On Mission:Week 1 - Our Reason

On Mission – Reason & Call

June 9, 2013

What makes a Church a Church?  We can make a list of all the things that are part of a church.  There is a building, instruments, songs, styles, programs, bylaws, budgets, boards & committees, missionaries, Bible studies, communion, small groups, outreach events, fellowship activities, kid’s activities, adult activities, youth activities, women’s activities, and all the other general unwritten parts of belonging to a church.  Beyond the physical and tangible elements there is the work of the Holy Spirit, the message of Salvation, a call to discipleship, personal and communal connection to God, prayer, study of scripture, and a desire to live in the Will of God.  All of these things are part of church.  They are not bad.  Yet each in and of itself cannot fully tell us what makes a church a church.  Underneath all of this is one core concept the drives everything else.

Matthew 28: 18-20

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.”

This is the Great Commission.  When the church was nothing but a few scared disciples facing a resurrected Jesus, this is what He gave them.  This is the foundation from which every other aspect of the church has been built out of.  It answers the question “what now?”  It gives believers a focus and clear goals by which to live out the salvation they have.  It is nothing less than the Savior’s primary guiding words to those who would follow Him.

So why is it that baptism’s are often few and far between?  Why is it that the world is moving away from Christ instead of towards Him?  How can it be that the commands of Jesus are given less and less authority in the lives of believers than they once had?  How much attention is paid to the ever present Spirit of the Lord? 

When the church trades its primary mission for some secondary and smaller part of what makes a church a church it loses focus and it gets out of step with God’s Will.  It is time to reclaim this central defining call.  It is time to be the Church God created.  It is time to return to the mission.