We’re on a journey, an adventure really. We’re hungry, thirsty travellers … on a search for the real, the authentic. We’re in desperate pursuit, to find a “city … whose builder and maker is God”1, a Kingdom-shaped church rather than a church-shrunk kingdom.
Jesus envisioned a prevailing church birthed on the revelation of His Kingship and glory; the ekklesia – the cabinet of the King – enthused and enlarged by a vision of nothing less than the Kingdom of heaven2. This is what we’re after; this is what our hearts long for … the King and His Kingdom come3.
This touches on two vital fronts. On the one hand, we long to see the proper functioning of servant-hearted equipping teams that arm and release the saints to carry out Kingdom exploits wherever it is God has sent them – whether it is across the sea or across the street, around the world or around the block4; equippers who intentionally lift others onto their shoulders rather than keeping them in their shadows5, who measure their impact – not by how much their egos are stroked – but by how fruitful they make others6.
On the other hand, we press out for the rediscovery of an organic, values-based wineskin of church; where “church” is essentially and profoundly spiritual “family”7 and “leadership” is essentially and powerfully spiritual “parenthood”8, so that redeemed communities are alive, in love and on mission9 – life-giving, reproducing “incubators”; doubling as launch pads for Kingdom advance.
And while both these dynamics are of vital import, they are still not the goal. Yes, they are indispensable to accomplishing our God-given objective – for, empire-building ministries and institutional-church constructs will never selflessly serve the holy purposes of God – but we must never mistake the means for the end. The stakes are simply too high. If we get the means right yet neglect the objective, we settle for a false finish-line and default on our God-given destiny.
The goal is nothing less than cooperating with the Head of the Church, the Lord of the Harvest, as He sows the “sons of the Kingdom” into every neighbourhood, niche of society and nation on planet earth10 with one overarching Kingdom purpose: to make disciple-makers11.
Yes, disciple-makers, not followers of “our way” but followers of His way; an uprising of a nameless, grassroots army of Christ-followers who make disciples who make disciples … who make disciples.
We’re ruined for anything less. Is there a cost? Absolutely! To our pride? For sure! To our egos? Without question! Is it worth it? He is so worth it! We’re ruined and we’re glad!
Notes:
1 Hebrews 11:10
2 Matthew 16:18, 19
3 Matthew 6:33; 6:9, 10
4 Ephesians 4:11, 12
5 Matthew 20:25-28; John 14:12
6 1 Thessalonians 1:2-8
7 To the Hebrew mindset, church (or spiritual community) had nothing to do with an organisational enterprise but was synonymous with spiritual family. See for example, the stress Paul gives to it in 1 Timothy 3:15; “the house [Greek: oikos] of God … is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth”
8 To the Hebrew mindset, leadership had nothing to do with directorship but was synonymous with spiritual parenthood. See again for example, the stress Paul gives to the context from which leaders ought to emerge in 1 Timothy 3:4, 5; “if a man does not know how to rule his own house [Greek: oikos], how will he take care of the church of God”
9 See the thirty “one another” verses in the New Testament; for example, “consider one another in order to stir up love and good works … exhorting one another” (Hebrews 10:24, 25), “be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honour giving preference to one another; not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord … be of the same mind toward one another” (Romans 12:10-16).
10 The parable of the wheat and the tares reveals God’s desire to sow, not just the word of the Kingdom, but us – the “sons of the Kingdom” in whom the word of the Kingdom has borne fruit – into the fields of the world (Matthew 13:24-30 c. 36-38).
11 The Great Commission is not the Grand Suggestion or Grandiose Elective, it is a redraft of God’s eternal purpose for His people (Matthew 28:18-20 c. Genesis 1:26-28; Genesis 12:1-3, for example). Notice too the leaning of Jesus’ words as stated in Matthew’s Gospel: the implication is not just that we make disciples but that we make disciple-makers.
