Last Lord's Day, New Covenant Church of Naperville, our home church, heard the third of three consecutive messages on the church's central mission: speading ahead the Word to triumph in the world. "Gossiping the Gospel," as Jacob Reynolds (following Stott, I believe) put it two weeks ago. This past Sunday pastor Matt Newkirk brought a word about the Word from Genesis 11. You may listen to the exposition here, which was quite good.
Matt gave us four characteristics of "unmission" from Genesis 11:1-9:
1) Unmission is fueled by an overestimation of self
2) Unmission is fueled by an underestimation of God
3) Unmission results in frustration
4) Unmission is cured by the Great Commission
In applying how the mission of the church works out for the corporate body, made up of many parts (Matt reminded us that the hand is not a mouth, but does have a role in relation to the mouth), Matt encouraged a corporate mentality of evangelism and missions. He said that while every member of the church is not gifted to be a mouthpiece, everyone can do the following:
1) Pray
2) Invite someone to church
3) Support a missionary financially
4) Look for opportunities to share Christ
This sort of corporate mentality in thinking about the Great Commission is, I believe, an area where at least the individualistically-oriented American church needs to grow immensely. In my judgment, we have work to do in continuing to think through more thoroughly every-member ecclesiatical evangelism and global missions. Perhaps more on this later.
No comments:
Post a Comment