God has gifted you so that you would equip the people of God.
If the church of America is declining, then pay attention to this verse.
Ephesians 4:16 - From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
When the whole church is doing its part, it grows and builds itself up.
The current attractional model of church is incomplete.
The book Transformation by Bob Roberts. What if, in attempt to reach America for Christ, that we were going to start 1000 megachurches in 10 years. (That wouldn’t do it, we just did that.) God is using this but it is not working at penetrating the lostness of this country.
I’m also sensing a growing sense of restlessness in the laity of the American church.
18-30 year olds are not wired like our parents generation. They are not okay with sitting on the sidelines of ministry or doing tasks to keep the machine running. They are hardwired to be a part of something bigger than themselves. They are hemorrhaging from the church because our churches haven’t figured that out yet.
Our motto has been “come to us.” And for those who did, that’s where it stopped.
We’ve placed the onus of mission on paid clergy and missionaries and the person in the pew wonders why the Christianity they see in the book of Acts is so different than the Christianity I see in my church. They began to wonder why they don’t get to use the power of the Holy Spirit that they were supposed to receive upon their conversion.
If 3000 more people come through our doors, then not much changes in the city of Austin. What if, instead of spending all this money to get people to come to our church, we spend a bunch of money and time to get 3000 people to leave our church. To equip them and release them to mission and ministry and then the whole city could change.
Jesus’ strategy was not to build a megachurch. He had the crowds at times but at the height of his popularity he looked at the crowd and said something so radical most left. Then he poured his life into equipping 12 and 72 to send them out on mission, to release them empowered with the Holy Spirit and the resurrection.
Is it possible to do both?
To attract people by the dozens, hundreds, and thousands AND also to release people by the dozens, hundreds and thousands. It is possible to be attractional and missional.
How did we make this transition into missional communities?
Trained, challenged, and equipped small group leaders who in turn, trained, challenged, and equipped their groups. To come together and live on mission for God and the church.
1) Change the definition of success. Our small group leaders who used to simply gather in people from the main service, and had community, studied the Bible and encouraged life change must move beyond that. To find the place of lostness, deep need in our community and invest yourselves on mission into bringing care, love, peace, and healing to that place. There is no better place to find community and have your life be transformed than in a group on mission.
2) Train small group leaders like you would train a missionary. You can’t train them like a Bible study leader. You have to train them to be able to feed themselves. Train them theologically, missional practice so that if God calls them to be released and lead their own church, they are equipped and we applaud it.
3) We have raised the bar for what it looks like for a missional community to engage in. We want them to know that the sky is the limit. Your people are capable of more than you would ever dream they are capable of. They have the Spirit’s power and the power of the resurrection inside of them.
Your people are more hungry to be used by God than you and I will ever know.
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