Q What’s your take on why so many churches talk about the Great Commission and reaching our world, but so few are actually doing it?
If we’re going to fulfill the mission that Jesus gave us as the church, we must become revolutionaries.
The world is changing—exponentially. It’s moving further and further away from what it really needs: God, truth, forgiveness, purpose and hope. In a word, it needs redemption. But for the people in and of this world to find what they need, those who have it must wake them up to it. Therein lies the problem.
A world that is going through revolutionary changes can’t be reached, convinced or awakened by a church where everything remains the same. I’m not talking about the truth itself; truth never changes. I’m talking about the way the church engages the world with the truth. To wake up a world going through revolutionary changes requires that the church is revolutionary itself.
The Revolutionary Call
This sounds foreign to a lot of Christians and church leaders, but this is what God has called us to be and do. In fact, it should come naturally for genuine Christ followers because Jesus was a revolutionary.
He entered a world that was turned inward and focused on keeping God and His promises for the few. He started a revolution that turned God’s people outward to share God and His promises with the many. He entered a world that viewed power and prosperity as a means of being served. He started a revolution that viewed them as a means of serving others.
The early church followed in Jesus’ footsteps. It became a revolutionary force focused outward and bent on serving others (Acts 2:41-47).
Sadly, it wasn’t just the world that hated what God was doing. The majority of those who claimed to be “God’s people” in those days rejected the revolution of Jesus and the early church. They preferred keeping God and His promises to themselves. They chose to see God as being in the world to serve them rather than as having them in the world to serve Him and those He loved. As a result, they put Jesus on a cross and persecuted His church.
They did this because, without knowing it, over time, their traditions had replaced God and His truth (Matt. 15:1-3).