existing church that needs help, or by serving as a missionary in another place. When we are talking about a church identifying potential sent-out ones, it’s this more specific calling that we are trying to see. To be frank, if your church is doing its job in discipling its people then there should be people with this sent-out calling. Perhaps the reason you can’t find them is because you’re not being intentional about instilling this purpose in your church. In short, when trying to discern calling, there are two things to consider: if an individual feels called and if the church affirms this calling. First, does the person desire to do the task? That may sound too simple, but Paul tells us that the one who aspires to be an elder desires a good thing (1 Tim. 3:1). However, a mere desire is an inadequate understanding of calling.  In addition to this desire, does the greater church body also see a potential calling in this person? Calling is not some hyper-individualistic process. Do others in the church who are spiritually mature and know this person well affirm with them this desire? Competency Competency is last on this list for a reason. I’m convinced we tend to make more out of this category than the Bible does. In our Western ways of business acumen and efficiency as virtue, we tend to outsize some list of talents in identifying people for ministry and overlook the more foundational issues of character and calling. We must learn to once more rely on the Holy Spirit to accomplish the work of the ministry through us. Too often, I am afraid our approach makes too much out of our finite skills and not enough out of the almighty power of Spirit to accomplish his purposes. With that caveat in place, I do not think we can completely ignore competencies. Though there is much less discussion of competencies in the Bible, it does mention them at times. What is more, competencies are a helpful way to determine a particular sending pathway. Often, people feel called to be sent but are less certain of how they should be sent. Sometimes, people possess skills that lend toward one pathway instead of another. While any pathway will include the fundamentals of gospel ministry, there are truly different competencies required to be an international missionary or a church planter or a replanter. Finally, identifying competencies is more about someone’s potential to develop them than their current possession of them. In essence, we are asking if this person has what it takes to develop the skills necessary to do the task to which they’re called. This takes being a learner, and it takes being a worker. Real, multiplicative sending rests on the back of identification in the local church. My prayer is that more church leaders would see the potential in their own pews, calling their members to consider whether they may be the next one to go for the sake of the Great Commission. Further Reading

I recently stumbled across an article at The Gospel Coalition that caught my attention. The article, titled “The Increasing Value of Christian Testimonies”, resonated. In fact, I make similar claims in my Christian missions courses at the seminary where I teach. The personal testimony is becoming more important. Perhaps it is fair to say it never stopped being important, but shifts in the majority culture and worldview around most Western Christians reveal its real significance to gospel ministry. Yet, while I am a proponent of teaching people about the importance of their testimony, we must carve out a better understanding of the whole enterprise. There is also a good deal of confusion surrounding the personal testimony and its relationship to evangelism and discipleship. If it is so important, where does it fit? Let’s look at a few important points concerning the role of the personal testimony in gospel ministry. Your personal testimony is not evangelism. First, a testimony is not the same thing as evangelism. Now, you may share your testimony as part of a larger conversation that is an evangelistic encounter. Or, you can structure your testimony in such a way that it includes evangelism. However, the sheer act of telling your story about how Christ has saved you is not automatically evangelism. Frankly, telling people about your life is not the same as telling them the gospel. It’s pretty common to hear well-meaning calls to evangelism in churches that equate telling someone your story with the evangelistic act of proclaiming the gospel. In most instances, it is better to consider your personal testimony as a pre-evangelistic tool that sets the stage for the gospel. And here is why… Evangelism is about the person and work of Christ. Evangelism is the act of proclaiming the gospel to someone who has not heard or accepted it, and the gospel is not about you. The gospel is the good news of Christ’s birth, life, death, and resurrection. For a conversation to be evangelistic, it must include the basic tenets of the gospel message. In Acts 4, Peter testified, “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to people by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). And Jesus, of course, declared, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:5). Evangelism centers on Jesus, not on us. Paul grants us a look into his understanding of evangelism when he refers to it as the ministry of reconciliation. The center of evangelism is the person and work of Jesus. Paul writes, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation…” (2 Corinthians 5:17a). The purpose of evangelism is the reconciliation of man to God. Paul continues, “Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us. We plead on Christ’s behalf, ‘Be reconciled to God’” (2 Corinthians 5:20). Finally, the aim of evangelism is to persuade the hearer this good news is true. Do not miss Paul’s language here. He says that we, as ambassadors, plead on Christ’s behalf. That’s desperate language. It is persuasive language. It is not enough to merely tell people what we think or believe, which is certainly the temptation in a “you do you” world. Paul presses us a step further to plead with our hearers to accept this life-changing news. Plead does not mean manipulate, of course. Paul is not telling us to trick people into accepting the gospel. He’s not telling us to cajole people with our superior rhetoric. He’s not telling us to use shady emotional tactics to merely elicit some emotional response. He’s telling us to plead. We plead when we understand the importance of our call. We plead when we feel the weight of urgency that surrounds our call. We plead when we care enough about our hearer’s fate that we are not content to let some halfhearted presentation or vague affirmation suffice. This is one reason our testimony is so important as we engage in gospel ministry. Your testimony is not the gospel message, but it is a clear demonstration of the gospel’s power. Your testimony is one story of the gospel applied. Your testimony demonstrates the gospel’s power because it is one example of the gospel applied. Paul introduces the epistle to the Romans with these words: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, just as it is written: The righteous will live by faith” (Romans 1:16-17). That truth has everything to do with your testimony. As a Christian, one brought from death to life, your story reveals the righteousness of God. Why? Because the righteous live by faith. If you are authentically walking in the power of the Holy Spirit and abiding in Christ, then your testimony reveals one instance of the gospel transforming a soul through its power. It’s not the gospel message, but it is one example of the gospel at work. That is powerful. That is God’s design: to make His disciples into living examples of His power to save. Luke makes this clear in his account of the earliest days of the church. He writes, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). That word witness, and the word testimony, they’re related to one another. Witnesses provide a testimony. Most often, I think we’re used to the words witness and testimony in a legal setting today. Witnesses take the stand in a courtroom so they can share what they have seen or experienced to be true. What they share is called their testimony. What is true in the legal courtroom is true in the courtroom of life for the Christian. We are called to the stand as witnesses, so that we can give a testimony of what we have seen and experienced to be true in the gospel. Conclusion It’s common nowadays to hear people parrot that misattributed quote, “Preach the gospel, and if necessary use words.”1 Not only is the quote historical fiction, it’s also logically nonsensical. The gospel is news, an explicit message, and it requires intentional communication. No amount of good living or being nice rises to the standard of biblical evangelism. However, a righteous life lived by faith is evidence of the gospel at work. Knowing how to speak to others about the power of the gospel in your own life, your personal testimony, is an important tool for the disciple as they obey the Great Commission. When we properly place our testimony into our work as ambassadors, it creates a clear and powerful way to demonstrate the validity of our claims about the gospel. The gospel is the very center of evangelism, but our testimonies play a crucial supporting role as we testify to the good news of Jesus with those who have not heard or accepted. This quote is often attributed to Francis of Assisi, though he did not say it and very likely disagreed with the idea based on his actual writings and own life. ↩

Have we forgotten the devil? The great Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones wrote about this very issue: I am certain that one of the main causes of the ill state of the Church today is the fact that the devil is being forgotten. All is attributed to us; we have all become so psychological in our attitude and thinking. We are ignorant of this great objective fact, that being, the existence of the devil, the adversary, the accuser, and his “fiery darts”.1 I’m inclined to agree with his assertion. The last couple of months, I’ve been reflecting on Ephesians 6. According to Paul, we are presently fighting an invisible battle. It is one which requires a level of spiritual readiness in wartime. I am not certain the root cause of this spiritual amnesia concerning our foe. Perhaps we are too sophisticated now to believe in such superstitious things. Nevertheless, Paul is correct; the devil is real. This is a personal devil. I do not mean personal in the sense of your very own devil or a private devil that belongs just to you. He is personal in the sense that he has a personality. He is a real person. This devil is not an anthropomorphism for feelings, emotions, or psychology. The devil is not some metaphor for karma or coincidence or conflict. Though, he may very likely use any of the above in his schemes against you. He is the accuser of the brethren, the liar, a roaring lion who prowls about seeking whom he may devour. He’s also not alone. In verse 12 of this chapter, Paul claims we fight “against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil, spiritual forces in the heavens.” Demonic forces sound old fashioned. It feels a bit superstitious. Yet, we must not allow our modern biases to soften this text. The devil is real, and he commands a host of enemies intent to destroy. And, Paul does more than out the enemy’s identity here in this passage. He provides crucial intel for our battle. We are keyed in to the devil’s schemes in order to stand against him and his forces waging war on Christ’s church. Paul is clear: our enemy is not flesh and blood, but he is active and powerful, and he is a master of misdirection. Your enemy is not flesh and blood Your enemy is not flesh and blood. Paul could not be more clear about this in verse 12. So, the Bible tells us we are not fighting against people. Why? Because the struggle is not this-wordly. If our struggle was social, Paul would have us put on social armor. If our struggle was intellectual, he would have us put on enlightenment armor. If our struggle was political, he would have us put on political armor. If our struggle was physical, he would have us put on physical armor. In this passage, Paul calls us to none of those things. He calls us to take up the spiritual armor of God against a personal enemy and his legion of forces. People are not the enemy. Society at large is not the enemy. Other political parties, or the people in them, are not the enemy. It is so easy to get this mixed up today. Scott Pace, our provost at Southeastern, asks the question: “Are you more bothered by lost people or burdened for them?” Especially in a world that is antagonistic to the people of God, we can treat lost people as our enemy instead of seeing them as they really are: hostages of the enemy, enslaved and blinded by their sin. When we see them as they truly are, and we realize who the real enemy is, we discover we are on a rescue mission. God wants to set those captives free, just like He’s done for you and me. But, Your Enemy is Active and He is Powerful Your enemy is not flesh and blood, but your enemy is active, and he is powerful. We can be so trained in on the wrong enemy today that we stay mired in conflict over all kinds of things. We bury down in the trenches for some kind of culture war. Firing our shots at the wrong targets. All the while, the real enemy has us in his sights off to the side, and he’s picking us off. Week after week, we sit silent not sharing the gospel message with friends, coworkers, family, neighbors, acquaintances, or the person in the grocery store. The enemy is picking us off. We cannot go a week without reading another article about someone in ministry leadership, or hearing another story of someone in one of our churches who committed moral failure. The enemy is picking us off. He’s destroying our churches. He’s destroying our families. He’s destroying our lives. He’s destroying our witness and our ability to testify to the gospel of Christ. He’s doing it from the inside. He is active and he is powerful. And he’s prowling around seeking to destroy us, and we’ve got our eyes on his decoy. Paul declares here in Ephesians 6, we must know the enemy. And, He is a Master of Misdirection Our enemy schemes. This enemy is quite skilled at misdirection. The smoke screen comes in many forms, two of which I’ll mention here. First, this enemy is easy to underestimate. Underestimating your enemy is dangerous. On the sports field, that leads to an upset. Teams get too confident, and they don’t prepare. They rest in their own ability, they are unconcerned about learning the other team’s plays. On the battlefield, underestimating your enemy is one way to get yourself killed. We are tempted that we do not need our full complement of arms. But there are few worse ideas than bringing a knife to a gun fight. In Acts 19 we see one example of some itinerant Jewish exorcists (I didn’t know that was a job until I read it in Acts) who make the mistake of battling demons without fully understanding the power needed to do so. They leave that encounter running away, physically beaten up, and not wearing any pants. You can go look it up. It actually happened in Ephesus, the same place Paul is writing this letter to. Perhaps his audience remembered the incident. If underestimating your enemy is dangerous, misidentifying your enemy is worse. When you misidentify your enemy, you aim at targets that are not your enemy and leave yourself defenseless to your real enemy. It is a very dangerous place to be. This is likely our more common mistake today. We must realize demons will use whatever tactics go unnoticed. Causing us to feel as though demonic forces are an outmoded superstition, a relic that no longer applies, is a convenient way to go unnoticed. The issue may not be that they are no longer active, but that we have lost our eyes to see. As Lloyd-Jones notes, a crucial tactic of evil spiritual forces would be to cause us to forget the devil and to think our enemy was other people instead of the demonic forces themselves. In our invisible battle with this dangerous enemy and his dark, spiritual forces, Paul gives his reader great comfort. We are given God’s very own armor so that we may stand. In order to stand, we cannot take our eyes off the enemy. We must remember who we are fighting at all times. Martyn Lloyd Jones, The Christian Warfare, An Exposition of Ephesians 6:10–13 (Banner of Truth, 1976), 292. ↩

We live in an anxious age. If you don’t believe me, check out this book, or this article, or this article that even discusses a rise in anxiety before the pandemic, or this research. And if you don’t trust any of those sources, here’s Fox News saying the same thing. Without a doubt, all of this anxiety affects the way we live. People seem more cautious than ever, more sensitive to risks, more concerned about consequences. Of course, caution is not always a bad thing. People should not be needlessly reckless. Jesus warns against building houses and going to war without counting the cost (Luke 14:28-32). However, if you place those verses into their context, Jesus follows them by saying, “In the same way, therefore, every one of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:33). Jesus is not urging caution that leads to inaction. He’s not telling his audience to avoid risks because they are risky. Quite the opposite. He’s warning that discipleship is costly, that it requires sacrifice, giving up everything and assuming the risks that come with such a bold decision. In an anxious age, how does one live with this kind of boldness? Like so many facets of the Christian life, the answer to that question lies in the gospel itself. We see a glimpse of why this is true in Paul’s letter to the Roman church. In chapter 6, Paul recounts a central truth of the gospel: those who are crucified with Christ are also raised with him to a new life. Successful life and ministry today requires the mindset of a resurrected life. Christ calls us to live as those who have died and now cannot die. Paul begins in chapter 6 by asking a question that takes us right to the purpose of redemption itself. Did Christ die on the cross so that we could get a free pass to do whatever we wanted? Was me being able to act however I wish, really worth the King of Glory bearing the weight of the world’s sins? Paul’s answer is as clear as his question: Absolutely not! The gospel is not about us. It is, in many ways, for us, but it is not about us. Redemption was accomplished by Christ on the cross as part of God’s plan to receive ultimate glory from his creation. What man wrecked with sin, God redeems through power. The first Adam filled the world with rebels, but God through Christ, the second Adam, creates a new people. He fills the world with worshipers and with ministers. The invitation given at the cross is not an invitation to selfishness. It is the invitation to be part of this new people God is creating, to become a citizen of another kingdom. It is not a call to fulfill your old desires. It is a call to have entirely new ones. Paul unpacks his answer by explaining the nature of redemption applied to the human soul. His explanation comes in two parts: the truths of redemption applied and the terms of redemption applied. The Truths of Redemption Applied The first foundational truth is: this: Redemption is applied through union with Christ. There are two key phrases I want us to notice in these few verses. In verse 3, Paul claims that our baptism is actually a baptism into Christ. And in verse 5, he declares that we are united with Christ. But what does that mean? Salvation does not just remove your guilt and shame. It does not just remove your eternal punishment. You are not just saved out of bad stuff; you are saved into something. Those of us who have crossed the line of faith are baptized into Christ, we are united to him. It is a mystical truth I could not explain if I tried, but that makes it no less true. For those of us in Christ, what happens to Christ happens to us. A Chinese pastor and author by the name of Watchman Nee speaks of an illustration he used while traveling through the Chinese interior. Nee writes, I remember once I took up a small book and put a piece of paper into it, and I said to those very simple ones, ‘Now look carefully. I take a piece of paper. It has an identity of its own, quite separate from this book. Having no special purpose for it at the moment I put it into the book. Now I do something with the book. I post it to Shanghai. I do not post the paper, but the paper has been put into the book. Then where is the paper? Can the book go to Shanghai and the paper remain here? Can the paper have a separate destiny from the book? No! Where the book goes the paper goes. If I drop the book in the river the paper goes too, and if I quickly take it out again I recover the paper also. Whatever experience the book goes through the paper goes through with it, for it is in the book.’1 This, Nee responds, is what it means to be in Christ. His fate is your fate. What happens to Christ also happens to you. Redemption is applied through union with Christ. A second truth flows from the first: Union in Christ means the call to be a Christian is the call to come and die. We too are crucified and the old man is gone (v 4a, 6-7). Passing through the waters of baptism is proclaiming that you join Christ in his crucifixion. Baptism represents burial. For new life to happen, a death must first occur. Consider for a minute what that means. I know my old self, and he was not a good man. The old man was a liar. The old man was in bondage. The old self was a slave to his desires. In this passage, Paul unmasks sin for what it really is, a slave master that holds us in bondage. The old man was buried with Christ. Christian in a mystical sense, being a Christian means that you have died. Your old self has been killed. It was on that cross with Christ. Robert Mounce says it this way, “Christ’s death for sin becomes our death to sin.”2 Does this mean that we are now sinless? It can’t mean that because of what Paul says a few verses later. It does mean our trajectory in life has changed. Union with Christ is the call to come and die. Finally, if we died with Christ, we will also live with him. Paul writes, “…just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be in the likeness of his resurrection” (v. 4b-5). We too will be resurrected. Christ’s resurrection was unique in all history. His was not the first resurrection recorded in the gospels. Others had been resurrected too. But Lazarus was resurrected only to die again. Christ did not and will not die again (v 9). He is the first fruits of a new resurrection, one that creates eternal life. Christ was the first to experience this new resurrection, but he will not be the last. Remember, union with Christ means what happens to Christ happens to us. We have not yet experienced this resurrection, but we can be certain it awaits us. We can be sure, because Christ has experienced it and we share his fate. Redemption is applied through union with Christ. Union in Christ is a call to come and die. If we died with Christ, we will also live with him. The Terms of Redemption Applied If being in Christ means our old self was crucified with him, and we live a new life, then these are terms of that new life: Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires. And do not offer any parts of it to sin as weapons for unrighteousness. But as those who are alive from the dead, offer yourselves to God, and all the parts of yourselves to God as weapons for righteousness. For sin will not rule over you, because you are not under the law but under grace (v. 12-14). Since you have been united with Christ in his death and resurrection, do not be a weapon of the world but a weapon of God’s kingdom. Once the gospel is applied, we live as those who can never die. That sounds crazy, doesn’t it? But it’s true. My body can fail me, but I am now alive in a way that cannot be taken from me. In Christ, I will live forever. If this is true, we can walk in the kind of boldness possessed by those who live forever. We can radically obey God no matter the perceived consequences. We can cross oceans with the gospel. We can stare persecution in the face. We can give up everything we have and spend ourselves entirely on the Great Commission. Because when redemption is truly applied there is no room for fear. Christ’s fate is our fate. Christ’s future is our future. The Word tells us we are destined to rule alongside him in a new heavens and earth. When we cross the line of faith, and we are obedient in this baptism that Paul describes, we are buried in Christ’s death and raised to walk in a new life. Baptism is a proclamation of war against the enemy. From death to life. Becoming a weapon of righteousness. In an anxious age, the gospel provides the antidote to fear and worry. The gospel steels the soul, and strengthens the legs. Far from being those who shrink back at risk, we face the wind and press into the battle. Watchman Nee, The Normal Christian Life. (Wheaton: Tyndale Momentum, 1987), 30. ↩ Robert H. Mounce, Romans, vol. 27 of The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1995), 149. ↩

In a job like mine, you hear stories about the church. A student serving in their first church explains to me the conflict threatening to split his church. Of course, none of this was disclosed during the search and candidate process. A consultant with a state convention explains a toxic and competitive relationship that developed between two nearby churches in a small town. A missionary explains the thorny issues of a newly forming church with a small congregation of people all trying to walk away from Islam but still mired in sins and blind spots from their former worldview. Yet another missionary shares frustrations and feelings of bitterness toward their sending church. When they left, the church seemed so excited, but now no one responds to the emails. Have they been forgotten? I could go on, but you get the point. It is easy to love the church that ought to be. The church presented to us in the Scriptures, at least the ideal, is breathtaking. It’s a community of redeemed sinners, covenanted together in love through the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. This church truly loves one another (Jn. 13:34), they serve one another (Gal. 5:13), they bear one another’s burdens (Gal. 6:2), they edify one another (1 Thess. 5:11), they admonish one another with song (Col. 3:16), they forgive one another (Col. 3:13), and they exhort one another daily (Heb. 3:13). This is the church that ought to be. It is committed to the Word, bold in its witness, and pure in its doctrine. It loves its community, it cares for the least of these, and models purity to a watching world. In seminary, our students spend their entire degree learning what the church that ought to be looks like. They fall in love with this church, and rightly so, because she is beautiful. Some decide to pastor this church, others desire to plant this church here or among the unreached around the world. There’s only one problem: this church that ought to be is a mirage. To be clear, it is the right mirage. The church that ought to be is the aspiration and goal of the church. Yet, it is a mirage nonetheless. Here is my point: when we love the church that ought to be instead of the one that is, we fall in love with ideals and aspirations— we do not fall in love with people. And if we are not careful, we fix our gaze on the ideal church and overlook the one we are given to serve. The church that is is not the church that ought to be. In the time between the times, as we wait on our King to finally and fully bring His church to its complete and perfect purity, we are left only with the church that is. The church that is can also be found in Scripture. The church in Corinth was known for its internal divisions (1 Cor. 1:11-12). It also had a problem with sexual immorality so bad it wasn’t tolerated even among the worst unbelievers (1 Cor. 5:1-2). Oh, and they were also suing each other (1 Cor. 6:1-6). Lest we assume the Corinthians were just the bad apples, recall the heresy that plagued the Galatian church (Gal. 1:6-7) and the biting conflict that resulted (Gal. 5:15). There was personal rivalry occurring in Philippi (4:2), more heresy in Colossae (Col. 2:18-23), and busybodies in Thessalonica (2 Thess. 3:11-12). Do not forget the seven churches in Revelation. Collectively, Christ reprimands these churches for apathy, compromise, tolerating evil, being lukewarm, and even spiritual death. Each church seems to have its particular vice. Pastor, you don’t get to shepherd the church that ought to be, you pastor the church that is. Missionary, you don’t plant the church that ought to be, you plant the one that is. If we are not careful, we overlook or sideline the church that is because it is not the one that ought to be. Perhaps we get bitter and only want to attend or serve in the church that ought to be. We fool ourselves by searching for the perfect church with which to covenant or to pastor. On the mission field, we want to wait until the church that is becomes the church that ought to be before we let it stand on its own. This is the mirage. That hallway only gets longer the further you run down it. We must also realize that Paul writes to churches in the New Testament as churches, congregations that have stood up in the midst of their problems and sin. In fact, Paul’s counsel to these churches provides the proper attitude. Paul loves the church that is, not the church that ought to be. Yet, his love for the church that is calls it to be what it ought. He knows the church he serves, and he loves that church; he lets that church stand even though it is not all it should be. Then he instructs, counsels, and corrects toward the biblical ideal of church. As my children grow, I’m learning the importance of granting permission to fail, of giving them chances to perform on their own. I do not want to be a helicopter parent because I realize that my children learn how to do the hard thing by having to do the hard thing. Yet, when they fail, I cannot become embittered, frustrated, or distant as though they let me down. Likewise, we strive to help the church that is become the church that ought to be, knowing that it does not arrive until Christ’s return.

For the last several months, I have watched a new church building being built on the road to my house. Recently, the builders installed the church’s new sign, and I was a bit surprised. Perhaps the better word for my reaction was underwhelmed. In an age of screens and flashing lights, this sign included none of those things. Furthermore, it was simply white. The only color on the sign came from a very simple purple cross reminiscent of a Wingdings character. The script is plain and black. It is a boring sign. In fact, it’s a purposefully boring sign. It’s clear from the aesthetic of the church, its specific denominational background, and the overall “vibe” that this boring sign is actually making a rather loud statement. In all of its drab simplicity, it screams that this church will not appeal to the culture. Regardless of your particular persuasion concerning the finer points of church sign design (I personally do like a simple design), the posture this church appears to adopt is what captured my attention. Simply put, this church is not alone in taking a public stance as “plain on purpose” and refusing to appeal to the culture. In certain quarters of conservative evangelicalism (where I happily find myself), I sense a growing movement of those who seek an intentionally counter-culture posture. In these churches, there is a growing desire to eschew anything that might be seen as seeker sensitive or like that church is appealing (acquiescing?) to the broader culture in any way. The Appeal of Being Unattractive At its best, there is something genuinely noble about this perspective. It is often a purist vision that the Word, the gospel, and the ordinances should be the only things attractive to those outside the community of faith. When well-intentioned, this is a desire to avoid the bait-and-switch of the seeker sensitive movement. If anything is made to look trendy or likeable, the concern is that people become attached to some form of cultural enticement, rather than the genuine beauty of the gospel. This is a laudable ambition. At its worst, the fear of flashy becomes glorying in being unattractive. A certain pride develops around being tough, against-the-grain Christians who’ve not been softened by the siren song of culture. It revels in the refusal of modern elements and sticks the nose up at anything contemporary. This approach is somehow seen as historic and connecting to the grand tradition of the church. To the extreme, the view uses the barriers to those outside the fold as proof. Churches can make it hard for others to come and to listen. When people do come, it becomes the evidence that they are surely there for the right reason. The Illusion of Being Culture-Free To be fair, there is a lot of truth in wanting the gospel to be central. This should be the genuine ambition of every true church. Furthermore, I am sure most of us surely recognize some of the gross abuses of a church growth movement that was big on entertainment and light on Bible. Personally, I’m a sucker for a good high church liturgy. I can get down with a good responsive reading. Despite the best intentions, any understanding of church practice that believes not appealing to pop cultural cues somehow places them outside of culture misunderstands culture at its fundamental level. It is a fundamental mistake to assume being plain means you are not appealing to culture. Ironically, not appealing to one kind of culture only means appealing to a different one. There is no such animal as a culture-less version of church. This does not exist in North America, and it does not exist on the international mission field. When people push back on indigenous church ideas as unscriptural, they simply miss that every expression is a cultural manifestation of Christ’s body. It is impossible to do church in a way that doesn’t appeal to some kind of culture. When it comes to church formation, almost every decision made is a cultural decision at some level. The architectural style and how a church structures its meeting space is a cultural decision. The songs sung and the instruments used are cultural decisions. The language spoken, the liturgy used, and even how long the service goes are cultural decisions. In fact, choosing to omit any of the above is also a cultural decision. Not appealing to “the culture” often just means appealing to your own preferences. The Question We Should Be Asking Instead of claiming we don’t appeal to culture, we need to ask a better question: “What culture do we have in mind?” Truly, we do not want to give up the gospel, and we don’t want people coming to be entertained, coddled, coaxed, or sold something. Yet, assuming you are appealing to no culture creates an unhealthy blindspot. The church that believes they appeal to no culture becomes uncritical toward their own culture. An uncritical eye on one’s own, preferred cultural manifestation is a dangerous place to be. By thinking they are acultural, they bring in cultural artifacts from their own tradition, which are much less likely to be critically tested against Scripture. It doesn’t have to be this way. When a church recognizes this truth, it can frame itself as a cultural manifestation of the gospel in a given community. This allows the church to ask which practices are God-glorifying and biblically faithful in their context. It provides a pathway to being concerned not about trendiness or seeker-sensitivity but how they are making the gospel understandable to the world around them. Finally, it gives the church the critical eye to not only judge the worldview of those outside their door but also their own worldview.

This article is the second in a two-part series on Christ’s command in Matthew 7:1-5. In this artile, we provide a specific application of this command. This first article provides necessary background and proper interpretation for the passage. You can read it here: Link to the first Article. I grow weary of social media. I understand the irony of that statement, seeing as how you most likely found this article through Facebook or Twitter. Nevertheless, there is no such thing as a neutral medium, and social media is no exception to that rule. Media changes us, and much like smoking or any number of vices, I fear uncritical social media use may have unintended consequences only discovered after the fact. Furthermore, as Cal Newport convincingly demonstrates in his book Digital Minimalism, the companies that produce our favorite apps are not unaware of the emotional and psychological impact of their products. They build them to intentionally manipulate our emotions, so that we will engage with even more energy. Joy or anger, it does not matter if it will cause us to spend more time in our newsfeed. But for a Christian, it most certainly matters. In part one of this two-part series, I touched on the frequent use and abuse of Matthew 7:1, “Do not judge, so that you won’t be judged.” This simple command of Christ is found in the Sermon on the Mount and when understood in its proper context, goes right to the heart of our interactions on social media, especially with other Christians. I would encourage you to first read that article, as it provides the basis for what follows. Now, let’s revisit the passage in full: Do not judge, so that you won’t be judged. For you will be judged by the same standard with which you judge others, and you will be measured by the same measure you use. Why do you look at the splinter in your brother’s eye but don’t notice the beam of wood in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the splinter out of your eye,’ and look, there’s a beam of wood in your own eye? Hypocrite! First take the beam of wood out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to take the splinter out of your brother’s eye. (Matthew 7:1-5) Far from telling us not to confront others in conflict, this passage tells us we should engage in hard conversations with other Christians about potential shortcomings or sin issues. However, it is very clear that hypocritical judgment has no place in conflict between two Christians. This passage calls us first toward introspection and second toward interpersonal action, in that order. It does not absolve us from either, but it does tell us there is a priority placed on dealing strongly with our own sin first. It is a challenge toward humility and away from hypocrisy. It is a call to love your fellow brother of sister through correction, not to overlook issues that will hurt them. It is also a call to do so from a position of humility, caring about the wellbeing of others. Correction among Christians is not an opportunity to score points against an opposing view, or heaven forbid, attempt to make yourself look holy or right in distinction to someone else. Enter Christian Twitter™. Honestly, it’s not just Twitter; Facebook is at least as bad. If you follow a good bit of Christian social media, I imagine your newsfeed looks similar to mine: a long string of inspirational Bible verses, photos of precisely placed coffee mugs and journals, book recommendations from Crossway or B&H, requests to join a church for their online service during the pandemic, and the daily explosion of hateful vitriol and name calling on the Christian conflict du jour. So, how do Christ’s words in Matthew 7:1-5 stack up to our current culture of Twitter spats and name calling among various evangelical factions? It has a lot to say. First, let’s stop the nitpicking… especially in public. Few things are tackier than a petty word fight in public, and yet, it seems we are often itching to hop in the ring in Christian social media circles today. Several years ago, I wrote an article (also based in the Sermon on the Mount) about how Christians deal with non-Christians on social media in our present “Age of Outrage” as Stetzer calls it. Since then, things appear to have only gotten worse, and now so much of that vitriol is directed at each other instead of the outside world. Different quarters of evangelicalism make it a hobby to blow holes in each other in front of an audience. Do not hear what I am not saying. It is painfully obvious that we have some deep issues to discuss. I am not suggesting we just overlook those conversations. To the contrary, I think it is crucial that we develop some processes of hard dialogue surrounded by Christian charity. And, I’m not saying we keep our mouths shut about important things, especially doctrinal matters, in the name of some anemic understanding of unity. I am saying the medium matters. Ironically enough, it is possible to say the right thing the wrong way, and in doing so, make it the wrong thing to say. Second, we need to work on that beam. Unfortunately, even as I write those words, I fear the temptation is to recall all the instances where others have spoken the wrong way instead of first considering how I have misspoken. If your knee-jerk reaction to Jesus’ statement about the beam is to begin thinking of other people’s tweets as examples of unchristian behavior, then you’re not hearing what Jesus is saying. What’s the beam in my eye? That’s the question Jesus first tells us to address here. It is too easy for us to hear this kind of command and agree but never practice it. If you leave this vague in your own life, you never actually do it. Faithfulness to Christ’s words here means we each need to do some deep introspection. Yes, we need introspection specifically concerning our relationship with internet megaphones and all of our platform-building tools. I think it’s easy for those of us without thousands upon thousands of followers to give ourselves a pass in how we speak and consume media, but we must carefully consider both what we say and what we read and share on social media. Do we drive up engagement of hateful statements by making sure we’re snacking on the controversial junk food, even if we don’t provide our own hateful hot take? We think our words are perhaps small enough to be insignificant, and then we uncritically consume the vitriol of others. In my heart and in your heart, we need to first answer the question of motive. What is my goal in posting that critique? What am I doing to myself and others by reading or spreading this stuff? Too often, I fear the motivation is not winning a brother or sister. Instead, so much of this public conflict and criticism appears designed to further entrench divides. Instead of love for the one we’re engaging, the motive appears to be gaining the admiration of those who already agree. This is not removing a speck, it is building a personal platform among one’s own crowd. It is taking shots at the people who are perceived as shared enemies to prove one’s position as an insider of a given tribe. This form of social media interaction says, “I’m with you!” by slapping someone who is not. May our motive never be ensuring we are seen publicly on the “right side” of an issue by those whose admiration we seek. Jesus had sharp words about that kind of righteousness. Finally, we help our brother or sister with the speck. We love to jump to this step, and we can quickly classify our Twitter rants and Facebook slams as helping others through correction. But hear this, you are not truly doing this last step in the spirit of Jesus’ words until you have worked on the first two. Jesus is not telling us to overlook the issues of others in our church family or among the family of God more broadly. He is not telling us to “be soft on the issues.” He did the opposite. We remove the beam so we can help a brother or sister with their speck. But how do we do this well? I’m inclined to suggest it’s not over the internet. It is far harder, and far more humbling, to speak directly with people in a loving and non-platforming-building way. Authentically personal moments become the soil in which loving correction and dialogue can occur. Do you have the kind of relationships with others in your local church, in your denomination, even across those network lines that allow for that kind of dialogue? Do you have real relationships, that allow you to speak into people’s lives in a loving way? If not, perhaps your first step in loving correction is building those kind of bridges. Those are the kind of relationships that will allow us to serve one another, even in the hard things. Further Reading

During my time serving overseas as a missionary, I lived in rural West Africa. Rustic doesn’t quite describe the living conditions. No electricity. No running water. That meant water had to come out of the ground, and it had to do so by hand. I had to draw water from a well. Drawing water from a well became a frequent analogy in my ministry. The daily trip to the well is, in many ways, not too different from our spiritual vitality as believers and as churches. On the equator, it gets hot and that water is refreshing. It is more than refreshing; it is essential; it is life-giving. Without water a village cannot exist. The daily trip to the well was a nonnegotiable part of life. The water was, in many ways, the source of vitality in the village. What is more, without a bucket, a person had little chance of gaining access to the water. Wells are deep. My first experiences with drawing water were laughable. You would think it is a cinch, but you would be wrong. I can remember my first trip to the well, bucket in hand. I was the new guy and only Westerner in the village and everyone knew it. So, on that fateful first voyage to the well everyone nearby stopped what they were doing to look on for some entertainment. I’m sure they knew what was about to happen. I walked over to the well, peered down inside, and pitched the bucket on the rope into the dark water at the bottom. It hit with a splash, and that’s when I discovered an important truth. Here’s the dirty little secret: buckets float. When you drop a bucket down in a well, unless you do it right, it just sits on top of the water. Even if the bucket is metal it still does not settle into the water in a way where you can pull it back up full without the right technique. It is unfortunate how many times I lifted the bucket back up the rope and repeated the same process before someone came to my rescue. It took someone showing me how to use the tool correctly for me to benefit from it. After multiple failed attempts, one of my neighbors sent over their little girl to instruct me in drawing water. Let that sink in. Here I was the confident adult Westerner, recently moved into their village to teach them a thing or two, being tutored by a seven-year-old in a task so rudimentary everyone knew how to do it by the time they were three. Of course, it’s easy to see how this analogy compares to our spiritual vitality. Wells are a common occurrence in the pages of Scripture, and their significance was certainly not lost on the original audience. In John 4, we find one such encounter where Jesus confronts a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well. Using the well as his illustration, Jesus says, “Everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again. But whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again. In fact, the water I will give him will become a well of water springing up in him for eternal life” (John 4:13-14). The life-giving water is Christ, and that bucket becomes our means of access, the tool used to drink of that life-giving water. For the individual, this may be their routines of spiritual discipline, their prayer life, and time spent in the Word of God. David Mathis refers to these as “habits of grace” in his book of that name. The habits or disciplines become the means through which grace is administered and applied to the Christian life. Think of these habits as the bucket through which we access our life-giving water. However, this analogy extends past the individual believer to a whole gospel community, or local church. For the church as a whole, these may be programs, systems, and resources used to facilitate the spiritual vitality of the congregation. Corporate worship services, music, preaching, small groups, and curriculum are all buckets used to facilitate that vital relationship between Christ and his church. So the word picture has personal and corporate ramifications. We as Christians are told to abide in Christ, to be part of the vine. Local church leadership is tasked with equipping the saints for the work of the ministry, to present their congregations mature in Christ. When it comes to this relationship between the source of our vitality and the means through which we access it, there are at least two ditches into which we often fall. My hope here is to simply point those out and encourage you to avoid the ditches. Don’t praise the bucket instead of the water. In all my time in Africa, I never once heard someone praise their bucket as though it was the thing that gives them life. It’s obvious when we’re talking about buckets and water, but often not so when we’re talking about spiritual vitality. Too often, we’re guilty of praising the bucket instead of the water. In an Instagram age, it can be tempting to do the quiet time for the sake of that nice morning snapshot. You know the one. The sun is rising over the verdant horizon off the back porch (or the waves of the beach), the coffee cup is in one hand steaming into the air and the open Bible in the other, complete with its highlights and well-worn marks of deep study. I’m not saying your picturesque moment shouldn’t be captured. I am saying to watch out lest your spiritual formation become performative. I am urging you to resist the temptation to make your means of spiritual vitality more desirable to you than your source of it. Sometimes, we want people to see our bucket, because it shows everyone that we are the kind of people with really nice buckets. We have really good spiritual habits. We are disciplined and serious about our faith. Perhaps you are not the Instagram type. Maybe you prefer Twitter (or X if you will), where picturesque photos of scenic solace with your savior give way to confident assertions concerning the proper techniques and tools for the spiritually mature and doctrinaire. Threads abound declaring the right ways to do all kinds of spiritual formation, lauding the right buckets. As many threads, perhaps more, exist decrying the downgrade of all the other buckets. Scripture calls us to contend for the faith (Jude 3:1). However, make sure you do not pass the abundant commands to reject foolish and ignorant disputes (2 Timothy 2:23) and to reject a divisive person (Titus 3:10-11). Paul writes yet again to make “every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:3). After all the Lord hates “one who stirs up trouble among brothers” (Proverbs 6:19). Beware warring over the proper shape and style of the bucket instead of drinking deep of the water it provides. The temptation to praise the bucket extends to the church community as well. Simply put, programs alone don’t fix a church’s spiritual vitality problem. We must remember that life, spiritual vitality, comes from the source of living water. In John’s gospel, Jesus tells us that he came that we may have life, and have it abundantly (John 10:10). He continues a few chapters later by telling his disciples that he is the True Vine and that they are merely branches (John 15:5). The analogy is clear: the vine gives life to the branches so that they may produce fruit. Endless means can be poured into designing the perfect system, perfect service, perfect outreach program, perfect curriculum and it will not refresh the soul. Only Christ himself refreshes the soul. Only Christ satisfies and brings life, passion and drive to the mission of the church. Christ is the water, and the program or process is just the bucket. The first ditch is praising the bucket instead of the water. But don’t neglect your bucket. Without a bucket, you cannot get the water. Sounds simple enough, yet there are many reasons why well-meaning Christians fall into this ditch. Some, in an effort to reject the dangers of legalism, claim we must not focus too much on rules in our lives like reading the Bible every day or spending time memorizing Scripture. These things do not save! And it is true, they surely do not. But denying the importance of daily time in the word is akin to denying the importance of daily conversation in your marriage. It is not much of a marriage if you only talk to your spouse once every week or so. It is not much of a relationship with Christ if you do the same to Him. A subtle and more common error is not denying the importance of these habits but disregarding their priority in our daily and weekly routines. We are prone to acknowledge their importance without making the actual space in our lives. They are reserved for that time, right around the corner, when life slows down. Or, they are only to be done when our emotions and desires align with our freetime. That’s a mirage, of course. Dry, waterless Christianity is the result of an undisciplined life. I often hear well-meaning exclamations today that the church does not need any programs, processes, or procedures. While I understand the heart behind such statements, it is an overreaction to say we do not need any of these things. In fact, it’s actually an impossibility for a group of believers to stay organized as a church without some form of structures and systems in place. If you choose to meet at the same time for worship and fellowship each week, then you have already created a program. We should not lament this reality, as long as we understand the difference between the water and the bucket. In The Trellis and the Vine, Collin Marshall and Tony Payne pick up this metaphor in a way that is profoundly helpful for conversations about church ministry. Throughout Scripture, the church is described in organic terms. In this way, Marshall and Payne claim the church is like a vine. It grows and thrives based on the things that nourish life. However, for vines to grow well, they need structures to support them. This is why vine dressers build a trellis for their vines. You want your church to worship together, but that requires (among other things) having a place and time that you all agree upon doing so. You hope that your church members can grow in their understanding of Scripture together, but that requires some structure and guidance in study and facilitation of the conversations where members can do this. You hope that your church would multiply by sending members to be missionaries or church planters, but that requires processes that identify called members who can be equipped and sent. For a vine to grow to its healthiest potential, it needs a support structure, a trellis. Faithful local church ministry requires us to understand this difference. The real trick is not confusing the priority and purpose of the trellis and the vine, or in my analogy, the water and the bucket. The church is a vine, not a trellis, but it needs structure and tools to support its life and growth. In the same way, Christ is our source of vitality and spiritual formation. He is our water. These programs and processes are merely the buckets. They are our means of accessing that water. If we understand this distinction, then we praise the right thing and we have a means of measuring the effectiveness of our programs and tools. A bucket is not successful in itself but only when it brings us the water we seek to live. In fact, a plastic bucket draws as much water as one made out of gold. When we confuse the bucket and the water, we become guilty of being that church that says, “look how nice our bucket is,” instead of the church that says, “drink this and you will never thirst again.”

Recently, I attended a meeting with some key leaders from a number of global Baptist missions agencies. It was an encouraging week of meetings where we heard reports from many of the agencies. They discussed their strategy, the various locations in the world where they have missionaries, and the progress of their work. There was much to celebrate. I was encouraged by the spirit of cooperation in the room. Global Baptist leaders from conventions and networks around the world gathered together to cooperate across language and cultural barriers to get the gospel to the nations. It filled me with joy to see those leaders working together. A large part of the meeting was dedicated to rethinking many of the categories we use to engage in gospel ministry globally. We discussed people group lists, various regions and boundaries for strategy, and how best to draw out areas of focus. These groups are committed to partnering together and to rethinking the way they’ve analyzed their work and drawn out the maps of ministry. This process was intense. I left with some thoughts brewing in my head. Over the course of the meeting, as each group presented their findings, a couple of themes emerged for me. At times, the data and maps created an immediate level of clarity in the work. Sometimes, a presenter would begin to explain an area of concentration and you could see how the data was informing a strategic need. However, more than once, a presenter noted another outcome. Sometimes, these maps and regions and lists had done more to obscure work or limit work than enable it. As different groups discussed their process of reassessing these areas of focus, they began to see how their thinking in previous years had been limited by the boundaries they had drawn. They developed a self-imposed cage. It was interesting to see how the same process of trying to define areas of service, fields for ministry, could either bring clarity or confusion. Data can free us for ministry, or it can create artificial limits on what we believe to be possible. I am convinced this is not just a matter of accurate information. I imagine this is also a matter of the heart. When engaging in this kind of research, I believe we must remind ourselves of the purpose for the data in the first place. This is as true for local churches seeking to better understand their community as it is for multi-national missions agencies working together to categorize all the peoples of the world for the global spread of the gospel. So, let me remind us all of a couple of points we need to keep in mind when reviewing data on the harvest. Put Data in Its Proper Place Let me start here. Our maps help us discover opportunities, they do not determine outcomes. Viewed incorrectly, we serve our maps and our lists instead of our God. We must always put our data in its rightful place: a handmaiden to the mission. There are a couple of tendencies we must avoid. First, it’s often possible for us to fall into the trap of making the collection of the data the end in itself. We feel we are done, and the task is fulfilled, once we have developed our data, our regions, our maps, our newfound understanding of the field. Yet, this is not the real work of gospel ministry. It is an important aspect of the task. Jesus raises the question in the Scriptures, “For which of you, wanting to build a tower, doesn’t first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it” (Luke 14:28)? The work is not finished at counting the cost. Another, perhaps more subtle, tendency comes when we allow the map to set the horizon for what is possible. Once this happens, it does more than discovery, it begins to determine what we believe can be accomplished. We base our expectations on a tool designed to facilitate the work, and we “teach to the test.” Use Data to Reveal, not Conceal Illustrating data means making decisions. It requires limits. A road map would not be very useful to you if its designer chose to show you every possible datapoint. The road would quickly become obscured by all the unimportant data. So it is with ministry maps, and people lists. Our community data can reveal or it can conceal. We must ensure that our maps communicate the opportunities. A repeated refrain at our meeting came from those who realized that, over time, their ministry regions had actually inhibited their ability to see connections through which gospel spread could be facilitated. Lines were drawn and became boundaries that concealed what was possible. We must revisit our maps regularly and ask some hard questions. How have things changed since the lines were established? What new connections may be present? We must be critical with our data, and we likely need to do it in the open. Share your maps with others and get a second opinion. Local church leaders, invite your association, church network, state convention, other church leaders into the conversation. Learn to use a cooperative playbook with others. I can almost assure you that you will all benefit from it. The Spread of the Gospel can Defy Your Borders We do our best to reasonably understand how and where the gospel spreads. At their best, our maps and our lists show us something we did not see before, and we are able to move into new territory. Yet, let us not be so smug as to suggest the gospel can only go where we determine. When the gospel goes beyond where we predicted, sticking to our maps is shortsighted at best and sinful at worst. The goal must be Spirit-led discernment. We create maps for discernment, for clarity, for eyes to see the field in front of us. This is good and right. We make plans, because it is right to make plans. Maps do not limit the Spirit. Throughout the book of Acts, we experience the triumph of the gospel through the power of the Holy Spirit. Repeatedly, Luke pauses his narrative briefly to provide his readers with a status update, “… And the word of God continued to increase” (Acts 6:7). These summary statements track the growth the gospel across boundaries, regions, lands, and peoples. By the end, Luke confidently claims the gospel prevailed mightily (Acts 19:20). Luke records for us Paul’s missionary journeys. Paul and his team of missionaries make plans, they devise strategy, and they likely have their maps. Paul’s own writings detail his plans. In his magnum opus, the missionary support letter to the Roman church, Paul outlines his plans to use Rome as a staging ground for missionary expansion even further west now that his work from Jerusalem to Illyricum is complete (Romans 15:20-29). We do not know, at least from the Scriptures, if these plans ever came to fruition. In Luke’s writing, he clearly explains that the Spirit will defy the best laid plans of the missionary. They went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia; they had been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. When they came to Mysia, they tried to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them. Passing by Mysia they went down to Troas. During the night Paul had a vision in which a Macedonian man was standing and pleading with him, “Cross over to Macedonia and help us! ” After he had seen the vision, we immediately made efforts to set out for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them (Acts 16:6-10, CSB). Paul and his team desired to go to Bithnyia, but the Spirit did not allow it. The Holy Spirit had other plans. The Holy Spirit opened a door into Macedonia that was closed on their map. Without being overly prescriptive, Luke and Paul’s testimony in the Scripture demonstrate ministry leaders making plans, devising routes, laying out their maps of strategic need and opportunities for engagement. Plans are good. Data is a great help in ministry. Make your map. Let’s allow the Lord of the Harvest the freedom to change those plans and redraw our boundaries of what is possible. After all, it is the Spirit who can open wide doors of effective ministry (1 Corinthians 16:8–9).

It’s funny how much being a parent changes your perspective on things. Everyone tells you it will, and you believe them. Then it happens, and you are still amazed at the difference it makes. In recent weeks, I’ve stumbled across a simple book by Don Whitney called Family Worship. While the concept is not new to me, I wanted to see if this little book provided fresh insight or if it was one I could recommend on the subject. I’m happy to report that both are true. Whitney provides a very quick walk through both Scripture and history showing the importance of this practice throughout generations of the church. In doing so, he brings an arsenal of citations from church history to the table. One quotation in particular stood out. It’s a quote from John Paton, a renowned missionary, in which he recalls the significance of family worship in his own home as a child: How much my father’s prayers at this time impressed me I can never explain, nor could any stranger understand. When, on his knees and all of us kneeling around him in family worship, he poured out his whole soul with tears for the conversion of the Heathen World to the service of Jesus, and for every personal and domestic need, we all felt as if in the presence of the living Saviour, and learned to know and love Him as our Divine Friend. As we rose from our knees, I used to look at the light on my father’s face, and wish I were like him in spirit- hoping that, in answer to his prayers, I might be privileged and prepared to carry the blessed Gospel to some portion of the Heathen World. Paton, Missionary to the New Hebrides. Raised in Scotland, John Patton was a missionary to the South Pacific islands during the back half of the nineteenth century. Patton and his family spent decades working among a cannibalistic tribe that repeatedly made attempts on his life. He lost his first wife and several children to tropical diseases. And yet, by the end of his tenure, he saw an entire island profess Christ, translated the New Testament into their language, and trained enough missionaries from that island to send out to twenty-five additional islands. To what did Patton attribute his earliest desires to serve Christ as a missionary? It was the example set by his father during family worship. The fervent prayers of his father that the gospel would go to the nations were, in fact, answered through the obedience of his son. That calling in the son was formed and established by the example of the father. Reading this as a parent, it struck a new chord in my own heart. Do I want my daughter to go? My first interaction with a calling to missionary service was my own. I was already an adult and had been serving in collegiate ministry when God, through the work of my local church, called me to an extended season overseas among an unreached group in West Africa. I remember the conversations with my parents, both godly leaders in their own church. They were largely supportive, even proud at times, but I could see the emotional toll it took on them. To sacrifice themselves for the Great Commission was one thing, but to let go of their only child was a different ask. I’m now the proud father of a rambunctious little girl. She’s less than a year old, but she recently started crawling and she’s ready to take on the world. What I once saw in my parent’s eyes when discussing a calling overseas, I now feel in my own heart for my baby girl. Do I want my daughter to go? As a Christian, as someone who believes the gospel and understands my own desperate need for it, I know the answer must be yes. The Great Commission was not given to a select few. No, the call to make disciples of the nations is for all who call upon the name of the Lord. As Danny Akin is quick to say: the question is not why should she go, but why should she stay? What is more, I want what is best for her. If I am not careful, though, I will define “best” by the comfortable consumerist narrative around me instead of the Bible. What is best for my daughter? It is best that she knows and loves God, and it is best that she walks in obedience to all that he asks of her.  We as parents want her to do big things, and what more worthy cause exists than taking the precious news of salvation to those who have never heard? Is it safe? Of course not, but safety is only an illusion we’ve duped ourselves into feeling in our largely comfortable and self-sufficient surroundings in North America. Will it be a sacrifice? Most certainly. It will be one for her, and it will be one for us. And yet, we must agree with the Apostle Paul when he writes: This grace was given to me—least of all the saints—to proclaim to the Gentiles the incalculable riches of Christ, and to shed light for all about the administration of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things. Ephesians 3:8-9 Modeling a Heart for the Nations By this point, I hope we are in agreement. Our prayer for our daughter is that she would follow Christ wherever he leads and for her to hear the Bible’s clarion call to the nations. In Paton’s writing, he reveals the significance of his parents’ example in discovering his call to international missions. He writes: As we rose from our knees, I used to look at the light on my father’s face, and wish I were like him in spirit- hoping that, in answer to his prayers, I might be privileged and prepared to carry the blessed Gospel to some portion of the Heathen World. Paton, Missionary to the New Hebrides Parents, do not underestimate how much your concerns influence those of your children. If something weighs heavy on your heart, there is a good chance it will weigh heavy on theirs. And in order to model a heart for the nations, we must have one first. How much do you desire that the gospel go to the nations? Does that desire come to the surface as you parent? When was the last time your children heard you pray, in earnest, for the spread of the gospel to peoples and places far away? Modeling anything requires both visibility and regularity. Quite simply, our children must see us doing something and see it often for it to ever be truly modeled. This is not practicing prayer for show, a practice Jesus soundly rebuked (Matthew 6:5-6). Instead, this is authenticity in front of those who need to see it the most: your family. To be sure, we do model an approach to God, his word, and his call on our lives before our spouse and children. The question is not “if” we will do so, rather “which” approach we will model. Finally, we must encourage the right thing. Children will lean into those things which we celebrate. This is as true of spiritual maturity and gospel-centered obedience to the Great Commission as it is sport or studies. Paton’s words weigh heavy on my heart. Paton speaks of the admiration he possessed for his father and how it created in him a desire to lean into his calling. I find myself in agreement with Paton, admiring the example set by his father. My prayer is that our daughter will see that kind of faith in us, that she will see hearts that beat for the spread of the gospel. I pray we celebrate in her most those things which Christ desires, and we would find joy in her obedience to him, even to the ends of the earth. My hope is that you would pray those same prayers. Parents, let’s raise up missionaries.

I wonder if you think like I do. When I read through the gospels, I often wonder what it would have been like to walk alongside Jesus in the flesh. Even more, what would it have been like to walk alongside Jesus in his resurrected body? What was it like to witness, as those first disciples did, the resurrected Christ when he revealed himself to them? How did they feel when he ate that first food and allowed Thomas to touch the scars? I often think it would have been nice to see the empty tomb on that first Easter Sunday. When the mission is hard, when evangelism seems risky, I am tempted to believe those first disciples came by their boldness because of their unique, once in history, experience of the risen Christ. When boldness in the mission and confidence in the message flags, it is tempting to long for some impossible experience to be our life raft, to dismiss obedience based upon the premise that we, unlike Paul and his Damascus road experience, are at a disadvantage. We have reason to shrink back, right? But, perhaps that experience is not all we make it out to be. Seeing is Believing? At the end of his gospel, John records for us in detail that fateful moment at the tomb and then the following series of encounters with Jesus. Chapter 20 lays out painstaking detail. He tells of the footrace between he and Peter, he discusses the placement of folded burial clothing, he then provides a telling statement. John writes, “The other disciple [he’s speaking about himself], who had reached the tomb first, then also went in, saw, and believed” (John 20:8). This is an important clue to why John includes such detail. He writes of the event with the clarity of an eye witness. He includes details that technically don’t matter. Why? The most obvious reason is simply because that’s how it happened. Furthermore, John writes of his experience seeing the empty tomb. He went in, saw, and believed. He goes on to say, “For they did not yet understand the Scripture that he must rise from dead.” For John in that moment, the experience of seeing was more clear than the revealed testimony of God’s Word. In those first years of the church, the end of the gospels and the book of Acts tell of an entire generation that saw Jesus, in the flesh, after he was raised from the dead. The claims do not go away. Enough people believed these eye witness testimonies that a whole movement started. Multiple gospel writers explain that at least one purpose in their writing was to lay down the evidence of eye-witnesses. What a unique moment in the history of the church. Surely, if we had that same experience, our spiritual formation would not be so difficult. Our faith would be steadfast. Our desire to spread the gospel, to evangelize our neighbor, to give up everything to go to the nations would be unflappable. After all, seeing is believing… right? Experience is a Fickle Tutor. John records his reaction at the empty tomb as belief born in sight. But that’s not the end of his narrative. Let’s continue reading. In verse 11, John picks up the story from Mary’s perspective. She is outside the tomb crying. While crying, she stoops to look inside the tomb and she does not merely see folded linens, she spies two angels. Not only does she see them, they speak to her, asking why she is crying. It gets better; after answering the angels as though they seem to be random strangers, she turns only to see Jesus himself. Notice the next words, “… but she did not know it was Jesus” (John 20:14). Instead, to the reader’s incredulity, John says that Mary mistakes the Lord of Glory for the gardener of the graveyard! Now let me stop here. Yes, there are all kinds of plausible reasons why seeing angels and even the risen Christ would not immediately result in clear understanding of the moment. She was certainly distraught and addled. There is no indication in the passage that these angels appeared in the same dazzling manner recorded elsewhere in Scripture when angels appear. Finally, Mary is not the only one in those days after the resurrection who mistakes the identity of Jesus based on his appearance. There is clearly something different about the resurrected Jesus. But that only strengthens the point here: experience is a fickle tutor, even when that experience is seeing the physically resurrected Jesus. When we read the book of Exodus, we feel the same incredulity. How could a nation witness the acts of God that unfold in that book and turn around, within days, and fashion themselves a golden calf? Because experience is a fickle tutor. The story goes on to report that Mary does correctly identify Jesus. She does so by hearing His voice, by his words. A Word Strongly Confirmed In his first letter to those chosen, living as exiles dispersed across Asia minor, Peter exhorts, “Though you have not seen him [that is the risen Christ], you love him; though not seeing him now, you believe in him, and you rejoice with inexpressible and glorious joy, because you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls” (1 Peter 1:8–9). He continues to explain how such a love could occur without this first-hand experience. He writes,  Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who prophesied about the grace that would come to you, searched and carefully investigated. They inquired into what time or what circumstances the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating when he testified in advance to the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you. These things have now been announced to you through those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven—angels long to catch a glimpse of these things (1 Peter 1:10-12). The prophets of old, those who delivered to us God’s Word were not merely serving themselves and their own generation. No, they were serving us. And those who preached this gospel, this news of salvation from the very Word of God, announced to us a message more confirmed than mere experience. In fact, that’s what Peter calls it in his second letter: a word strongly confirmed. He writes, We also have the prophetic word strongly confirmed, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. Above all, you know this: No prophecy of Scripture comes from the prophet’s own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by the will of man; instead, men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:19-21). Experience may be a fickle tutor, but God has given us a Word strongly confirmed. To see the real impact of this Word-based foundation for life, mission, and ministry, look no further than the end of Luke’s gospel account. After the resurrection, Jesus reveals himself to his disciples in a series of events. We see yet another moment where merely experiencing the risen Christ does not lead to immediate understanding as he walks the road to Emmaus with unnamed disciples (Luke 24:13-27). In this passage, Jesus does not turn them to what their eyes can see but the Scriptures to explain the events that had recently taken place in Jerusalem. Luke writes, “He [Jesus] said to them, ‘How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Wasn’t it necessary for the Messiah to suffer these things and enter into his glory?’ Then beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted for them the things concerning himself in all the Scriptures” (Luke 24:25-27). Experience as Authority? It is a you-do-you world nowadays. Telling someone that his own experience, interpreted through his own understanding, is anything other than completely accurate is one of today’s cardinal social sins. Now, your mind may run to the sexual revolution occurring right now. I believe that is where we often go first. Certainly, that is a true instance of the experience-as-authority trope we see here. But, I want to bring it home to our own camp. How often do we let our circumstances (and our interpretation of them) determine how we understand the world, our own life, or the mission in front of us? We need only look to Mary as she gazes on all the evidence before and completely misses the moment to see the error in trusting our experiences to guide our interpretation of reality. Jesus had already told the disciples the cross event would occur. He told them he would be in the grave and be raised. Frankly, we could rightly be surprised why they showed up at the tomb expecting anything other than a risen Christ. The same may be said of those on the road to Emmaus. Seeing is not always believing, and it is surely not always the best foundation for our hope. At the very end of Luke’s gospel, he records these word by our risen Christ: “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. He also said to them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead the third day, and repentance for forgiveness of sins will be proclaimed in his name to all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. Luke 24:44-48). When our boldness is flagging, when our confidence erodes, when we doubt our ability to do what the Great Commission asks of us, we must look to the risen Christ. We must listen to his voice, for His sheep know His voice. We find His voice first and loudest in the revealed Words of God to us.

“Is this the end of the church in America?” You have heard the question. Perhaps you have wondered yourself. I am sure you have read the articles like I have. It seems every few months something in the news cycle (or on the news cycle’s demented cousin, the Twitter feed) sparks a fresh batch of hand wringing concerning the inevitable demise of the church in America. What follows is a sensible plea to sensible people: let’s instead take a posture of both confidence and humility when we consider the future of the church in America (or anywhere else for that matter.) If my tone comes across as sharp, it is not my intention. At the same time, I find it increasingly important to speak against some of the excess in online speech about the church nowadays. Remember the pandemic? I read a lot of articles about the pandemic and local church ministry. I probably read too many and I imagine you did too. Everyone had their own prediction about how it would all turn out “for the American church,” and almost as many seemed to have their answer too. Estimates abounded concerning church closures (I saw everything from 5 percent to 30 percent). Some articles minimized, and some sensationalized. Now, five years later, it appears we made it through. Was there fallout? Yes. Was it disastrous for some local churches? Indeed. Did some churches actually benefit from it? They did. Most importantly, the church in America is still here. Making broad universal predictions about the plight of the American church is above my pay grade. That’s one of the main points of this article. Instead, I do believe at least two things are true. If we believe these two truths, we can avoid the ditches on either side. The gates of hell might not prevail? Social media is fertile soil for sensationalism. In fact, sensationalism and outrage appear to be the fuel that drives the engine of the social web. Not only that, but sensationalism also makes a good platform for budding ministry pundits, many of whom seem to spin The Next Big Thing™ as the end of the church in America. Of course, we should always expect predictions of the church’s total failure from those outside of the church who are already antagonistic toward its purpose. Make no mistake, there are many rooting for the church to fail. However, my concern here are those inside the church who pedal in such pessimism. For some, perhaps it is the inability to see God at work in the slow. For others, perhaps it is an axe they wish to grind against the established church. As noted above, I believe for too many it’s a chance to gain notoriety or influence. Do not buy into the defeatism. We have plenty of reason for hope. That promise in Matthew’s gospel doesn’t say the gates of hell might not prevail against the church. It says they won’t. The gates of hell will not prevail against the church. There is finality to that statement. This promise does not mean, however, that at every moment in every place the church will prevail. Setbacks abound in the 2,000 year history of the church, some lasting generations in particular places. But we can be sure, in the end, the church will prevail in its God-given purpose. The gospel must have its witness and Christ will not be left without a witness in North America. However, that witness may not be your church. Do not buy into the arrogance. We can be confident in the promise that Christ will have a witness, but let us avoid the ignorance or arrogance that assures it will come from our own church. Christ’s church will certainly make it through this moment, but many local churches may not. We must avoid defeatism, but we cannot overlook the gravity of this cultural moment (or any moment for that matter). Dismissing today’s hardships in hopes of returning to some golden era of the church, free of difficulty, is the worst kind of fiction. First, there is no going back. Second, it is a form of amnesia that claims the church of yesteryear was free of its own difficulties. Recall the Israelites grumbling in the wilderness begging to return to Egypt, where they were slaves. Confidence and Humility So, what is the right posture in this or any moment? Let the Scriptures guide you to a posture of confidence and humility. Be confident that the gates of hell will not ultimately prevail against Christ’s church. Be confident the church is God’s plan for making disciples of all nations. Be confident that the church is indeed the pillar and buttress of the truth. But hold that confidence with great humility, recognizing that any one of our local congregations is not promised or entitled to success. Heed the warnings given by Christ to His churches in Revelation. John writes of his vision of Christ, walking among the lampstands, His churches. To the church at Ephesus, the One who holds the seven stars in His hand, he warns, But I have this against you: You have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember then how far you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. Otherwise, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent” (Revelation 2:4-5) Christ removes lampstands. The warning to this congregation in Ephesus so long ago could very well be true of any local congregation today. Confidence causes us to avoid the defeatism and sensationalism making grandiose claims about the state of the church in America. Humility forces us to face the reality that our own congregation can, in fact, lose its first love and be in need of desperate repentance. May these two postures be true of us as we face what lies ahead.

In a previous article, I covered several important benefits for a local church entering into a global missions partnership with a missionary team overseas. Feel free to start there if you’d like. Before returning to the seminary to teach and lead our missions center, I served in associational leadership in Houston, Texas. Our network of Baptist churches was one of the largest in North America, and my job was helping that network build and develop a cooperative missions strategy. It was a blast, but when I first arrived I was surprised by some things. To be honest, when I first arrived in Houston, I quickly became convinced many of the churches in Houston cared little about international missions. The conversation in town was loudly directed toward local church planting within the Houston metro, as opposed to sending planters to other places in the US or sending missionaries to plant churches among unreached peoples. I was very encouraged by the attention given to local church planting, but this led me to make an unfortunate assumption, namely that global missions was low on the list of priorities for our churches. Much to my surprise, that was far from the truth. When I started floating the idea of an intentional equipping process in our own churches specifically for sending to the nations, I repeatedly heard encouragement. In fact, more than once, I was told church leaders had been hoping for just this kind of thing, not really knowing where to find it. And then came the questions. Church leaders began to start asking about the ways they could get their churches involved in global missions partnerships. With little direct connection to specific missionaries, churches often don’t know where to start. If you find your church in a similar position—having a desire to begin healthy overseas missions engagement and not knowing where to start—then here are four questions to help guide you to your first healthy international partnership. Do we already have missionaries on the field? The first place for any church to turn when it comes to international missions partnerships is their own membership. If a church has members, or past members, on the field serving with a missionary team, entering into partnership with their ongoing work is an excellent way to support them and involve the broader church in a missions vision. Sending missionaries well requires supporting those you send. If a church is intentional about sending, then it actively looks for those inside its own congregation who should be equipped and sent into Great Commission tasks. Then, it supports those it sends with ongoing care and partnership. It’s never too late to establish a partnership with those who have left your church to spread the gospel overseas. Do other local churches in our association have partnerships? Many churches do not have sent ones on the field with a prior connection to their church. In this case, looking to other nearby churches with a partnership is often a great start. In my role at the association where I serve, my hope is to establish many such cooperative relationships between churches in our association to partner with specific missionary teams on the field sent out of churches in our association. There are great benefits from partnering with missionaries overseas sent by a sister church in your same city or county. These churches can work together to plan trips to engage in the work and support the missionary efforts. This is especially helpful for normative size churches that may need to pool volunteers with another church to form a short term team. In addition, when the missionaries are stateside, they are local to your area and can also spend time in fellowship and reporting with your church as well. Churches can plan joint events where they pray for and care for the missionary team together, and their proximity allows them to make all of these plans easily. What agencies are we already supporting? In addition to looking toward other churches in your local network or association, a church seeking their first missionary partnership should consider agencies they are already supporting. It surprises me how many conversations I have with pastors and church leaders in which they are unaware that they are already financially supporting an international missions agency by virtue of their cooperation in our denomination. A young church planter in our association recently returned from his church’s first trip to visit an international missionary in South Asia. Upon returning, the team was convicted that a partnership with the ongoing work there would be an important part of their church’s mission. A new, small church plant, the pastor was telling me they knew they would need to send people from their church long term, but he was concerned about how they would fund such an endeavor. What I told him next floored him. Their church was already funding the missionaries they would send! Furthermore, they were already financially supporting the missionary team they had visited in South Asia. As a part of the SBC, his church was working with an IMB missionary, an agency they were already cooperatively supporting, and the agency they would use to send any missionaries they sent. One of the great benefits of cooperative sending with the IMB is the fact that missionary support is taken care of through the cooperative funding program. The funding dilemma was already solved. Their small church already had it’s financial support mechanism in place and didn’t know. If you happen to be an SBC church that does support the Cooperative Program, I would highly encourage you to consider a partnership with IMB missionaries on the field. You already financially support them, and working with the structures you already support will allow you to lean into future sending as well. What people groups are we engaging locally? Finally, consider the local opportunities for cross-cultural engagement right around you. A number of churches are already involved in some form of refugee ministry in their own city. Others are actively engaged in cross-cultural ministry of other types with local immigrants. This is often a good place to start when considering potential partnerships overseas. Connecting your work with local unreached groups of Hindu or Muslim background peoples with an international missions partnership to those same areas overseas can produce a really healthy missions vision for your church. For instance, here in Houston we have over 75,000 Urdu-speaking Pakistanis. Many of these people are completely unreached with the gospel, and gospel ministry is perhaps even more pressing back in their home country. A local church can work to reach them both here and there with wise partnerships overseas and active gospel-centered engagement here in town. Further Reading

I recently spoke to several hundred students at a conference on the importance of evangelism. During my time with those students, I asked them all a simple question: Has there ever been a time when you felt like you should tell someone about Jesus, but a fear, anxiety, or reluctance kept you silent? Everyone raised their hand. I imagine you are not surprised by that. In fact, if you are like me, you know that feeling because it has happened to you. Those of us who have been Christians for any length of time can likely recall those moments when we felt the need to share the good news of the gospel and fell silent instead. Today, I want to dig into one reason that keeps us from feeling the freedom to share. I am sure many other reasons exist, but I’m convinced one reason we keep our mouths shut is a lack of depth in our relationships with those we hope to engage in evangelism. Of course, this refers to attempts at evangelism with people that we know like friends or family. It could also refer to our attempts to develop relationships with new people we believe have not yet heard or accepted the gospel in order to share the good news with them. In the past, I provided a word of caution concerning “relationship evangelism.” Notice the scare quotes. Too often, we hide in the idea of relationship evangelism as somehow superior to sharing the gospel with people we just met. At the same time, there are many instances where strengthening relationships with people in order to share Christ is exactly the right move, especially with people we already know. In other words, if we have relationships with people who need Jesus, then let’s get serious about relationship evangelism. So, how do we do it? How do we deepen relationships with people in a way that leads toward gospel conversations? Move from Interests to Values to Worldview Simply put, we need to find intentional ways to steer the conversation toward deeper waters. I’m indebted to Sam Chan for this simple framework and the following tactic which encourages people to deepen their conversations with friends and family. Chan wrote two books on Evangelism: Evangelism in a Skeptical World and How to Talk about Jesus (Without Being That Guy). The first one I’ve used as a textbook in some of my courses. As with any author, I don’t agree with all of his conclusions, but his work shines when discussing the importance of plausibility structures in the task of evangelism. Chan notes the importance of worldview in evangelism. Everyone has a worldview whether they realize it or not, and the worldview is where our deepest beliefs inform our convictions. That’s the space where the gospel confronts a person’s beliefs. Unfortunately, most of our relationships do not exist at a depth where we regularly interact at the worldview level in conversation. Simply put, we tend to be pretty shallow in our relationships. In his work, Chan identifies three different layers of conversation that create a simple yet powerful framework for relationship evangelism. These layers are: interests, values, and worldviews. Interests are those most surface-level matters like hobbies, sports teams, and favorite TV shows. Values carry more weight and deal in the things we find important. Values are often convictions. Deeper still are those issues of worldview, or our fundamental beliefs about how the world works. When laid out in that framework, it is pretty easy to see. Most of our conversations exist in the realm of trivial matters. In fact, it is convicting. We are often pretty shallow in our conversations. I am convinced this is only more true in the age of social media. Shallow conversations build shallow relationships. That’s a problem among believers, and it is a barrier to evangelism among unbelievers. Of course, if we never talk about important matters, then it feels pretty awkward to introduce the gospel. If our aim in relationship evangelism is to eventually get into deep conversations about a person’s worldview, then we must learn how to move past surface-level relationships and conversations. We cannot wait on our shallow conversations to magically drift toward deep heart maters. Being good at relationship evangelism means taking on the responsibility to steer our conversations toward depth. Thankfully, Chan offers a simple tactic to overcome the barrier. Nudge the Conversation toward the Gospel Chan employs a tactic he calls nudge questions. The concept is simple: learn to ask questions that nudge a conversation down one level in depth. It may sound obvious, but I believe this is a valuable habit in all of our relationships, not just the ones with whom we hope to share the gospel. Interests are easy. Interests are comfortable. In conversation, interests shield us from the hard work of thinking. They are also safe and vanilla. People do not normally get upset about interests, and we’re not left vulnerable because of the lack of importance placed on them. You likely want to stay there in conversation, and there is a good chance the person you are talking to wants to as well. We cannot stay there. If we are the ones tasked with sharing the gospel, that is the same as being tasked with talking to people about their worldviews, those deepest levels of meaning and belief. So, it is our responsibility to find ways to move the conversation there. We can do so by nudging the conversation one layer down with good questions. Think of a nudge question as a well placed question at one level that bumps the conversation into the next level of depth. These questions are stairways down to the next level of the house. For instance, when talking interests a nudge question will fit in the conversation by relating to the interests being discussed. But the answer will require the participants to “walk down the stairs” to the values level. When answered, the question has nudged the conversation to one about values. You are a level deeper. The same can be done to move from values to worldview. There is no magical set of nudge questions, but I would encourage you to spend time coming up with some you might ask. Consider questions like: “So, would you consider yourself a spiritual person?” and “If God could do one thing in your life right now, what would you want it to be?” In fact, if you want a whole starter set you can look at this list of nudge questions I compiled from a conversation with several of our seminary students and some missionaries. I am convinced we should all become better at using nudge questions to deepen our level of conversation with others. It is good for us to nudge our conversations with our Christian friends toward depth. If shallow conversations build shallow relationships, then deep conversations build deep relationships. We only stand to gain if we deepen our relationships with other believers. Concerning evangelism, deepening our conversations is crucial to presenting Christ to our friends and family who have not crossed that line of faith.

This article has been a long time coming. If you are a long-time follower of my writing (and I mean long time), you may recall an article I wrote back in 2015 titled, “A Word of Caution Concerning ‘Relationship Evangelism’.” In that article, I wrote about the widespread popularity of “relationship evangelism” among Christians as a better means of sharing the gospel with others. At the time, I expressed concerns with how this style of evangelism often plays out in the real world, while ultimately arguing it is an important tool for the tool belt. Since the other article raised the concerns, this article raises the question: how do we do relationship evangelism well? Of course, a full answer to that question requires a book, like this one. There is much more than can be said here. Nevertheless, it’s time we get serious about relationship evangelism. And that was my primary concern in the last article. Too often, the things we label as relationship evangelism are reactive instead of proactive. We know building relationships takes time, and it is easy to hide a lack of intentionality in that truth. We tell ourselves we are waiting until the right moment in the growth of a relationship, but in reality we may just be procrastinating. I fear much that we call relationship evangelism is heavy on building relationships and light on actually evangelizing. Perhaps we hope the other person will approach us about it. So, how do we get serious about relationship evangelism? Here are four ideas that shift our posture from reactivity to proactivity and from procrastination to proclamation. Out yourself as a Christian from the very beginning. I mentioned this in the last article. It is really tempting to let a new relationship develop for a long time before we ever admit to being a Christian. Regardless of what you think counts as relationship evangelism, this isn’t it. The longer you wait to let them know about your identity in Christ, the harder it usually becomes to make a turn toward the gospel in normal conversation. If your aim truly is to share the gospel, you need to let people know you are a Christian as soon as possible in a new relationship. In fact, make it happen in the first meeting if can. Of course, I’m not suggesting you lay out the plan of salvation after you shake their hand. I’m merely suggesting intentional relationship evangelism is built upon your identity in Christ, so your new friend needs to know that. This could be as simple as bringing up where you go to church in the middle of an introductory conversation. For my students at the seminary, you have this one laid out on a platter. Simply let them know you’re a student preparing for Christian ministry. For some reason, I feel students often want to keep that fact reserved for a special occasion. That’s exactly backwards. In relationship evangelism, lean into that identity. Map your relational network. A second, crucial aspect of intentional relational evangelism is actually know which relationships you have in need of the gospel. I’m reasonably certain the majority of Christians I know have never listed out their lost friends on a sheet of paper. Each of us have lists of relationships across a spectrum of social circles. In each one is another set of relationships. You have extended family; that’s a circle. You have neighbors; that’s a circle. You have colleagues; that’s a circle. If you have children, the parents of their schoolmates are a circle. You get the picture. Listing the various circles in which you live, work, and play is a healthy exercise. The average person can usually think of five or six circles (family, neighborhood, work, hobbies, children, etc.). On a sheet of paper, create headings for each of these circles, and begin listing the relationships that exist in them. Place an asterisk by the ones you know are Christians. When you see all the names without an asterisk, you’re looking at all the people who need you to share the gospel with them. Before long, you may see a network of people emerge, all of them in need of the gospel and all of them already in a relationship with you. But we’re not done. You see those names with an asterisk? They are your partners in gospel proclamation. How can you include them in sharing with the other people in that circle? How can you follow their relationships into other networks? This is being proactive about relationship evangelism. Track progress toward gospel acceptance. Keeping track of your progress toward gospel proclamation and its acceptance is another important aspect of proactive relationship evangelism. Simply put, know how far down the path your friends are to hearing the gospel and then accepting the gospel. Can you ensure that every friend who hears will accept the gospel? No. However, you can be faithful to share with them and gauge their receptivity over time. There are many different ways both to track progress and openness. Consider keeping an evangelism log. That may sound silly, but it’s one of the most significant tools I’ve seen at demonstrating how much (or little) we are actually obedient to evangelism with those who have not heard or accepted. In fact, evangelism logs are often a prerequisite requirement in assessment for serving with international missions agencies. Concerning the openness of those in your relational network, another simple concept is to assign one of three “lights” that vary based on their receptivity to the gospel: red, yellow, or green. As you can imagine, a red light is someone who is explicitly opposed to hearing about the gospel from you again. Yellow lights have not shut down your conversations, and green lights demonstrate an openness to hearing more. Get to the gospel! Finally, it’s not evangelism unless you get to the gospel. The three ideas above make it easier to turn toward the gospel with those in your relational network, but unless you take this last step, it will most likely never happen. This may sound counterintuitive, but it’s not a bad idea to learn and practice some specific methods for sharing the gospel. Ironically enough, Christians often favor whatever they’ve defined as relational evangelism because it is “organic” and not based on presentations. I understand the desire for your explanation of the gospel to not feel canned. I agree with that desire. But if you are not comfortable sharing it in a clear way, the odds of you doing so in a relationship are slim. After all the work is put into a relationship for the sake of evangelism, you still have to know how to do the evangelism part. First, make sure your relationships know you are a Christian. Next, know your network of relationships. Then, make sure you know where they are in their openness. Finally, get to the gospel! May God be glorified in your obedience.

Love your enemies. That’s a tall order, but it is exactly what Jesus expects of his followers. In his most famous of sermon’s Jesus lays out a kingdom ethic for his followers. In Matthew 5, he underscores a clear expectation of his disciples: Christians love their enemies. It’s counter intuitive, counter cultural, and seems down right backwards to what common sense would tell us. And yet, that is exactly the ethic we adopt as Christ followers. Jesus provides this uncommon understanding of how we deal with opposition and hatred, but I think we need to notice why. Jesus does not tell his followers to do this for pragmatic reasons. Bearing the Family Resemblance We don’t love our enemies to make them like us. We don’t turn the other cheek because love will somehow destroy their personal hatred toward us. Going the extra mile isn’t a strategy to win an argument or even change someone’s mind. That may happen, but nowhere is any of that suggested in the passage, and it is certainly not our motivation for loving our enemies. In verse 45 Jesus gives us the reason: “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven.” Jesus calls us to bear the family resemblance. As Christians, we have been adopted into the family of God, and the Bible tells us in other places that we are being conformed into Christ’s image. In other words, we are being transformed into the image of God’s son. We too are sons and daughters of our heavenly Father, and the motivation behind this counter-cultural lifestyle is not winning friends and influencing people. It is bearing our family resemblance. That is the heartbeat of the testimonial ethic. Of course, a biblical lifestyle must be met with mouths that share the good news. Words are, in fact, necessary in sharing the gospel. But that news may sound hollow indeed if the actions of the one speaking it do not mirror, at least to some small degree, the transformation promised in the message. We live in a way that authenticates the message we’ve been commissioned to share. Be Perfect, as Your Heavenly Father is Perfect Jesus finishes the passage by saying, “Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Those words are an allusion to other passages in the Bible. God says, “Be holy because I am holy.” That command is a central theme of the Bible. It shows up at the front in the Levitical law and we see repeated toward the end by Peter in one of his letters, and it’s scattered out even more between the two. Many people throughout history have pointed out that Jesus’ ethic in the Sermon on the Mount is an impossible standard. “Who can actually live this way?” people have asked. Well, that’s the whole point. Not that we cannot live to such a high standard, but that we cannot do it on our own. The lifestyle of the kingdom of heaven requires a new heart. There is only one man who has ever followed this ethic perfectly, and he did it so that his work on the cross could serve as the needed sacrifice to fix our own sin problem. Jesus walked this road perfectly, so that he could stand in our place, and provide us with the spiritual life necessary to walk in such a ridiculous calling. A Testimony of Sacrifice We never look more like Jesus than when we sacrifice for those who would do evil to us. Living this way is acting out an echo of an event that happened so long ago. Jesus himself turned the other cheek. Roman soldiers cast lots for his coat. He not only walked the extra mile, but he did so carrying the weight of your sins and my sins up to the cross. And he gave, not money, but his life. Keeping that in mind, here these words again: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  But I say to you, love your enemies.” Loving your enemies is a message we all need to hear right now. It’s an uncommon ethic. Everyone in our society is dividing up into camps. Everything is an “us” vs. “them” issue now. We demonize the other side. And that fire comes from both corners. But, we must be careful not to miss the point of this passage. In this passage, Jesus is not telling his followers that it is bad they are being treated harshly by their enemies. He is not giving them justification for being mad at the mainstream media. He is telling them to expect it. And he is doing something much more. He is telling them not to return it. He is telling them to respond to the animosity not with animosity in return, but with grace, with love. “You are the light of the world. A city situated on a hill cannot be hidden… let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” Matthew 5:14-16

A couple of months ago, I made the mistake of posting an off-handed comment on Facebook. The next thing I knew, I was in meetings with some folk from our state convention in North Carolina talking missions strategy about that off-handed comment. Here is the gist of it: North Carolina is getting older and more diverse, and that matters for the Great Commission. And the more I’ve looked into this demography shift, the more I realize it really matters for the sake of the Great Commission. Shifting Demographics North Carolina is a rapidly growing state. If you’re local to the state, that’s likely no surprise to you, but for the uninitiated, it’s one of the faster growing regions in the United States. Estimates from Carolina Demography project a population over 12 million by 2035. That’s a far cry from where the state was a couple of decades ago. Of course, North Carolina is home to several trendy areas for young professionals. Charlotte and Raleigh are both epicenters for job creation right now. So, it’s a common assumption by many that our growth is fueled by college-age or young professionals streaming into the area hoping for their big break. And that is happening, but it’s not actually the biggest contributor to population growth in these metros, especially the Raleigh metro that I call home. So, what is our biggest demographic of incoming residents? Retirement age adults. Yep, you read that right. Look at some graphs with me. The light blue bars are the percentage population in NC in 2011 by age group. The dark blue bars are 2021. Notice that all categories are going down, except the last two. The percentage of the population that is over 65 has increased, while all other categories have declined in overall share. The next graph makes the point even more explicit. The above graph demonstrates which age groups have grown in North Carolina over the past decade. See those last two age groups. That is massive increase. In fact, this last graph shows us the reality of the situation. Take a look at the map above. You’d be tempted to misread this data by assuming the dark blue counties are the ones seeing growth in the post-retirement age group. However, any county shaded blue experienced a growth of at least five percent in that age range. That’s every single county. Every county in North Carolina saw a marked increase in people over the age of 65. What about those dark blue counties? Those saw an increase of up to fifty percent. That’s insane population shifts. The aging of our population in North Carolina is actually a broader trend across the United States. It’s not just happening in North Carolina, but it’s especially happening in North Carolina. Let me explain why. There are two primary drivers of a age shift in population like this. This first is the most obvious, and what is happening across the United States. People are living longer, and young people are having less children. That means more people stick around at the top end of the age groups and less people wind up in the bottom side of the age groups. That ages a population over time. However, North Carolina is experiencing growth for another reason: inmigration. While all areas are seeing the aging shift mentioned above, some areas are also magnets for people moving from other areas. This has long been the case for North Carolina’s metro areas. However, the assumption is that this immigration is a bunch of young professionals looking for that big career move. But our largest population swell is coming not from young professionals moving into hipster neighborhoods in downtown (or suburban facsimilies of these). Instead, it’s retirement-age families moving down from the Northeastern United States, not quite to Florida. Raleigh proves the case. In July of this year, Axios reported that the Triangle is one of the country’s hottest spots for retirees since the pandemic. The article highlights the unprecedented growth in post-retirement population in the Raleigh metro (+18.3%), but notes that this trend is occurring in several major metros across the country like Austin (+17.3) and Houston (+15.3%). Below is a graph from that Axios article about retirement-age inmigration to Raleigh. That is explosive growth in the 65+ population. And you can see it, too. Right next to my neighborhood is a new subdivision with at least 250 homes. Ironically enough, it is an age-gated community. You cannot move into the neighborhood unless you are over 55. The Great Commission in an Aging Community Now, if you’re a pastor, ministry leader, or someone just interested in the Great Commission, that bit of news means something for local church ministry and missions. So many of our efforts in church planting and ministry outreach generally are aimed at young families. Everyone knows the secret to a successful church plant is a rocking kids ministry, right? Well, what happens when the average age of your new neighbors in that recent subdivision is closer to 65 than 25? I’ve been thinking about this ever since I saw that Axios article, and there are at least two shifts we need to make concerning the Great Commission in an aging community. Reframe Assumptions Concerning an Aging Population Ministering to a retirement-age population does not only mean taking care of people who can no longer take care of themselves. Many do face increasing challenges, both physically and financially, as they reach retirement-age. This creates both a responsibility and opportunity the church can meet. However, a growing number of people over the age of 65 are in decent health and have some financial means. Many of them are considering a “second career,” or what it means to have 10-15 years left in front of them to fill. Retirement is a natural chapter change in life, but it doesn’t mean a change to convalescence for many. Ironically enough, this may mean an increasing number of people aging out of the workforce are at the same spot, at least in some ways, as those exiting college and getting ready to enter the workforce. They have a new chapter in front of them, and they are looking for ways to use that time. If that’s true, it means we need to adjust our aim in a lot of our missional efforts. Reframe Missional Engagement to Consider Those at Retirement Age Most churches think of missional engagement as something we do among younger population segments, but we must consider retirement-age segments as a target for mobilization and engagement. Concerning mobilization, there is a chance your church has some folk closing in on retirement who are wondering what they will do after that last day at work. Why not shepherd them to steward that time well? What would it look like to mobilize these people for a “second career” in gospel ministry? That may not be a full time job, or a paid staff position at a church, but it could be. It could even mean taking an assignment with the International Mission Board in their Masters Program, which is designed specifically for people over the age of 55. In a recent article, John Piper said it this way, … the Bible has no conception of what Americans typically think of as retirement — that is, working for forty or fifty years and then playing for fifteen or twenty years: fishing, golfing, shuffleboard, pickleball, yard work, travel, hobbies, bucket lists, as if heaven was supposed to begin at 65 rather than death. We need to capture this moment in the lives of our more seasoned saints. There are so many opportunities for local missional engagement. Who ever thinks to ask a retiring couple to be a part of that new church plant across town? What if these people became our best tools in church renewal work by being key workers in a replant or revitalization? And I’ve already mentioned the potential for global sending. Instead of buying that RV and hopping tourist parks along the Eastern seaboard, what if we challenged our retiring families to pack up their bags and head to the nations? But, mobilizing post-retirement church members is only half of the equation. They also need to be the object of outreach and gospel ministry. If your church is in an area where this demographic trend is taking place, then you need to consider that engaging your community likely means more than targeting young families. Has your staff ever asked the question of how they will engage retired newcomers to their community? If not, it may be time to start.

For many of us, there comes a moment. That moment, whatever it is, whatever God chooses to use, creates a spark and a passion. It’s a moment of inspiration and an eye-opening realization that changes the way you see the world. These moments get a person thinking about options, asking questions, and searching out possibilities to be part of God’s solution. I can recall some of these moments in my life. Perhaps you can too. As the director of our missions center at Southeastern, I have the privilege of working directly with a lot of missionaries. In God’s kindness, he’s allowed our school to train over a thousand missionaries in the last two decades. The Passion Every semester, I have dozens of students on campus or at a distance actively pursuing a calling to take the gospel where it is not named. It’s the joy of my life to serve God and His church in this way. That means I get to see that moment in others all the time. My weeks are filled with students floored by God’s grace through the gospel to them. They can’t get over it. Some are clearly burdened by the lack of gospel access in many places around the world. These students find it unacceptable that someone could be born, live her entire life, and die never hearing about this free gift of grace. That is passion that I see. It is a passion for the Great Commission. For many of them, it happened on a short-term trip. Some caught it at the conference where they first heard about unreached peoples around the world and the billions (yes, billions) who exist that way. For others, it was a mentor that changed their life and their passions. I see passionate people all the time. But there is another side to the coin that I also experience in my role. I have lots of conversations with the missionaries already serving on the field. A few weeks ago, I ran into a missionary at a meeting. He came over to thank me for a recent episode of our podcast that dealt with hardship on the field. He began to share about his family’s last year on the field. Over the course of the year, the family had experienced severe illness, especially the little children, the kind of illness that lands you in emergency care at the hospital. It was the kind of illness that causes you to question if your kid is actually going to make it. It was a heavy situation, but they were managing. Despite the difficulty, they were pressing through it until they woke one night to find their small child’s room on fire. Faulty electrical wiring is not uncommon in developing countries, and it caught their home on fire. Thankfully, their little girl was in their room that night because of her health issues. They quickly escaped their home as it burned down. Needless to say, the family was stateside working with member care and trying to put the pieces of their life back together. As his story of the recent past caught up to the present, he naturally turned to what was next. After the trauma and loss this family experienced, you might think that conversation revolved around an off-ramp. But that’s not where it went. The conversation merely moved into discussing their search for a new ministry location on the field. After the setback, they were making plans to get back to the work. Not in that house of course, but on the field with hand to plow. I’m convinced it takes more than passion to ground the kind of perseverance through hardship exhibited by this family. To be clear, Jesus is not against passion. He is not against excitement for the mission. It is not my job at the seminary to squash that before students go to the field. If anything, my job is to fan that passion into genuine commitment. If you are a pastor, that is your job, too. Passion is a really good thing, but when Christ tells us to go and make disciples of all nations, He is after more than our passion. That raises a question: Is there something more than passion that makes the difference between the one who lasts and the one who doesn’t? What is the difference between the one who produces healthy fruit on the field and the one who sows discord, division, or false doctrine? The Foundation A task as magnificent as the mission of the church requires more than a passion to see it done; it requires a foundation that will last a lifetime. I am convinced we find grounding for this truth in Scripture. In Luke 6:46–49, Luke records the concluding words of Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain. It is a large didactic block of Jesus’ teaching, and it is an intense discipleship lesson. In his commentary on Luke, Joel Green refers to this conclusion as the “measure of a disciple.”* “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you? Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built his house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.” —Luke 6:46–49 The passage above is one of two illustrations that Jesus uses to make his point. Five different times between verses 43 and 49 Luke uses the word “do” in some form. These twin illustrations, the tree and its fruit and the builders and their houses, begin and end with doing. Be careful, however. This passage is not calling for some form of behaviorism. The focus is not the actions; the focus is the kind of heart which produces the actions. Jesus concludes this sermon with a matter of character that is formed, shaped, and cultivated in the heart of a person. The first illustration concerning the tree and its fruit is likely the more familiar passage. There are two kinds of trees, two kinds of fruit. In the next illustration, Jesus discusses two kinds of builders. One builder prepares a foundation that weathers whatever comes; the other builder does not. One builder produces a house that stands; the other builder does not. The Question Jesus does not open this last illustration with immediate instruction. He begins with a question. In fact, it is a pointed question. “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I tell you?” Let that question sit with you for a moment. Coming off the conversation about good and bad fruit, Jesus starts with a question that cuts at least some of his audience as not doing what he says. Note the tension in that question. Commentators widely agree on the emphasis created by repeating the word “Lord.” It is an enthusiastic repetition. Ken Hughes calls it an “intense affirmation of allegiance.”* Leon Morris claims, “To repeat the address is to put certain emphasis on the admission.”* In other words, this is a passionate confession about Jesus. Jesus immediately follows that passionate statement with a question about follow-through. Of course, people that would use such a designation for Jesus do so to register their enthusiasm, their passion, and that Jesus was the one who had captured their allegiance. Yet for those whom Jesus addresses here, there is no follow-through on their passionate declaration. We see this happen. In fact, we may be guilty of it. I watch students fall into this tension: real passion with no follow-through. Furthermore, the passion is real. It is genuine excitement. One goes on a trip somewhere, and it blows his mind. Another sits under a sermon about global lostness that wrecks her. A third student has a mentor who changes his life, and now he wants to be that for someone else. The spark is real, and it is good, but that does not automatically lead to obedience. Left to itself, passion makes a weak foundation. Think of passion like gasoline. Gasoline is good and essential, and your car does not run without it. Even so, gasoline is not the engine. Good gasoline in a bad engine will not get you very far. In Luke 6, Jesus’s question points to that tension and reveals the difference between some thin, stated allegiance and a thick, genuine commitment to Jesus. Jesus addresses a person’s character, the substance of their heart. The illustrations about the trees and the builders showcase people whose actions reveal what is in their hearts. Jesus is not merely asking about what you do; he’s asking who you are. There are many who call him, “Lord, Lord.” The question is not whether a person is passionate. The question, as Jesus reveals, is about what a person builds their life upon. Jesus is clear that everyone who hears his words and does them is like someone who digs deep and lays a foundation. Passion can come in a moment, but the foundation that lasts requires the slow and steady work of spiritual formation. It is a Word-soaked, prayer-driven, community-oriented process that lays the groundwork for a lifetime of obedience. When that kind of foundation meets passion, then and only then, are the results total and glad surrender.

I recently ran across a quote I would like to share concerning the significance of global cities in the mission of the church. It is from Jared Looney, who wrote Crossroads of the Nations: While it is unlikely that this status will remain static, global cities such as New York City, London, Tokyo as well as Paris, Toronto, Sao Paulo, Houston, and many other key urban centers are of strategic importance for the present and future church. Such cities are centers of global influence and points of connection between nations and cultures. As the Gospel moved along the Roman roads through the cities of the Mediterranean world and people gathered at wells in ancient villages, global cities are now nodes in a global network and are of strategic importance for the mission of the church (Looney, Crossroads of the Nations). There are two or three things I want you to see in this one. First, certain cities are rising to a new level of significance for the Great Commission. Looney compares these “global cities” to the significance of the Roman roads for the spread of the gospel. Honestly, I think he is right. If you are not familiar with the idea, there are several reasons that many historians credit with the explosive advance of the church in its first two or three centuries. The church grew at a rate that really makes no sense outside the divine providence of God and the power of the Spirit washing over a people. And, ultimately those are the reasons the gospel spread throughout the known world in such a manner. That said, historians recount a number of things that facilitated this work of God. One of these was the Roman road system throughout the empire. Travel from province to province was easier than it had ever been or would be after the empire’s fall for hundreds of years. This allowed for very high levels of migration and commerce from city to city. Easy transfer of goods, easy transfer of money, easy transfer of ideas. As Christians traveled those roads, so did the good news they carried with them. A network of urban commercial centers made for the rapid spread of the gospel. Today, a similar network exists. The idea of the global city was first espoused by Saskia Sassen, and he points out that a growing numbers of cities are participating in a global commercial and informational network. These cities drive the global economy, and they are more connected than ever. These cities are increasingly important, magnets of migration because of the opportunities they afford people, and super-diverse. Looney, along with others, picks up on this advanced network as a Great Commission opportunity. Just like the Roman Empire of the past, with its network of roads, these cities exist with a network of global connections that make spreading ideas easier than ever. Looney goes on to point out that these global cities house many people from many places with no access to the gospel. They are cultural communities connected to their home country and to a global migrant network from their culture. Take Nigerians for instance. Houston, one of the cities Looney outs as a global city, has the largest collection of Nigerians in the world, outside of Nigeria. This large community maintains its connection both to Nigeria and to other groups of Nigerians the world over. Of course, these connections are virtual Roman roads for the spread of the gospel. However, we must realize an important truth for these networks to advance the spread of the gospel. They require us to reimagine how we do missions and church planting in our own cities. Normally, we would want to try some strategy to reach people from these groups by having an event where we bring them to our church. Maybe, if we were a little more culturally sensitive, we would try to create a Sunday School class or small group just for them, so they can be disciples and worship in their own culture. However, what is needed to take advantage of these groups are specific cultural manifestations of the gospel in each of them. In other words, we need to be trying to engage them in such a way that leads to churches in their own culture. If we desire the spread of this gospel message through these networks, then it needs to be inculturated into these networks. By establishing a wide range of diverse churches in the actual cultures of these groups, we maximize the ability for this message to travel back across these networks. They will not export a Western Christianity with any effect to their global networks. Looney is right, there is a fantastic opportunity in front of us. We must, though, realize that it requires a change in gears concerning our methods.

A few weeks back, I called attention to the foggy words we often use as Christians to talk about our gospel work and ministry. Today, I want to point out one such phrase. It is real common, nowadays, to talk of “preaching the gospel to yourself.” You may have heard someone use this, or you may have said it yourself. It most often makes its way into small group studies, I believe. A group will be discussing a particular passage, and this is somehow an application statement that is made. “Well,” someone will chime in, “we just need to make sure we are preaching the gospel to ourselves.” The statement is certainly true, but what in the world does it mean? If we are not careful this falls into the truism category, sounding profound but having no real practical application. To give you a little history, the phrase appears to come from the writings of Jerry Bridges. I do not think the phrase originates with him, but he popularized the concept. If you have not read his work, I would strongly encourage you to do so. He, obviously, explains this idea at length and provides some of the best contemporary devotional reading out there. In short, Bridges (and others) is basically making one very important claim about the gospel: it is as much for believers as it is unbelievers. This idea that believers still need the gospel cuts across a lot of our contemporary understanding. Fact is, we think of the gospel as the news that saves us, and it is. That said, perhaps our problem is a weak understanding of salvation. More than a “get out of hell free” conversion experience, salvation is the changing of a person that happens both in a moment and over time. In other words, the Bible is clear that we have been saved (a moment) and are being saved (over time). So, if the gospel is the news that saves us, then it is the news that saves us in that moment and over time. We all need to hear the gospel, over and over again. The gospel is not simply a presentation for lost people. It is a message for all people. I need it as much today as I did when I first heard it, and so do you. In reality, we need to think of the gospel as a message for three audiences: unbelievers, believers, and the gospel community. The gospel speaks in all three of these spheres, and we have a responsibility to preach it in all of them. Of course, preach does not mean from a pulpit. Preaching in the Bible is a much broader concept than standing behind a podium, and it is a concept that applies to all believers. Everyone who has been changed by the gospel has the responsibility to preach the gospel. The Gospel is for Unbelievers This is the truth most often understood in evangelical churches today. Unbelievers need the gospel. The Bible paints a stark picture of the “old man,” or the person without Christ. Before the gospel grabs us, we are blind, unable to see. In other places the Bible says we are dead in our sin. Dead does not mean mostly dead (excuse the Princess Bride reference); it means all dead. Incapable of living. Unable to do things on our own. Dead people do not save themselves. They are past saving, in fact. That is the whole point. The gospel is the good news that there is hope for those totally incapable, for those past the point of saving. God can bring dead bones to life, and Christ is the first fruits of this resurrection. That said, I am afraid the unbeliever’s need for the gospel is more understood than acted on in the church. Yes, we need to preach the gospel to ourselves (we will get to that next), but we need to preach it to the lost as well. My hope is not to browbeat anyone with this point. I do not desire to guilt people into sharing the gospel. But ask yourself, when was the last time it crossed your lips in a conversation with an unbeliever? The Gospel is for Believers This gets to the crux of preaching the gospel to oneself. Lost people need the life-changing truth of the gospel, and saved people need the life-changing message of the gospel. As I noted above, we are saved and we are being saved. In another sense, you could say you are already saved and not yet as saved as you will be. This is the reality of being justified, progressively sanctified, and ultimately glorified. That is what salvation does to us, it is an all-of-life transformation that starts at conversion and moves toward a total renewal of the person through the resurrection and glorification that comes to us when Christ returns. Here we are, in the time between those moments, not yet as saved as we will be. We are new creations with warring desires. We still need to truth of the gospel. We still need the hope that it brings. Being transformed by the renewing of our minds is not an overnight process. John Owen told us to kill sin, or it will kill us. That is why we need the gospel. This is news that I need every day, and who better to share it with me than myself. Martyn Lloyd-Jones refers to this as the difference between listening to oneself and talking to oneself. Our heart is still sinful and full of any manner of deceptions. This is the root of our fears, our anxieties, and the seat of our emotions. Passively listening to these deceptions fills our head with the lies of our sinful heart; it colors the way we see the world around us. It makes us believe things to be one way when they are really another. The gospel is the true story of the world, and we must actively speak it to ourselves. Instead of listening to the lies of our hearts, we must talk back the truth of the gospel. That is preaching the gospel to yourself. Do you passively listen to the fears of your heart? Realize that those fears stem from a lack of belief in the truth of the gospel, in a God that saves us, and in his provision through Christ. In this way preach the gospel to yourself. Speak it out loud to yourself if you must. The Gospel is for the Community And as Westerners, we have a tendency to overlook this last sphere. The gospel message is for unbelievers, it is for believers, and it is for the whole of the Christian community. This community is expressed in real life by the thousands and thousands of little, local assemblies scattered throughout the world. We need to preach the gospel to the lost, we need to preach the gospel to ourselves, and we need to preach the gospel to our church. Now, this last one assumes active membership in a local church. The Christian cannot be fully faithful to their responsibility to preach the gospel if they are not members of a local church, because we all have a responsibility to preach this truth to one another in the context of community. This happens in dozens of ways. It happens as small groups gather around coffee tables. It happens when a fellow church member confides in you about struggles. It happens when we witness brothers and sisters living in a manner that is not worthy of the gospel and we speak truth to them in love. The Christian community needs to hear the gospel, and Christ compels us to preach it to one another.

You know the old adage, 80 percent of the work is done by 20 percent of the people. Honestly, sometimes that even feels generous. Those of us who have pastored churches know the feeling. There always seems to be more to get done than people willing to do it. In the midst of juggling the manifold tasks of leading a congregation, it is easy to let things fall out of sight. Easier still is overlooking opportunities to shepherd that may be hiding behind certain ministry paradigms. I am convinced that a lack of leadership frequently has more to do with faulty ministry paradigms than an actual lack of able servants. Nowadays, it is en vogue to talk of leadership development and discipleship. Every pastor with an internet connection knows the importance of developing leaders. But how much time do we spend on identifying potential leaders? The proactive task of identifying workers, future pastors and missionaries, and those the church will send to plant churches is an important role of pastoral ministry, and I believe it is often overlooked. Butts in Seats vs. Feet on a Path When it comes to leading a local congregation, one ministry paradigm is about filling seats. I do not mean the seats in the auditorium. Instead, I am referring to the seats around the committee table or that seat at the front of the Sunday school classroom. I am talking about the seats reserved for those who chaperone the youth trip or the recently vacated seat of the person who was running that particular program. And before you think I am just knocking on traditional, established churches, it is the seat of that new small group the trendy church plant in town wants to start. It is the vacant seat at the drums on stage. In short, a very common approach to leadership development is getting butts in seats so programs can happen. In reality, this paradigm of leadership is not really about developing leaders at all, it was about plugging holes in a system that was already running (or for all you church planters, a system you are trying to get off the ground). The goal is system-oriented, not-person oriented. In actuality, the people are the resources that serve the system instead of the system being a tool to serve the people. In my estimation, the emphasis is on the wrong thing in this paradigm. This is problematic for at least two reasons. First, a ministry paradigm that is simply trying to plug holes will eventually turn to unqualified people. The focus quickly shifts to the minimum requirements necessary for someone to do the task. Filling leadership roles becomes begging people to take on a responsibility. The attitude toward the congregation is one of desperately asking people to just fill a spot. Before you know it, the guy behind that drum set may be up only because he can keep a beat regardless of his Christian witness. Second, plugging holes leaves little room for thinking past the confines of the congregation and its own programs. If the focus is on maintaining what exists, or even on starting a fledgling new plant, it is easy to overlook the responsibility of every church to be about the business of sending. As JD Greear often says, “Jesus’ measure of the church is not seating capacity, but sending capacity.” Too many churches have fooled themselves into this idea that they need to get their own local ministry established before they can concern themselves with other aspects of the Great Commission. Ironically, this overlooks the fact that local mission is energized when we teach the global scope of our commission. When we throw our efforts into sending, it makes us better at the task right in front of us as well. Instead of butts in seats, we need to be concerned with getting feet on a path. Too often, pastors (back then and today) overlook this crucial responsibility of shepherding. Jesus, the Great Shepherd, entrusts his sheep to under shepherds for a reason. That stewardship is no less than the responsibility of growing these sheep up into mature, faithful servants. Instead of staring at the holes we leaders think need to be filled, we need to take a long look at the congregation that Christ has given us and ask how we can set their feet on a path of spiritual formation and service to Christ through the Great Commission. If God has given you a congregation of people, then he has given you future teachers, leaders, deacons, pastors, planters, and missionaries. Pastoral ministry is not merely putting butts in seats. It is placing feet on a path. Identifying Leaders is a Pastoral Role Has your church ever sent a missionary overseas from your own congregation? How about a pastor or church planter? Do you find yourself saying your church would do more if only people would step up into role of responsibility? Too often, church leadership is reactive when it comes to leadership development. We wait on someone to approach us and tell us that God is calling them to be a pastor or a missionary. Of course, that does happen sometimes, but more often we wait in vain. The vast majority of evangelical churches never send a single missionary overseas, despite the fact that it is now easier than ever. I know of too many churches that cannot point to a person in the congregation that is on a path to planting or pastoring another church. Why? Because no one has stood up and said they want to do that. I believe most decent churches would gladly send a member to be a missionary if they asked. I am also convinced that most pastors and church leaders would be happy to help out a member who expressed a calling to pastor one day. But there is a very significant difference between being willing to help someone who approached them and proactively seeking out those in the congregation who should be on a path to leadership. Identifying leaders is a pastoral role. How many people in our congregations need to have their feet placed on that path? In my own life, I am thankful for a minister at my church who approached me shortly after college and challenged me to something more. I remember myself then, and I never considered entering ministry. Now, looking back down the path I have walked, I thank God that someone placed my feet on it for me. Perhaps this is one of those instances where we have not because we ask not. And I am not referring to those all-calls we place in the tail end of our sermons. Pastor or church leader, when was the last time you approached someone in person and challenged them to consider placing their feet on the path? Of course, to do so requires knowing the people in our congregations personally. It means we must know their character and prayerfully ask that God gives us discernment regarding those we would approach. So my challenge to you, church leaders, is this: take some time this week to look at your congregation from a different angle. Which one is the next missionary? The next pastor? The next ministry leader? Then find a time to invite them to lunch.