By the Rev. Dr. Scott F. Rische, Academic Dean E-mail: srische@vision.edu
PART ONE OF TWO
1. Spiritual. In the story of Jesus calling His first disciples in Luke 5:1-11, no fish were being caught until Jesus showed up. In the same way, we need God and His help in order to reach the unbelievers in our cities. Church planting needs to begin on our knees instead of on our feet. It will always include, and has to include, God. As believers we can reach out to other people, but only God can change a heart and lead someone to believe in Him (Rom. 1:16, Eph. 2:8-9). It also takes God to motivate a believer to reach out to unbelievers with the Gospel of Jesus (2 Cor. 5:14).
Prayers by the planting congregation or denomination need to be lifted up to God for extended periods of time. They need to ask God to raise up a gifted and commitment church planter (Matt. 9:38), to ask God to help the church planter gather a church planting team, to ask God to guide the planter and his team with the right vision and direction, and to ask God to open the way for the planter and His team to reach their community with Gospel of Jesus Christ.
2. Incarnational. In order for the disciples in Luke 5 to catch any fish, they had to go where the fish were. They couldn’t catch any fish by standing on the shoreline of the lake or by making the fish come to them. In the same way, we are not going to reach unbelievers by trying to get them to come to us or to our church buildings through mailings, newspapers, and radio alone. Christians who have no church home may come as a result of invitations like that. But most unbelievers do not. “Jesus went...” (Matt. 9:35). We have to go to them. The people in our cities do not exist to fill our churches. Rather, our churches and the people in them exist to fill our cities with Jesus Christ.
The Church does not really exist to attract people to it. Rather, the Church, God’s people, exists to introduce and attract people to Christ. The goal is not to get bodies into a building, but to get the Body of Christ into the homes and buildings of our city. I do not believe that we need an intensifying of the pressure on the people of our cities to respond to us and our invitations to COME. Instead, we need an intensifying of the Holy Spirit’s prompting and power within us to respond to Jesus’ command to GO, especially if we are going to reach unbelievers.
Unbelievers, and I emphasize that, are not reached by impersonal approaches, but by personal, relational, and incarnational relationships. This means that we need to “go and see” the people who live around us instead of “wait and see” who comes to the church. Church planters need to take the initiative to seek out those who do not know Jesus. This also means our reaching will be...
3. Relational. Church planters need to build relationships with unbelievers. Even though we live in a relationally broken world, people are still looking for relationships and are primarily reached with the Gospel through relationships and friendships (John 1:35-42). Likewise, the church planting team needs to work together in reaching unbelievers. In order for the disciples in Luke 5 to bring in their large catch of fish, they had to work together. The disciples needed to function as a team.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Scott F. Rische is pastor of First Lutheran Church of El Cajon
No comments:
Post a Comment