4 Ways to Make Sure You Never Plant a Church

While I was hanging out with David Watson in Honduras, he shared a perspective on the Great Commission (Matthew 28:16-20) that I hadn’t considered.  Now that’s saying something since I grew up on the mission field and practically had the Great Commission tattooed on my cerebellum from birth!  I thought I would share those thoughts here, mingled with some of my own. (Check out David Watson’s Blog for other counter-intuitive thoughts about church planting.)

Just for reference, here is the Great Commission thanks to our wonderful friends at Biblegateway.com:

Matthew 28:16-20 (New International Version)

 

 16Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go.17When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in^[a] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Seems pretty simple, but I know so many church planters who get caught up reading about church planting and thinking about how they would do church that they never do anything at all.  They just talk and blog.  Online church planters are just as bad.  They talk about all the new and interesting things they can do with emerging technology and never actually use the technology to serve lost communities in any way that results in Gospel planting and spiritual transformation.

You can Go, but if you never make disciples, you will never plant a church.  I know people who do lots of ‘Grand Openings’ and have young and exciting launch teams, but they forget a key element – they are supposed to make disciples of Jesus.  In other words, they are supposed to introduce people to Jesus. 

Being a disciple of Christ preceeds conversion.  Peter and the other twelve were called Jesus’ disciples before Peter ever made the Great Confession.  Over time, the disciples came to know Christ and fall in love with Him.  Although they failed many times, they eventually died because they loved Jesus so much.  This love grew over time, it didn’t happen in a moment.  

Sometimes I thing Christians believe discipleship is more about forcing people to look and smell like Christians than helping people fall in love with Jesus.  In the online world, Christians visit blogs of gays, lesbians, strippers, prostitutes, and witches all the time and bash them.  I wouldn’t treat my dog as badly as these online Christians treat lost people. This kind of behavior is not about Jesus, it’s about the so-called Christian doing the flaming.

Discipleship is a process of introducing lost people to Christ so they can fall in love with Him. Period.

If you don’t go, you will fail.  If you go but don’t make disciples, you will fail.  If you go and make disciples but never baptize them into a community, you will never plant a church.

Baptism is the public sign of a love for Christ and a committment to obey all His commands even if it means your death and the death of those you love most.  Baptism is a community act – you are baptized in community and become part of a community of people who will die for Christ.  That community, as they obey Christ, do the things that make them a church.  

I am looking forward to seeing more and more baptisms online.  People are going to set webcams up in front of their bath tubs while their community watches.  Maybe tweetups will be for baptisms rather than just coffee and fellowship!

You can go.  You can make disciples.  You can baptize them.  But if you don’t teach them to obey all the commands of Christ (including the Great Commission), then you will never plant a church.

John 14, in short, says that if we don’t obey Christ, we don’t love Him.  It also says that He doesn’t make His home with those who don’t obey Him.

If you are a group of people who don’t love Christ, you can’t be His Bride, the Church.

If Christ doesn’t chose to make His home with you because you chose, as a group, not to obey His commands, they you can’t be a Church.  At best, you are a club.  At worst, you are a gang with delusions of spirituality and elements of fanaticism.

I believe that true online obedience to the commands of Christ results in online and offline transformation.  I think that all online churches should have personal obedience as part of their DNA.  Not this watered-down thing we call ‘Application’ that the preacher does for you, but real, true, deep committment to obedience that comes from a heart full of love for Jesus.

I don’t know about you, but I’m doing some really deep evaluation of my online church planting activity.  All the elements of the Great Commission must be evident in my strategies, or they will fail.  

I’m still working all this out.  What do you think?