What next: Keep on Keeping On!

Show Video: This is Discipleship.

Spirit Filled and Spirit formed.

What is the Church?

There are many answers to this question as there are ways of doing Church. There are, as been said ‘ditches on either side of the road when trying to define church.’

Many churches, post-lock down are changing their vision, their mission and in essence their identity.

“Who are we and what are we here for? . . . What is our mission?” The Mission of God’s People, Christopher Wright.

An we should begin to inquire of God, who we are as the Church, what we’re called to do!

Here’s the deal, you need to be in a Church where

you can fit, where you can grow and you can serve.

In his classic book The Call, Os Guinness writes,

The problem with Western Christians is not that they aren’t where they should be, but that they aren’t what they should be where they are.

Our mission is as big as God’s mission and as big as our God himself.

What is the Church supposed to do?

Matthew 28:16–20 ESV

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

In simplest terms, the mission of the church is the Great Commission—what Philip Ryken calls “a clear, unambiguous statement of [the church’s] mission to the world.”

Simple life, Simple Faith, Simple Church

The church is a sign and instrument of the kingdom of God, a people united by faith in the gospel announcement of the crucified and risen King Jesus. The mission of the church is to go into the world in the power of the Spirit and make disciples by proclaiming this gospel, calling people to respond in ongoing repentance and faith, and demonstrating the truth and power of the gospel by living under the lordship of Christ for the glory of God and the good of the world.

Our task as the gathered body of Christ is to make disciples, by bearing witness to Jesus Christ the Son in the power of the Holy Spirit to glory of God the Father.

Simply put, disciple-making is about following Jesus and taking others with you.

it’s about reality.

Not as demographic groups, but as individuals.Not by chasing trends, but by following Jesus.Not by insisting on our comfortable traditions, but by providing an eternal answer within a rapidly-changing context.

Small Church, Big Heart.

Community of common people doing uncommon deedsLove the Lord your God, Love your neighbor as yourself

Grow Big people, not a big church.

Discipleship, Relationship, Mission.

Personally, God has shown thee o’man, what is Good and what the Lord has required of you.

Jesus doesn’t really tell them, at this point, how they are supposed to go about it.

How and When

Acts 1:8 ESV

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’”

Here Jesus calls the disciples his witnesses, exhorting them to share the things they’ve seen and heard in his presence.

As we make disciples, we can share not only the accounts of what the disciples saw, but our own accounts of what we’ve personally experienced as we’ve followed Jesus.

My belief is that God himself is the giver of Gifts and the giver of His presence and the one who needs to manifest his power, and often does amongst the willing.

The big word for the way we think about Church is the word “Ecclesiology” as the greek word for church is Ecclesia, meaning: a called-out assembly or congregation.

You need to see itself as being “called out” by God.

God has called each of us from death to life, from darkness into his glorious light, and he’s done this for a reason.

Abram and his descendants are called to be a blessing to all nations of the world and maybe we need to start right here where we live.

Start Where you are and where you live.

Bible Studies, fellowship time.

People need ministry.

If the church wants to make a difference in the world, it must be different from the world.

God has called the church to be separate from sin (1 Peter 1:16), to embrace fellowship with other believers (Acts 2:42), and to be a light to the world (Matthew 5:14).

There is the Church Militant (Christians on Earth) and Church Triumphant (Christians in Heaven.

missio Dei

“‘Come out from them and be separate,’ says the Lord. ‘Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you’” (2 Corinthians 6:17).

If you asked, most people would say that the mission of the church is to Proclaim, Preserve and to Display the Gospel, and fundamentally I do not disagree with this understanding.

For me, the mission of the Church is to make disciples, build up the saints, and to most importantly, glorify Jesus.

The healing and restoring of the world is happening through the transformative Spirit of love.

As we work out our differences and difficulties as people of color and whites, as men and as women, we understand that it is Spirit God who can reconcile us and bring us together.

In recognition of Christ’s message of embracing the Other and welcoming the poor, we need to regain this lost sense of connection with each other and to each other.

When wealthy people give their money to the poor, they enter into a deep solidarity with “the least and the lost” that we are called to care for. We enter into a similar solidarity when we embrace the Other.

Third, it takes time, energy, and commitment to truly embrace the Other.

Embracing is not a verbal proclamation. It is not a simple act of getting to know the Other. It requires more than that.

It requires patient and persistent love. It requires that we get to know them and accept them, and then embrace them fully with our body, heart, and soul.

The cross must be central to every dimension of the mission of God’s people.

the love of God in the cross to the ethical demands of what this great salvation accomplishes. God’s salvation of his people not only secures their future eternal blessings, but their present identity, and thus mission in life, is fundamentally changed.

Many church leaders lament the fact that much of the Western church is hardly different than the culture in which it has been placed.

We need more churches that understand our mission is not a basis for salvation, but an outworking of God’s grace through Christ powered by the Spirit.

Humanity’s original calling is found in the creation narrative. The gospel call is a redemptive return to the lost and forfeited calling of being God’s image bearers in the world. This calling has never had anything less than the entirety of God’s original, good creation in view.

We’re on a mission, and that mission is to be who God intended us to be as we live and work in his world for his glory.