Reprioritizing

It has been said that “desperate times require desperate measures.” I’m going to support this theory albeit with a very important caveat. Taking drastic measures within a church perspective must be birthed from a visionary understanding of changed ministry needs and never from the perspective of panic induced by shock/fear. If one has not already experienced an epiphany concerning the meager results being produced by the church over the past few decades in regards to mission and our failure to counteract and convert an increasingly secular culture, then hopefully events of 2020 have served to cause you to be “woke.” This new “wokeness” should serve to help us realign missional priorities that have long been askew. Two seemingly overlooked missional objectives in desperate need of “reprioritizing” are evangelism and church planting.

The way we “do church” and the way we “do ministry” have remained unchanged now for several generations. What may have worked in the 1960’s, and still practiced though rebranded and repackaged, is not adequate to meet the changes in culture that have evolved and are quickly evolving still. We are in a post revival era where the attractional and static denominational models are insufficient. The fact that the people know where our churches are doesn’t mean they are crossing the road to get to us. Churches across the board are diminishing and thousands close annually with church planting not covering the deficit. Our answer can not be to double down and do better what we’ve always done. Our response must be much more drastic. However, the drastic change of which I speak is not new but rather it is ancient. I’m talking about the “real” New Testament stuff.

We must reprioritize evangelism and discipleship above all else in the church. I’m using these two missional objectives in tandem because which of the two come first is akin to the old question, which comes first, the chicken or the egg? Some are discipled entirely post conversion while others may actually tune into our teaching preconversion and are led to Christ because of what they learn of Him.

The overwhelming evidence reveals that when most ministers and laity speak of church they begin with elements of worship. Others begin with specialized ministries that can at times be self indulgent or popular for entertainment value. However, I assert that if we begin our practice of church with worship or specialized ministries we will never get to the mission of evangelism, but if we begin at evangelism we will always get to worship and specialized ministries. The mission of Gods people being incarnational and reaching the lost at all cost must be reprioritized. We must cross the road to go to where the sinners live, work, and play. One writer said it like this, “Christians must learn to sit in the smoking section.”

Secondly, we must prioritize church planting. All statistics tell us that newer churches win converts, make disciples, and grow more rapidly that older congregations. Yet, here we are still employing revival era models and church growth era models of trying to grow larger monolithic churches. We employee the oak tree model vs that of a vine which spreads out. Large is good and large churches have personnel and resources to do things that smaller churches can’t do. Most church planting models via denominations and church planting organizations have the aim of establishing a large church. Again, there is nothing wrong with large/mega churches. However, in our current culture we need to give new attention to the multiplication of micro-churches.

Micro-churches are uniquely effective in our Covid and post Covid era. This small church model is not only small congregations on mission, it’s relational, it’s organic, it’s focused, it’s low budget, and because it’s not driven by vocational ministers it utilizes the priesthood of all believers, and most importantly it is New Testament model.

I urge pastors, non pastoral ministers, and laity alike to take a new look at ministry. Take out the pre-programmed old chip and change that chip so that we are thinking of ministry in new but ancient ways.

Bishop White