Go! Get Out There!

The Great Commission, Matthew 28:18-20,  contains Jesus' last words, his marching orders to his disciples before he ascended into Heaven.  This exhortation we believe is also meant for us, Jesus' modern day disciples.  However, so much of our church experience today is centered around the local church. Many of our "church activities" consist of going to church and serving on Sunday. For much of the church's history there has been this "come to us" approach to ministry.  The missional church movement aims to change that and to be more intentional in fulfilling Jesus' call for us to get out of the church and "go and make disciples".

The challenge for all churches is how to motivate Christians to actually get out of their comfort zone and go.  One church in San Antonio devised a unique plan in which the church would forgo meeting for worship one Sunday a month and instead minister outside of the church to the masses.  This church, Bethel, set up a drive-up prayer station in an empty parking lot near their church. The members of the church wave banners and signs along the road inviting drivers to pull over for prayer. Other church members offer prayer to those who stop by. The leaders of the church say they were surprised at how many people actually pull over and share their prayer requests every week.  It has invigorated the church and opened the door for the members to have some great conversations with people who would never step foot into their church.  Their members really look forward to these Sundays in which they get to minister to others.  They meet at the church on these Sundays for a time of prayer and then head to the parking lot to minister to others.

My church, Austin Christian Fellowship, does not have a worship service on the fifth Sundays during the year.  Instead, the church members work on mission projects that the church sets up, one on Saturday and another on Sunday morning.  Some churches, such as Rock Hills in San Antonio, take the first Sunday of each month to serve and minister to the community. What is your church doing to create a "go to them mindset" instead of a "come to us" approach? 

The new church culture; Returning to its roots

The biblical picture of the church at its most basic level, is a community, not a hierarchy, business, or organization. It is structured like the human body – on the basis of life.  Wow, it is so wonderful and refreshing to see churches across this country returning to this first century church model.

Yes, there is a ground swell of believers; apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers who are not satisfied with doing church as usual, but want to be part of a revolution, a movement that helps us to return to the first century church model. These Christ followers have shifted their paradigm and have begun to think more in these directions:

• from (my) kingdom to (God's) Kingdom
• from doing ministry for to equipping others to do ministry
• from closing the church's back door to opening the door and sending people out
• from controlling and maintaining to unleashing and releasing 
• from growing a church to starting churches that multiply churches
• from seating capacity to sending capacity
• from loving people like me, to loving all of our neighbors
• from programs to organic ministry
• from mega to many mini
• from serving the church to impacting the world
• from carbon copies to unique expressions
• from competition and division to unity and collaboration.

This change has been slow to evolve because a church body that is willing to change must overcome several barriers, including tradition and culture. But throughout history, when the church has veered off course, someone has stepped up to challenge, to provide the fuel to spark a change and that is happening today.

There are plenty of examples of this movement today, including major conferences like Verge and Exponential networks and the Perspectives Bible course that are fueling this change.  Here in central Texas, individual churches have started to focus much more on missions, like Grace Point Church in San Antonio. Grace Point encourages and expects every member to go local once a year and global once every five years as a way to build a missional culture.

Austin Christian Fellowship gives 50 percent of their budget to missions!  When there is a fifth Sunday in the month, the church and all of its church plants do not meet for worship, but serve their community that weekend on Saturday and Sunday with various mission projects. 

The Park Community Church in San Antonio is cultivating and training church planters, not for the fast growing suburban areas but to send back into San Antonio inner city neighborhoods. The church planters must move into the neighborhood in which they are planting. 

Alex Fleming resisted the urge to plant in the suburbs and instead planted Life Restored Church in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods of San Antonio. He is now working with other churches to develop an urban church planting movement.  

The San Antonio Baptist Association has broken away from just planting the traditional attractional church to also planting and multiplying house churches. SABA helped start 150 house churches in the past three years, which are multiplying rapidly.

Both Austin and San Antonio churches are working together in unprecedented ways to impact their cities for Christ. Over 350 Austin churches of various denominations worked in a coordinated effort to reach the lost for Christ through Explore God curriculum and all collaborated to help schools across Austin improve third grade reading levels. This year the churches are meeting once a month to pray together and to see how they can better serve the city. The Christ Together movement has spread to San Antonio where churches of all denominations are meeting there on an on going basis to determine how best they can impact the city for Christ. 

I pray that the movement grows. I hear wonderful reports from all over the United States and the world! I'd love to hear how your church is making a difference for Christ in unique ways. 

Let's Do This Together!

Like a Good Neighbor, Where Is The Church?

I watched the Secret Millionaire this week for the first time. Or is it Secret Billionare? In this episode, the wealthy owners of the Curves workout facilities go on what is basically a "mission trip" to inner city Houston for one week where they live on $6 dollars a day in an old roach infested house and visit several social ministries and agencies. In the end they put a face to the needs of the community and are moved to help out the social agencies with generous contributions. It is one of the positive television reality shows that have become popular as of late.

I find it interesting that the secular world has co-opted the business of the church and is teaching and promoting principles that the church seems to have abandoned.

Think about how often you see commercials and popular programs promoting community involvement and charity. From the NBA Cares program to American Idol give back show, the world recognizes the benefit and need for one to take care of their less fortunate neighbors in the world.

My brother-in-law while working as a manager for UPS was required to take two weeks off and go on a "mission trip", (his words but not what the company called it). He chose to go work with a church in inner city of Chicago. He described it as one of the most inspirational and educational two weeks of his life, even though he got sick and had to go to the hospital at the end of the two weeks. The only requirement that UPS pbutton their managers was that they had to bring back what they learned from the experience and implement the concepts into their management at UPS. Here is a secular company that values the experience of going on "missions" and yet it is often difficult to get a pastor to promote a mission trip in their own church. Seldom do you see churches who actually instruct, encourage and expect their members to be going local or globally.

I think it is great that society feels the need to promote the idea of charity and responsibility for one's neighbor but isn't it sad that secular society values community involvement more than the church? Wasn't this Jesus' idea? Didn't he instruct his followers to do this? What happened to the church taking responsibility for the welfare of their community?

A good question to ponder; if your church picked up and moved tomorrow would your community or neighborhood in which your church is located miss you?