For many Christians the words of the Great Commission are familiar words: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”
Churches root their mission statements in these words. They declare that the purpose of their church is to “make disciples” or “make disciple-makers of all nations.” We hang those words on banners and posters in our church buildings. We preach to our adults and kids the importance of living out these words of Jesus. We refer to ourselves as disciples and the things that we do as disciple-making. And yet, from my experience, too few churches are actually accomplishing the mission. We have traded in the call of Christ with activity that makes us feel like we are accomplishing the mission.
We put together weekly Worship services, Sunday School programs, small group ministries, mid-week children’s ministries under the umbrella of discipleship when often no true disciple-making is often happening. We have created an environment where we are transferring biblical information to our congregations that is not leading to people following Christ, obeying Christ or living out the mission of Christ.
We have become comfortable not seeing people regularly come to know salvation in Christ through our churches. We have become comfortable viewing missionaries as people who have a different calling. We have become comfortable not seeing the fruit of people walking in obedience to Christ. We have become comfortable not living a sacrificial life for the sake of Christ. We have become comfortable letting the morality of the world become our morality. We have become comfortable simply calling church activity disciple-making.
Too often church leadership teams neglect or simply avoid truly evaluating whether the Great Commission is being accomplished. And when those conversations do occur, we can be quick to declare our churches as moving in the right direction because of healthy giving, good attendance, and well-organized ministries. No one wants to admit that we may be actually ignoring the mission of Christ. No one wants to admit that maybe our churches aren’t producing disciples who are making disciples. No one wants to admit that we might be be decieving ourselves that we are living missionally.
The Great Commission should bring both purpose and urgency to our individual lives and our corporate church family lives. And yet too often churches aren’t being led with with a sense of battlefield focus. We aren’t praying earnestly for God to send laborers. We aren’t leading and living with the same sacrificial pursuit Paul had when he said, “I will endure anything” to see people come to know Christ. Instead, we lead our churches as if they are social organizations. too often we are simply planning a yearly calendar of events. We manage the activity. We work through the conlficts. And then give annual reports on all that we did.
We have replaced the mission of Christ with a mission that is more about maintaining a Christian lifestyle. A lifestyle that leads us to complacency rather than urgency. A lifestyle that is more about self-indulgence then self-sacrifice. We have become content in just “being” then actually going.
It is time to wake-up, church. It’s time to confess our complacency and re-commit to a life of taking up our cross and following Jesus into His work.
It’s is time to take seriously what we have been called to do: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”