One of the problems that we face in missions today is a spectator mentality in churches because we have abdicated our responsibility to complete the Great Commission to mission boards and/or to individual missionaries.
What A Local Churches Expects From Her Missionaries
Your job is to evangelize, disciple, plant churches, train leaders for those churches, and then repeat. We have no control over the job description and we dare not tamper with it. It’s God’s master plan and the only one that works. Expectations are another thing altogether.... We as your supporting churches don’t think our expectations are unrealistic, but neither do we want you ignorant of our expectations. That’s where relationships break down.
The Continuation Of The Great Commission
For the most part, church members do not engage in the great commission at a personal level but rather by contributing resources so that the corporate body can send out a “Great Commission Expert” (missionary) to do it for them. However, this is a far cry from what the Lord intended when He issued the Commission.
The Consequence Of The Great Commission
Modern believers have convinced themselves that spiritual maturity is based on information and that it takes a long time. However, if one follows the New Testament pattern, mature disciples were made in short order. They were tested by persecution and stood! The secret was the absolute insistence on personal obedience to the demands and expectations of Scripture. This is the forgotten side of the Great Commission in many churches today.
The Content Of The Great Commission
Many contemporary approaches to the Great Commission have focused on the Lord’s instruction to go to all nations. In other words, for them, the dominant responsibility of the commission is to go to the nations. However, the grammar of the Lord’s statement makes clear that the central imperative of the Commission is the making of disciples. That central imperative will be accomplished by three accompanying activities – going, baptizing, and teaching.
The Context Of The Great Commission
Great Commission Living Is A Way of Life
Five children seems an extraordinarily high price to pay for any ministry, much less one that seemed as fruitless as the Goforth’s appeared at the time. What could possibly have motivated Jonathan and Rosalind to suffer such devastating loss and count it but a small thing in their service to Christ? Perhaps the answer lies in the words Jonathan would later inscribed in the flyleaf of his bible. “In all things seek to know God’s Will and when known obey at any cost.
Parenthood & Discipleship
By our example and teaching, we desire to cultivate a love for God's Word and the understanding that it stands far above all else. For us in America, this is often fleshed out as "Scriptural Truth over Psychology." For the Third World citizen, this could very well be fleshed out as "Scriptural Truth over Indigenous Spirit Beliefs." What is important is the heart assuring belief and trust in the sufficiency of Scripture.