Recently in a conversation about the Gospel someone told me that they weren’t interested in being a part of the Body of Christ because they didn’t want to feel guilty about everything they did all the time. (I thought to myself that I wouldn’t want to be  part of that religion either!) Unfortunately, this person seemed to have the impression that being a follower of Christ consists of nothing more than understanding a list of rules, then feeling bad whenever you break one (or a hundred and one) each day, and finally saying you’re sorry to God so he doesn’t punish you. It sounded to me like this person felt that the primary emotion one feels if they are a Christ-follower is that of guilt.

As much as it pained me to hear this person articulate this view of a guilt-ridden Christianity, I can’t say that it surprised me. As a Protestant, I have been brought up to know that without a doubt justification (i.e. God’s legal declaration that I am no longer guilty and condemned) is by God’s grace alone. However, there seems to be a prevalent attitude among those same Protestants that sanctification (i.e. the process of becoming more like Christ – putting off sin and putting on Christ’s virtues) is all of my own effort. This is of course absolutely untrue – all of salvation is by grace through faith (cf. Gal 3:3) – and I would be happy to articulate a theology of sanctification in a later post if anyone is interested. But my primary focus here is more narrowly about the emotion invoked through this “pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps” view of sanctification is that of guilt. Why? Well, quite simply, it’s impossible to make ourselves like Christ without His grace enabling our obedience, and so when we look at it as a task we must perform we fail. All the time. And the natural response (at least ‘natural’ from our fallen perspective) is to feel guilty.

Now, someone might say at this point, but don’t you believe that we’re going to fail (i.e. sin in some capacity) at one point or another for the rest of our lives? The answer to that question, unless you find yourself in a strand of Wesleyan theology, is yes. The perfection of the believer before eternity is not (in my opinion) found in Scripture. So the next question would be, if we’re all going to fail, for the rest of our lives, isn’t that a life full of guilt? If you are looking at sanctification as your responsibility in absence of the grace of God, then yes. But if you look at the Christian life as one that consists not in trying harder to be good but in relying on the cross, depending on new mercies, every morning, then no.* When our primary foundation consists of the grace of Jesus Christ found in the cross and resurrection and not our own effort then our primary response is not guilt, but gratitude. Gratitude for forgiveness through repentance, yes, but also gratitude for the fact that it is not up to us to change us into the image of Christ. Gratitude that Christ has already seated us in the heavenly places with him and blessed us with every spiritual blessing, regardless of our ‘effort’ for him. Gratitude that although we live as living sacrifices to Him, if and when we fail he is still our heavenly Father who loves us and brings us to repentance and an even more intimate relationship with Him. The emotion that this attitude towards the Christian life is one of gratitude, not guilt.

Recently one of my seminary professors read a quote out of a journal article that said something along the lines of, ‘If you’re first response when you sin is “I should do better,” you have missed the Gospel. Our first response after we sin should always be, instead, “Forgive me for my sin and thank you Jesus for the sufficiency of your death and resurrection.” ‘

May we live with the emotion of gratitude in our hearts toward the Good News that Christ’s blood is sufficient.

*NOTE: I am not saying we should not feel sorrow over sin. But there is a difference between responding to that sorrow by feeling that I could have done better (i.e. guilt) and responding in repentance and thanksgiving (i.e. gratitude).

Well once again I have neglected my poor blog. I’m sorry blog. I thought that this summer I’d have a chance to write about some things unrelated to school that occasionally cross my mind. Those things that every so often waft through my brain that didn’t have to do with school since I started this blog, though, now have everything to do with what I am studying. What used to interest me on the side that I wasn’t studying in school, the canonical shape of the Scripture, has now actually become the focus of my dissertation. I know I’ve already mentioned this here in previous posts, but the point is that since changing my dissertation topic, I’ve also had the chance to start blogging on my dissertation topic at another blog site. This blog site actually has professional-looking pictures and a paid for template (and the topics we discuss are of course very interesting) so I’d encourage you to check it out if you are at all interested in the canon. You can find the new site at canonicaltheology.com. Please check it out and please comment.

So what does this mean for this blog? Well what it means is that what I had intended to post on this blog is now being reserved either for a) my dissertation or for b) canonicaltheology.com. And that’s why I haven’t blogged in awhile. I just haven’t known what to write about. The thing that interests me the most is being written about at this other site. What I intend to do here now is post less academic stuff and just personal events, opinions, thoughts, random musings, etc. FYI.

Last Thursday Dr. Daniel Akin, President of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, presented 12 Axioms that he believes are necessary for a Great Commission Resurgence in the SBC. You can read the manuscript here. Overall I thought this was a great message; Dr. Akin said some things very clearly that need to be said by someone with his position in our denomination, and I was proud of my President. But that’ s not saying anything new. Many in the blogosphere have sung the praises of his message, so what I want to add is simply an observation about the future of this conversation.

In my opinion, Dr. Akin hit on some key points that will generate alot of discussion in the following weeks (should the SBC change their name? should we merge institutions? should we look at and fix all the bureaucratic red tape that CP funds go through? should we set aside methodological differences for gospel unity?), and he certainly got very specific and pointed at certain times. I think his message has the potential to unite Southern Baptists in many areas in which there has previously been discord.

However, one area in which Dr. Akin did not lay out a course of action was in his discussion on theological triage. He very accurately presented the way in which it can help Southern Baptists unite around those things which are primary and secondary, but aside from eschatology he did not focus on what specifically should be considered tertiary and not secondary (I realize he mentions Calvinism, but he did not specifically address David Allen’s comment at the John 3:16 conference that a move toward 5-point Calvinism is a move away from the gospel). In my opinion, this is the area that the SBC will continue to see discord in until someone clearly delineates what is tertiary and what is secondary. I do not fault Dr. Akin for not addressing this, nor do I think it took away from the power of his message. I simply think that this will be the area that provides the most discord in the future. Someone (maybe Dr. Akin in another chapel throw down? ) will have to show Southern Baptists what they should consider tertiary matters, or else we will continue to fight over (and possibly split over) things like 1) spiritual gifts, and specifically PPL, 2) Calvinism, and especially the place of strict 5-point Calvinists in the SBC, and 3) alchohol. Unfortunately I think this last issue will provide the most controversy, but perhaps I’ll get to that at some other time. I hope this is addressed in the near future, because it is going to have a great impact on the future of the denomination.

I just ran across a new website, http://devotionalchristian.com/. It is designed to be a resource for all kinds of devotionals online. If you like having a set place to go for your daily devotional, this is a great resource tool. Tony Kummer’s involved in it, so you know it has to be good.

[I really do think it's a great website, but there's also a contest to win some book money if you post about it! ]

Today is Good Friday, the day on which, a few years shy of 2,000 years ago, Jesus of Nazareth died through crucifixion. But the question invariably comes: why would we call a day on which an innocent man was murdered ‘good’? Because through Jesus Christ’s death on the cross, the penalty for man’s sin was paid. The good news of the Gospel is this: that man was created to be in perfect fellowship with God the Creator, but instead of living in that perfect fellowship we have all chosen to love other things more than God. We have all sinned against Him and so we are separated from Him, no longer in fellowship with Him. Because we are finite creatures and He is an infinite Creator, we cannot repay Him for that sin. We cannot atone for our own disobedience. Further, God, because He is above all things holy, must carry out justice against sin. The penalty for sin must be paid for. But instead of merely destroying humanity in order to bring about justice for our sin, He came down to earth and took on the form of a man, the man Christ Jesus, who, because He is perfect and because He is the Incarnate God, was able to pay for our sin through His death on the cross. Through faith (trust) that His sacrifice is the only way that we can have our sin paid for and through repenting (turning from it completely) of that sin, we can be restored to the fellowship we were meant to have with the Mighty, Majestic, Just, Holy, Loving, Creative, Beautiful, True, One God of the Universe. That is the reason we can call it Good Friday! Praise the Lord! 

The Bible can always say it better than I ever can, so I leave you with Isaiah 53 (written about 500 years before Christ’s birth). 

Isaiah 53

 ¹ Who has believed our message 
       and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?

 ² He grew up before him like a tender shoot, 
       and like a root out of dry ground. 
       He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, 
       nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

 ³ He was despised and rejected by men, 
       a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. 
       Like one from whom men hide their faces 
       he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

 ⁴ Surely he took up our infirmities 
       and carried our sorrows, 
       yet we considered him stricken by God, 
       smitten by him, and afflicted.

 ⁵ But he was pierced for our transgressions, 
       he was crushed for our iniquities; 
       the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, 
       and by his wounds we are healed.

 ⁶ We all, like sheep, have gone astray, 
       each of us has turned to his own way; 
       and the LORD has laid on him 
       the iniquity of us all.

 ⁷ He was oppressed and afflicted, 
       yet he did not open his mouth; 
       he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, 
       and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, 
       so he did not open his mouth.

 ⁸ By oppression and judgment he was taken away. 
       And who can speak of his descendants? 
       For he was cut off from the land of the living; 
       for the transgression of my people he was stricken. 

 ⁹ He was assigned a grave with the wicked, 
       and with the rich in his death, 
       though he had done no violence, 
       nor was any deceit in his mouth.

 ¹⁰ Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, 
       and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering, 
       he will see his offspring and prolong his days, 
       and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.

 ¹¹ After the suffering of his soul, 
       he will see the light of life and be satisfied; 
       by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, 
       and he will bear their iniquities.

 ¹² Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, 
       and he will divide the spoils with the strong, 
       because he poured out his life unto death, 
       and was numbered with the transgressors. 
       For he bore the sin of many, 
       and made intercession for the transgressors.

This is a powerful clip. I’d encourage you to watch it and think through how we present the Gospel to a lost and dying world.

A while back (I think almost a year ago) the Center for Faith and Culture at SEBTS screened the debate on the existence of God between John Lennox and Richard Dawkins. Both men teach at Oxford University, but Lennox is a devout Christian and Dawkins is an avowed atheist. This is a classic debate and Lennox does a great job of showing just how intellectually unstimulating atheism (and Dawkins) really is. The point of this post, though, is simply to share a link with you: you can find the full debate here. Enjoy.

(As a matter of full disclosure, I came across this link at Ross Parker’s blog. You’re my homeboy Ross.)

This is the continuation of the previous post. Here I deal with strategies needed for a sodality-oriented church planting plan to work.

Strategic Needs for the Sodality

Introduction

Indigenous Leadership Paul’s strategy (and all sodality-minded strategies) is to bring converted believers into a new local church that will, in turn, through its own ‘purity of worship’, produce new sodalities. It is not simply to start a new church that will perpetuate its self, but one that will continue Paul’s mission of spreading the glory of God (through sodalities). The key here, however, is not Paul’s recognition of the necessity of planting sodality-minded churches. It is Paul’s use of the indigenous believers to carry on the new modality and the future sodality. Elizabeth Elliot speaks of the Ecuadorian missionaries’ problem in this strategy. One of their biggest obstacles in speaking the Word of God to the Ecuadorian Indians was the fact that they always felt like outsiders. “The missionaries prayed and discussed these problems, but still they felt themselves foreigners-felt they would always be foreigners. The Indian himself must be the answer-he must learn the Scriptures, be taught, and in turn teach his own people.”<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[1]<!–[endif]–> The most important aspect of the sodality is its emphasis on its temporary nature. Its purpose is to spread the Gospel and to provide the means for indigenous new believers to form their own church/modality. It is not to stay and operate the new church. Jesus taught this in the Great Commission when he said all believers are called to baptize new believers and teach everything He has commanded; Paul used it in his missionary bands; and more modern missionaries such as Carey followed their examples. It is evident that what is missing today from local church missions is not only the sodality but also the understanding of the sodality’s role. That is, the local church must understand that its sodality’s purpose is not simply to plant a church and leave it be, but to train the indigenous leaders it has baptized to infiltrate their own church with the white-hot worship that sent out the original sodality. Then the planted church will not be simply a new self-serving modality, but a “purified” church that will produce new sodalities.

Economic Independence Another important aspect of all successful sodalities is that they are largely self-sufficient. Paul’s team was economically self-sufficient when needed, but “it was also dependent on…the Antioch church…and upon other churches that had risen as a result of his evangelistic labors.”<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[2]<!–[endif]–> To be economically self-sufficient meant that they learned a skill that would be necessary wherever they went, and in Paul’s case it was tent making. This trend can be seen in other historical missions, such as the agricultural developments of the Benedictine monks, the indigo farm of William Carey, and the missions of the Moravians. “Most of the early [Moravians] went out as ‘tentmakers’ (artisans and farmers)…so that the main expenses involved were in the sending of them out.”<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[3]<!–[endif]–> It is clear that one of the main characteristics of the sodality is economic self-sufficiency when it is not possible for the local church to provide support.

Summary of Strategic Needs It seems that there are three main characteristics of the sodality that must be imparted by the local church. One is that it must be sent forth due to a passion for God in the local church and its individual members. The strategy for this has been discussed above. The second is that the members of the sodality must be trained to both plant a church and train the members of that church to produce new sodalities. The third is that it must be economically self-sufficient at times through acquiring skills that will be necessary to the indigenous people of the target mission. So, what is truly needed is a new strategy for training.

Training Required for Strategic Needs

Crossing Barriers The first training required is one in which members of the sodality learn the cultural, socio-economic, and linguistic barriers they will face, and how to overcome them. They also must learn what trades are most vital to those that they are attempting to convert, and how to acquire those trades. This is where the role of mission boards comes into play. It may seem that it is the belief of this paper that mission boards are unnecessary and hindering missions activity. This is not true. Mission boards are vital in the fact that they have the ability to find where the need is and provide the information on the need for local churches. To say it simply, mission boards should be the way that local churches obtain informational support, not the sole venue of sending. This information is already being collected, it just needs to be directed to the local church when it needs that information. That being said, the structure of training sodality members on barriers and overcoming them has been, by-and-large, already established by mission boards.

Indigenous Leadership The second training method required is that of teaching indigenous church members how to build up leaders, and then teaching those leaders how to bring about a sanctified church. Some might attempt to come up with a training strategy that included something such as the three points of training indigenous pastors or a how-to guide. However, the training program has already been laid by Jesus Christ, Paul, William Carey, and even the former part of this paper. Training indigenous pastors to be leaders and to lead their church to white-hot worship and forming sodalities comes down to one thing: the stressing of the importance of the glory of God. This sounds like a general statement that does not include any strategy, but this is not the case. Stressing the glory of God in teaching indigenous leaders produces a strategic plan that is merely to rely on God. Building up a body of believers and then sending them out should be done through the Word of God and prayer to God. If the sodality of the local church can communicate the importance of this to indigenous leaders, they will in turn communicate it to their own church. When this church turns to reliance on prayer and the Word of God, they too will feel the call to be sent out and will form their own sodality. This is what Jesus meant when he said, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations…teaching them to obey everything I have commanded” (emphasis added).<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[4]<!–[endif]–> The strategy for training is already given in this sentence, and it is to make disciples of all nations through the teaching of Jesus’ commandments. Therefore, the training strategy for indigenous leaders is to teach them the Word of God and what it says about leadership, and to show them how to teach from the Word of God. An important note here is that it is not the goal of the sodality to transplant its own culture. It must present the message, as well as the teaching, in a way that is understandable and comprehensible to the people. When the Word of God is preached by an indigenous pastor, white-hot indigenous worship is produced, which in turn fuels an indigenous sodality. This is the aim of the local church, to train and leave behind these indigenous pastors so that the natural progression of missions can be achieved. It is a chain reaction.

Practical Ways to Carry Out Strategies

Modality-Minded

If the local church has a strategy that will allow it to be pure enough to send out a sodality, and the sodality understands its true mission is to produce a like-minded chain reaction, the question now becomes, “What are the practical ways to send out these sodalities from the local church?” The first few ways come from the modality itself, and are there so that those who are not members of the sodality can still be involved in its mission. These modality members can participate strategically through their giving, their prayers, and their time. They can give monetarily directly to the sodality (a missionary from their own church) or they can give to the mission boards to facilitate study and training. They can give their time in numerous ways. Some of these include sitting on a missions committee that devises new sodalities such as age-based missions; through short-term mission trips or trips to support the sodality; or through teaching other church members about the importance of missions in a Sunday school or perspectives class. They can give the most help by praying for the sodality, because it shows that all aspects of the mission are relying on God. Prayer can be at scheduled times, or it can be an individual commitment. Either way, it is something that shows a commitment to the glorification of God.

Sodality-Minded

Short-term Missions To send out members of the sodality, the local church must make a decision on whether they want it to be a short-term or long-term mission. For short-term missions, the local church needs to do two things: locate a need for a short-term mission, and develop a strategy for that mission. This strategy could be to preach strictly from the Bible for a week or two, it could be to build relationships with the people for a week and then bring about the Bible message gradually the next week, or it could be through humanitarian efforts that provide a bridge for the Gospel message. However, the strategy that seems to work best throughout history is a fusion of those three, both in long-term and short-term missions. What is important, though, in short-term missions, is the ability to convey the message of Christ using defined bridges in the time allotted. This must be a strategy that is developed beforehand by the group.

Long-term Missions Pertaining to long-term missions, the strategy has already been given. The sodality must identify a need, the barriers they must cross, a source of economic independence, and a training method for indigenous leaders. The identifying of the need and the training in crossing linguistic and cultural barriers, as stated previously, is readily available through mission boards. The local church should first pray for God’s will in the reaching of a people, contact the mission boards, and obtain the information needed. Long-term missions are exactly what they seem to be: long-term. Therefore, for these missions the local church can acquire the information and use it for however long the sodality perpetuates afterward, training new members and sending them also. In order to determine a source of economic independence, the local church should again look to the mission boards for the most effective source. Training can be provided through the local church for support mechanisms such as artisanship. If more complicated methods such as agriculture are required, classes can be taught and the sodality can be sent on a short-term trip to the area to learn the required skills. Economic independence should be necessary after sending the sodality. The emphasis is put on financial support only for sending the sodality because the modality’s purpose is not to sustain the sodality, only to help it get on its feet. The rest must be in the hands of the sodality, thus the need for training in an economic trade in the indigenous country.

Indigenous Leadership The last part of training is for discipling indigenous leaders. This may seem to be a strategy, but it is as old as Christianity itself. It is the contextualization of the church, and Paul was the first to use it. It is a strategy that simply entails teaching the Bible in a way the indigenous leaders can understand and convey to their people. As has been discussed previously, teaching the Word of God is what fuels the magnification of God, which produces sodalities. All that is needed is the teaching of the Bible in an indigenous context and how to convey it to the people. It is beyond the scope of this paper to discuss in detail the best ways to contextualize or teach indigenous leaders. However, it is important to develop the strategy to train sodality members how to contextualize. David J. Hesselgrave describes it very succinctly in “The Role of Culture in Communication.” According to him, the missionary must be able to first “decode” his own understanding of the Bible into its original intent, and then “encode” it in a way that the indigenous leaders can understand. To do this, the sodality members must be trained in one thing, and that is Biblical interpretation and exegesis.<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[5]<!–[endif]–> With the Bible as its basis, the sodality members will be able to understand where the Holy Spirit leads all of God’s children, including the one’s to whom they are ministering.

Conclusion

What have been discussed in this paper are the theological and historical reasons for having the local church as the primary mover in the missions world. These include the Biblical basis for using the sodality, the Biblical means of creating a sodality, and the Biblical and historical means of creating a new modality and sodality. More importantly, these discussions have led to the practical ways to obtain a Biblical missions program in the local church. These include Sunday school, missions fairs, and discipleship to promote white-hot worship in the church. This will lead to sending out missionaries through long and short-term missions, or to supporting those missionaries through prayers, tithing, and time. Most importantly, to send out missionaries, training programs must be developed so that indigenous pastors can be raised up and indigenous churches can be started. These churches will in turn produce more sodalities, thus exponentially expanding the kingdom of God. These training programs will include how to cross linguistic and cultural barriers in the area of the mission. These can be obtained from mission boards. They will include how to support the sodality in an economically independent manner, which can be obtained from the mission boards as well as the local church. Most importantly, sodality members must be trained in Biblical interpretation and exegesis, so that they can teach indigenous pastors to obey all of Jesus’ commandments (including how to lead a church), as well as baptize new believers. What is being achieved, then, is not a new strategy for missions, or a strategy, per se, for the local church. It is simply a following of the Biblical and historical examples of Paul, William Carey, and others, and most importantly, of Jesus. This, in all things, is the ultimate way of glorifying God and expanding His kingdom.

<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>

---

<!–[endif]–>

<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[1]<!–[endif]–>. Elliot, Elizabeth. Through Gates of Splendor. (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 1981) 47.

 

 

<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[2]<!–[endif]–> Winter, Ralph. “Two Structures of God’s Redemptive Mission.”

 

<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[3]<!–[endif]–> Grant, Colin A. “Europe’s Moravians: A Pioneer Missionary Church.” Winter and Hawthorne 275.

<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[4]<!–[endif]–> Matthew 28:19-20

<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[5]<!–[endif]–> Hesselgrave, David J. “The Role of Culture in Communication.” Winter and Hawthorne 392-296.

I wrote a paper on church planting for my missions class back in 2005. It’ s nothing special, but given the talk about bureaucratically heavy missions organizations (see the AL comment in the comment section of the linked post) and the like that has been going around lately, I thought I’d offer my take on what missions looks like if it’s in the (primary) hands of the local church. I’ll post it in two posts so you can take a break in the middle.

THE LOCAL CHURCH AS SODALITY

Introduction

Missions have been, from the first journey by Paul, a function of the local church. In all areas of missions and evangelism, journeys have begun for Christ through the passion for Christ in the local church. Paul began his journey from the church in Antioch because the believers grew in knowledge and discipleship, and through prayer they decided that Paul should go out and spread the Good News.[1] In the more modern era, William Carey’s famous mission to India was fueled through the passion for Christ in the local church.[2] However, in today’s world, mission boards and denominations fuel missions, instead of the local church. While these mission boards and denominations are doing great things for the Lord, it is impossible to ignore the role of the local church in missionary history. In fact, it is even more impossible to ignore the prominence of the local church in sending missionaries in missionary history and relegate it to a position below the denominational and mission boards. However, this is what has happened in today’s missionary world. Instead of these boards being a link between local churches, they have become the dominant and almost sole sender of missionaries.

Two Goals

If the Great Commission is to be fulfilled, it seems that, by looking at Biblical and historical examples, it must be through the local church, and not solely through mission boards. Two things must occur for this to be possible. One is for the church to come to an understanding of its role in missions. This role is not simply to volunteer members for missions, or to back those members monetarily, or to direct those members to boards. The church’s role in missions is to provide its members with preaching and teaching that will lead to their white-hot worship of God. This worship will lead them to a desire to spread their devotion to God.[3] John Piper says that the goal of God is to be worshipped in all nations, and it is up to missions to let the nations know that.[4]

Love for the Glory of God It is obvious throughout history that the men and women who have changed the approach to missions in the field have seen Jesus Christ as Lord of their lives and have responded to His Great Commission simply through love for Him and His glory. William Carey, father of modern Protestant missions, spoke of three ways to revive missions. They are to pray, to give, and to plan.[5] In all three of these, his main purpose was the glory of God, not a strategic plan. The Church of Antioch did not delegate Paul’s band of missionaries because they were good speakers or energetic people, but because they were “set apart” by God.[6] Both of these responses to the missionary call are, in their essence, responses to the love of God given through Jesus Christ. Even more important for this paper is the fact that the love of God that fueled these missions was sparked by a love for God in the local church. It was not sparked by a new strategy or numbers-based goals. In other words, missions should not be approached as a strategy or even a goal. It should be approached as a response to the love of God through the Lordship of Jesus Christ fueled by the local church.

Primary Sending Is From the Local Church From this ‘revival’ of the Lordship of Christ in the church naturally comes a response to the Great Commission. The question then becomes, what is the role of the local church in sending missionaries? Is it simply to give monetarily to mission boards, or is there another, better way for local churches to send missionaries? Biblically and historically, it seems that the role of the local church is the prominent role in sending missionaries.[7] Local churches, like that of Antioch for Paul or Carey’s local church are typically the ones by whom great missionaries are sent. Furthermore, these missionaries do not rely on the local church to support them, but become self-sufficient. This self-sufficiency is the heart of the successful historical missionary structure. It allows the local church to concentrate its monetary giving in other areas, such as sending out other missionaries, and also allows a church started by a sodality to be financially independent also. Another part of this missionary structure is to start a new church that will breed its own missionary structure. Ironically, denominational authority in missions puts more of an emphasis on the church structure than on the missionary structure. Boards have historically been concerned with planting churches that witness in traditional (“one-by-one”) ways and have ignored the indigenous church’s role (people group movements) in missions.[8]

So, the second necessary change in the approach to missions in the local church is for the sending of missionaries to be primarily from local churches. A few things must happen for this to be possible. The first is for the church to come under the Lordship of Christ, which was discussed above. The second is for training to be developed so that missionaries do not go into the field unequipped. Missionaries must be equipped in two ways: they must have an excellent knowledge of the field they are entering, and they must be trained in how to train indigenous pastors. The former of these is developed well by mission boards, and does not need much more reflection in this paper. However, the latter is severely lacking in missions today. What specifically is severely lacking is the training of indigenous churches to also fulfill their Great Commission. This is the second necessity for local churches to take control of missions: to train their missionaries on how to develop an indigenous church with indigenous pastors, which will in turn develop their own missionary structure.[9]

Missions Strategy for a Local Church

The purpose of this paper is not to take away from the work done by mission boards or the Church as a whole. It is also not this paper’s purpose to bring about a new strategy in missions. However, generalities about mission boards and the Church must sometimes be used, as above, in order to show the true purpose of this paper. This paper’s purpose is to develop a mission strategy for one local church. It has been shown that in order for a local church to take on its true role in missions, two things must be accomplished. Those are to develop within the church a love for Jesus Christ and His glory, and to train missionaries in planting churches that will send out their own missionaries. Therefore, this paper will focus on how to develop a strategy based on Biblical and historical examples that will accomplish these two goals and, subsequently, produce a thriving missions program in one local church.

Local Church Purity

In “The Hope for a Coming World Revival,” Robert E. Coleman says, “a purified church will be able to receive unhindered the power of the outpoured Spirit, and thereby more boldly enter into the mission of Christ.”[10] To comment on a purified church is to comment on that church’s worship, because, as stated before, worship leads to a magnification of God, man’s ultimate goal. This magnification of God, from a missions standpoint, pushes men and women to spread their worship to every tribe, tongue, and nation. John Piper shows how to accomplish that purity in worship and sending. Piper says in God’s Passion for His Glory that the chief end of man is to glorify God,[11] and in Let the Nations Be Glad he says that to glorify God is to worship Him in satisfaction.[12] What is being said is that for purity in the church to be produced, man’s sole objective should be to delight in the Lord. Also in Let the Nations Be Glad is the idea that missions are fueled by worship. So, in order to accomplish the Great Commission, the Church must have the central goal of worshipping/glorifying God. Through attempting to attain this goal, missions will be fueled. The question for this part of the paper is, then, how does this local church develop fervor for the worship and glorification of God?

Meaning of Worship To understand how the local church can develop fervor for worship, the word must first be understood. In Brothers We Are Not Professionals, John Piper claims that

“the essence of worship is not external, localized acts, but an inner, Godward experience that shows itself externally not primarily in church services…but primarily in daily expressions of allegiance to God.”[13]

He goes on to say that “worship is all about consciously reflecting the worth or value of God.”[14] From these two statements, it can be concluded that the collective worship of God in the local church is made up of individuals attempting to magnify God in their own lives. What now is being sought, then, is a strategy to develop that individual magnification. A few practical tools used to accomplish this in the local church are exegetical preaching, Sunday school, and missions fairs. These can all be used to teach about the glory of God.

Discipleship The most important tool in this strategy, though, is discipleship. The Great Commission first mentions it, when Jesus commands men to “make disciples of all nations,”[15] and it is mentioned in the sending of Paul,[16] William Carey, and the Moravian missionaries. Discipleship has sometimes been defined in broad terms; however, in Robert E. Coleman’s The Master Plan of Evangelism, it is described as this.

“Jesus could not possibly give [the people] the care they needed. His only hope was to get leaders inspired by His life who would do it for Him…He devoted Himself to a few men, rather than the masses, so that the masses could at last be saved.”[17] This is seen later in the home churches of the church at Antioch, and more modernly in places like China, where individuals are discipled in small groups.[18] Mark Dever’s “9 Marks of a Healthy Church” states that a Biblical worldview (i.e. exegetical preaching, Biblical view of conversion, etc.) is necessary for discipleship, church growth, and leadership.[19] In other words, Individuals must be brought up in discipleship to produce church growth and leadership. All of these aspects of a healthy church develop apostolic passion, which is characterized by apostolic focus, abandonment, prayer, and decision-making.[20] These are the characteristics of someone who will be sent out as a missionary. So, in this local church, this strategy must be carried out through a passion for discipleship and a Biblical worldview. When this occurs, apostolic passion will develop and the local church will have the motive to send out its own missionaries.

How Are Called Members Sent to the Field?

Modality and Sodality The question now becomes, “How do we send those with apostolic passion into the mission field?” Throughout the history of the church, and especially in the origins of the church, there have been two ’structures’. One is the modality, which is simply a body of believers that come together as a community of the faithful. The second is the sodality, which is organized out of “committed, experienced workers who affiliated themselves as a second decision beyond membership in the first structure.[21] This ’second decision’ is to go out and fulfill the Great Commission. These two structures have been used beginning with Paul and the church at Antioch, through the Catholic Church and the monasteries, to William Carey and Serampore. It is not the purpose of this paper to give a historical account of the success of these structures; however, it is important to note that it has been the dominant structure until the Reformation. Even after the Reformation, Carey, Hudson Taylor, and other prominent mission teams used it very successfully. The trend towards denominational boards and planting churches (modalities) without a commitment to the Great Commission has left the sodality somewhat ignored. However, the sodality is obviously just as important historically and Biblically as the modality.

Modalities Sending Sodalities In order to bring the local church’s sole emphasis away from the modality and put an equal emphasis on the sodality, a few things must occur. The first is the purity of worship in the modality, which will result in the desire for the sodality. This issue is discussed above. It will result in the local church to simply send out those who are “set apart” by the Holy Spirit through “worshiping the Lord and fasting.”[22] This sending out can be through a variety of ways. It can be on short-term mission trips, long-term mission trips to a place where the missionaries feel led, seeking the denominational boards’ support and being sent through them, or it can be through the original strategy of Paul and his missionary band. This strategy was simply to go to a place where they had an entryway to the people’s hearts (in Paul’s case, Judaism) and speak the Gospel. It is the most prominent way of sending out in history, and therefore will be discussed in more detail.

Meaning of the Sodality After Paul and his band achieved their primary goal of spreading the Gospel in an area, they then proceeded to “make disciples; bring converts to a sense of their corporateness as members of Christ and of one another as custodians of the gospel of the kingdom; and finally, organize them into local congregations in which individual members commit themselves to one another and to the order and discipline of the Spirit of God.”[23] The last strategic part, where the local congregation has individual members committing themselves to God, is what Winter refers to as a sodality. “Paul’s missionary band [sodality] can be considered a prototype of all subsequent missionary endeavors organized out of committed, experienced workers who affiliated themselves as a second decision beyond membership in the first structure [modality/church]” (emphasis added).[24]

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[1] Winter, Ralph. “Two Structures of God’s Redemptive Mission.” United States Center for World Missions Online. 20 November 2001.

<http://www.uscwm.org/mobilization_division/resources/web_articles_11-20-01/Two%20Structures%20for%20Mob%20/two_structures.html>

[2] George, Timothy. Faithful Witness: The Life and Mission of William Carey. (Christian History Institute, 1998) 55-80.

[3] Piper, John. Let the Nations Be Glad! The Supremacy of God In Missions. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 2003) 41.

[4] Ibid., 225

[5] Carey, William. “An Enquiry Into the Obligation of Christians, to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathen. In Which the Religious State of the Different Nations of the World, the Success of Former Undertakings, and the Practicability of Further Undertakings Are Considered.” William Carey College Online. 18 September 2001. <http://www.wmcarey.edu/carey/enquiry/anenquiry.pdf

[6] Acts 13:2. All Scripture quotations use the New International Version unless otherwise noted.

[7] Winter, Ralph. “Two Structures in God’s Redemptive Mission.”

[8] McGavran, Donald. “A Church in Every People: Plain Talk About a Difficult Subject.” Winter and Hawthorne 617-622.

Winter, Ralph D., and Steven C. Hawthorne, eds. Perspectives on the World Christian Movement. Pasadena, California: William Carey Library, 1999.

[9] Smalley, William A. “Cultural Implications of an Indigenous Church.” Winter and Hawthorne 474-479.

[10] Coleman, Robert E. “The Hope of a Coming World Revival.” Winter and Hawthorne 190.

[11] Piper, John. God’s Passion for His Glory: Living the Vision of Jonathan Edwards. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1998) 31-47.

[12] Piper, John. Let the Nations Be Glad! The Supremacy of God In Missions. 226.

[13] Piper, John. Brothers, We Are Not Professionals. (Nashville, TN: Desiring God Foundation, 2002) 232-233.

[14] Ibid., 233.

[15] Matthew 28:18-21

[16] Acts 13:4

[17] Coleman, Robert E. The Master Plan of Evangelism. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1993) 35-36.

[18] Wang, Thomas and Sharon Chan. “Christian Witness to the Chinese People.” Winter and Hawthorne 639-645.

[19] Dever, Mark. “9 Marks.” Nine Marks Online. <http://www.9marks.org/CC_Content_Page/0,,PTID314526|CHID616736|CIID,00.html

[20] Floyd McClung. “Apostolic Passion.” Winter and Hawthorne 185-187.

[21] Winter, Ralph. “Two Structures of God’s Redemptive Mission.”

[22] Acts 13:2

[23] Glasser, Arthur F. Crucial Dimensions in World Evangelization. (Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library, 1976) 27.

[24] Winter, Ralph. Two Structures of God’s Redemptive Mission.”

Now this is funny, found it on drudge report: