If there are so many churches on the Harbor, why is the Harbor not Christianized by now?
What is the mission of the church?
I’m a transplant to the Harbor. I’ve lived here for eight years now. One thing I appreciated about the Harbor when I moved in is how united the church seems to be. I attribute this, in part, to the hostility toward the gospel that exists in the PNW. When everyone else is, at best, skeptical of the church, the church tends to look past some of their non-essential doctrines and unite around the essentials.
However, the question that keeps coming back to my mind is, if the church is so united, if there are so many churches on the Harbor, if the Harbor has a relatively small population, why has the church not been more successful in reaching out to the lost?
I do not pretend to have the answer to this question or even to offer the final solution to this paradox. My desire is to point out some potential pitfalls that I’ve observed, and offer some principles about disciple making and the kingdom of God, and hopefully, spark a conversation.
Pragmatism vs Hermeticism
Please indulge me in grossly overgeneralizing for a moment (I find that generalizations sometimes help us begin to think about things and later we can start adding nuance). I don’t have specific churches or people in mind here. I’m just offering a general observation.
I see two extremes in the church. On the one hand, there is a very pragmatic approach to disciple making (if you can call it that). One in which the ends justify the means. We will do whatever it takes to get people through the door and get them to say a prayer (or sometimes even pressuring them into it), raise their hand, or walk up front to the altar. The concern here tends to be the number of converts. Let’s count how many people have raised their hand, or said a prayer to accept Jesus into their hearts, and that’s how we measure success in evangelism. The pitfalls with this approach is that it tends to offer a cheap gospel (easy believism), it gives people a false sense of assurance of salvation, and it is not too concerned with discipling, particularly the part when Jesus says that making disciples means to baptize people and teach them to obey everything that he has commanded us.
I wonder, though, if we were to add up all the numbers that have been recorded of “conversions” and compare it to the population of the Harbor, what would be the result? I wonder if those numbers would indicate that all of the Harbor should be Christian by now. Well. Clearly, it is not.
On the other hand, there is a more hermetic type of church. What do I mean by this? We are all very familiar with waterproofing things here on the Harbor. If you don’t, the rain will destroy absolutely everything. Making something hermetic means sealing it, waterproofing it, making it airtight.
Sadly, I’ve seen this kind of hermeticism among fellow believers on the Harbor. Where, they don’t necessarily negate the need for evangelism and disciple making, but they just don’t do it. They keep the gospel to themselves. Evangelism is nice and all, but it has to be on my terms, in a sterile and safe environment, where our Sunday service is primarily for the growth of believers, and it should not be disrupted by the occasional homeless person who walks in looking to get warmed up, where only people that look like they have it together are welcome, where there is not a real sense of urgency to make disciples of all peoples.
In churches that lean more towards hermeticism, even well meaning church members don’t really know what to do when a new person walks in, they don’t know how to make disciples out of their neighbor who they have known for 12 years.
These churches have not been intentional in communicating the importance of the great commission and therefore have not really trained their members to make disciples.
I believe that both the pragmatic and the hermetic approaches have done more harm than good to the cause of the kingdom of God. One is more concerned with numbers, converts, and results, and it tends to offer a cheap gospel, and the other is more concerned with safety, comfort, and self-growth, and although it may claim to have a “deeper” gospel, the gospel rarely makes it out of the four walls of the church building, and unbelievers are rarely welcomed or even invited within the same four walls.
What’s the purpose of the church?
Ultimately, the church exists to glorify God (cf. Romans 15:4-6). The church is Christ’s bride which he purchased with his blood and which he is sanctifying (cf. Ephesians 5:22-33). The church is God’s way to show off his wisdom to the powers of darkness (cf. Ephesians 3:10). The church is the people of God; a holy nation of priests that belongs to God (cf. 1 Peter 2:9-10).
But, why did God leave us here on earth? Couldn’t we glorify him in the new heaven and new earth?
God left the church here with a clear mission. To make disciples. Just as the Father sent Jesus to serve and to preach the kingdom of God, Jesus sent his disciples to do the same (cf. John 20:21). The mission of the church is to make disciples of all peoples (cf. Matthew 28:16-20). The purpose of the church is not self-preservation. Rather, it is the proclamation of the gospel of the kingdom of God.
If the church exists to glorify God, but the world does not glorify God, then the mission of the church should be to make disciples so that more and more people can join us in glorifying God. In John Piper’s words, “Missions exist because worship doesn’t.”
Although God shows his wisdom to the powers of darkness through the church, he doesn’t do so by keeping the church in a trophy case. He does it by sending the church to wage war on hell itself, and he gives us the promise that the gates of hell will not be able to withstand the advances of the church. Yes, we are a holy nation, but our mission is not to go hide and start our own “holy” colony a la “The Village.” Rather, it is “to proclaim the excellencies of him who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9).
The disciples thought that now that he was resurrected, Jesus was going to finally restore the kingdom to Israel. They wanted him to establish their own little kingdom. What Jesus told them in response changed the course of history forever. “It is not for you to know the times and seasons,” he said, “but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Jesus was telling them that his kingdom was not going to be limited to the ethnic nation of Israel. Their job was to be witnesses of Jesus and his kingdom in Jerusalem. “Ok. Jesus. We like Jerusalem.” Judea. “Sure. That makes sense.” Samaria. “Wait what? Ok. Whatever you say.” And to the ends of the earth. “What!?!?” They were supposed to go out of their comfort zone; out of their prefered target population. Jesus was calling them to go and proclaim his kingdom everywhere and to everyone.
This means that disciple making (discipleship) is not just a program of the church but it is the whole mission of the church.
If this is true, churches and specifically church leaders, should do a better job at promoting the mission of the church and equipping their members to make disciples. After all, it is the church who does the work of the ministry and the leaders are the ones who equip them (cf. Ephesians 4:11-12).
If this is true, we should look outside the four walls of our building, our neighborhood, our socio-economic group, our ethnic group, our comfort zone, and go and make disciples.
Defining Disciple Making.
What does making disciples mean, though? Is it simply evangelism? Is it getting people to say a prayer and send them on their merry way? Making disciples is the all-encompassing mission of the church. It includes evangelism, baptism, and teaching.
The church as a whole, works together using their Spiritual gifts to promote the kingdom of God. Not everyone has the gift of evangelism, or teaching, but the church, corporately, is the light of the world and no one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket. Our job is to corporately be the light of the world.
This doesn’t mean pumping out converts as fast as we can. It means, living lives of obedience to God, being servants to our neighbors (whether they live on the streets or on the hills), loving one another, verbally proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and teaching people to obey Jesus’ commands.
The mission of the church is an all encompassing calling. Those who understand what Jesus has done for them, will not be able to live for themselves anymore. They will realize that they now have a new Lord and master and will devote their lives to plead on God’s behalf for people to be reconciled to him (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:14-20). In the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die.”
We must keep in mind though, that God is the one who gives the growth. Our job is to plant seeds. Yes, we plead with people, we urge people to be reconciled to God, we try to convince people to repent and believe in Jesus as the only one who can save them apart from their works. But we also have to accept that our job is to proclaim, and God’s job is to save. It is God who causes people to be born again, not us (cf. 1 Peter 1:3).
We must remember that, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how” (Mark 4:26-27). Our job is to plant seeds, to call people to repentance and faith in Christ. But it doesn’t end there.
The job of the church is also to teach people to obey God, to warn everyone, teach everyone, that we may present everyone mature in Christ (cf. Colossians 1:28). We do this always with the right understanding that God is the one that does the actual growth by his Holy Spirit.
I believe that the church on the Harbor will make a strong advance against the dominion of darkness when we understand that God put us here with the specific mission of making disciples of all peoples. And that even though he uses us for his glory, we are absolutely dependent on the supernatural work of his Holy Spirit. We cannot produce salvation nor growth in people. Only God can. We gladly obey him, though. We pray, we depend on the Spirit, and we are more than honored when he uses us as his instruments for the advance of his kingdom.
I want to hear from you though. Do you feel like my assessment is correct? If what I’m saying resonates with you, let’s grab coffee and plan an assault on hell.
I appreciated your article. I’ve been doing a fair bit of thinking about this over the past several years, and I’ve come up with 7 main issues (though there are probably more!):
1. The way we do church. We need to reassess and reimagine this. Is it a place where believers come to be trained to use their gifts? Is it a place where believers can use their gifts? Or is it primarily a place where believers come to sit and listen and go home?
2. The Gospel we offer. We don’t understand the true Gospel and we’re offering the wrong thing. Also, we see salvation as a one-time prayer rather than a moment-by-moment salvation over the whole of our lives. What is the definition of eternal life? (Jn. 17:3) What is true salvation? (I Pet. 1:9) What are we saved from? (Mt. 1:21) And what does that mean? What is God’s wrath against? (Rom. 1:18) What is the gift of God? (Rom. 5:17) What does it mean to confess Jesus as Lord? (Rom. 10:9-10)
3. The role of the Holy Spirit. We have sidelined the Holy Spirit and not known His power to save. What do we want and need the Holy Spirit to do for us? Have we studied all that He is and all He has promised to do for us? Do we truly need Him – and feel our need of Him?
4. The role of prayer. We pray so little. This is presumption in 2 ways: thinking we can do God’s work without the power of God and thinking God will bless our efforts without spending time wrestling in prayer. How can we build faith? How can we turn from self-reliance to God-dependence? What should we really be praying for?
5. The philosophy of worship. We don’t engage the whole person. We haven’t learned to love God with all our hearts, all our souls, all our minds, and all our strength. Are we willing to think through together and discuss and pray over and earnestly seek what this means?
6. The mission to the culture. We don’t engage the culture at the points of need, challenging the issues of our day. I think it was Martin Luther who said, if we don’t confront the culture on the pertinent issues of our time, we are not preaching the Gospel. Do we have a vision for mission and for bringing the Kingdom of God to earth?
7. The lack of true discipleship. We don’t have a strategy for this. What does it mean to disciple the nations? What are all the things that Christ has commanded us? How do we teach those things to believers?
Thanks for writing this article. It was good to read that you are thinking through these things, too.
Excellent article! I appreciated your thoughtful tone that both encouraged and challenged believers to broaden their view of the purpose for which Jesus established and commissioned His Church. Thanks much, brother. And keep writing!