Jesus came and told his disciples, "I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age."
-Matt 28:18-20

Jesus had spent the last three years of his life on earth in the company of his disciples. They followed Jesus and listened to His teachings, learned from Him, tried their best to be like Him, and some even had a very close relationship with Jesus. Often in our churches today, we think that if you have all these things, it is enough. "Just accept Jesus, read the bible, pray, and have a close relationship with Him" is often where our teaching stops. But as we see from Jesus' final message to His disciples, that is not enough. We were intended to do more. We see here that we are to go out into the world and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of our triune God, teach them what Jesus has taught us by example, and obey all that these teachings and His examples have taught us.

The only way I have found to really follow this "great commission" is to passionately love the people that God has put into our paths. Some are so easy to love, yet some are so hard. I challenge you to take another look at those in your life who are hardest to love, and try to discover how to love them. God loves them more than you know, so try to see them through God's eyes.

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Matt 28:18-20 "The Great Commission"

When we call ourselves a Christian, what are we really telling others? What are we showing others? When Jesus spoke to his disciples in Matthew 28:18-20, he was instructing them to go forth and spread the word. The instruction was to spread the Word to all nations, not just a select few. We are not to keep our faith to ourselves and our church. We are instructed to go outside our walls and spread the Word. Does this mean that we are to leave our homes, jobs, and families and go to a strange land and teach about Jesus and his plan for salvation? I really don't know if that was the intent, but I do know there are plenty of people who cross our paths on a daily basis in our own community for whom we can be disciples. A past sermon likened us to a funnel...a way for the Word to flow through, not to keep inside and horde for ourselves. If we are to reach those in need, then we need to leave the comfort of our church, our friends, and our social norms. We cannot expect people to come to the church if they perceive the church as a closed community. We must reach out and show them unconditional love and acceptance. This is what Jesus did with his disciples and followers. Being a missionary entails more than just traveling to "exotic" places. We, as a church, can either do missions, or be missions. Doing missions is admirable, but we must also be missions, that is, teach by example, not just words. James 2:14-16 speaks of this. What is faith without deeds? Do we just explain God's love for our fellow man, or do we show God's love for our fellow man? If we are going to be called Christians, then we must obey Jesus' command, set forth in Matthew, and step out of our comfort zone. If we place our trust in Him and do as He commands, He has given us His word that He will be with us until the end of times.

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Jesus, undeterred, went right ahead and gave his charge: "God authorized and commanded me to commission you: Go out and train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life, marking them by baptism in the threefold name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Then instruct them in the practice of all I have commanded you. I'll be with you as you do this, day after day after day, right up to the end of the age." (Matthew 28:18-20 MSG)

Evangelism is scary. It is awkward and can be very uncomfortable, and to avoid doing it we'll come up with any excuse. We'll tell ourselves that we aren't strong enough in our own faith to be trying to convince someone else to believe it, or we'll justify our own inaction by saying that it's only the pastors and preachers who are actually supposed to do it. I've said and thought those very things. They are easy excuses for something we all know we should be doing.

A few years ago, I remember someone asking everyone in a church service if we were fishers of men or keepers of the aquarium. Basically, he was asking if we were more preoccupied with keeping things inside the church just right and staying in our "holy huddle" than we were with joining Jesus on the mission of finding more people for Him. That was a profound question, and it has stayed with me for a long time. Am I a fisher of men, or am I a keeper of the aquarium? I think a lot of us there that day were struck by that question, but I have to wonder how many of us have done something about it.

The thing we have to remember is that unlike just about every other group in society, the church exists primarily for the benefit of its non-members. The point of the church isn't only to nurture and grow the people inside. It's not supposed to be a social gathering place for its members. If we are focused only on what's going on inside the walls of our church, we might as well not even exist. That's not why we are here.

I realize that it is really easy to hear things like that and to say that they are good points. I know it's easy to believe it in our heads and let our hearts go on unaware of the truth. Our mission is to push our own fears aside and let the truth of the Great Commission sink into our hearts. Only once our hearts get it will we do something about it.

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What is a Missional Community?

A missional community is a group of Jesus' apprentices or followers that learn from Him and take it everywhere with them (not just to the church building). This should make each of us ponder how missional minded are we? Do we perform, witness, act, etc. a certain way for the church and tend to blend in with the secular world at other times?

A missional community is about becoming by grace what Christ is by nature. A church that does missions is not necessarily a missional church. A missional church is rooted in God's character and purpose as a sending or missionary God. They believe that God the Father and the Son, and the Spirit send the Church (Matthew 28:18-20, John 20:21 and Acts 1:8). The church is God's sent missional people and follows Jesus' model of embodying the fullness of God and living it out.

Jesus is the head and the church is His body, a continuation of who He is and what He does. Paul references Ephesians 1:23 that we are his body. This means that the church's nature is to show the world what it looks like when a community of people live under the reign of God in every aspect of daily life.

In a missional community the church is God's sent people; when everything is stripped away (the building, the socializing and events, etc) the people are the church and church is the people. Wherever God's people are corporately or individually, there is church. Church is at home, in the car, at the café, the beach....wherever God's people are in their daily lives.

As Americans, can people distinguish Christians from secular culture? Do we truly live morally and ethically as God's community or do we like to blend in with "the norm"? Focus on living with spiritual disciplines that God intends for us (Titus 2:11-12). Be set apart from the world as God's church!

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A church without walls...

The physical walls of the church act as a barrier; visual, physical, they block winter winds, outside intrusions, and prevent the sounds of praise from spilling into the streets. Some good, some bad, but on a building walls are generally a good thing. I don't think that's the main point of a church without walls. I think the walls in that case are the walls we put up in our lives. I know that for myself it is very easy and convenient to divide my life into compartments and not let the pieces of my life touch each other. What I do in the "God" parts of my life generally stay safe and isolated from the "work" and "play" sections. The divisions go on of course, there are "dreams" and "plans, "projects" and "possibilities", each in their own little section, each with their walls and borders. My initial thought was that all of these walls should be abolished, but I don't think that's quite right, if only because it's something we could expect and try to do ourselves. Maybe the first thing to do is break down just one wall, the one around God, and let the part of you that seeks to know God surround all the other walls, fill the empty space between and around all the other little divisions. Once all the other sections of our lives are surrounded by that one desire to know God more, I believe He will start to seep into all the other aspects of our lives. The walls will indeed disappear one by one as each portion of our lives become another aspect of the one goal, knowing God and following Him. I believe that the greatest witness we can offer is to live our lives for God, to model our lives after Christ. It is truly one of the simplest things to say, and one of the most difficult to do, because Christ didn't try to build churches, he spent his time seeking the hurting people of this world.

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