(upbeat music) - From Genesis to Revelation, God is on a mission, expanding his kingdom to cities and nations all over the world. And the mission of God demands disciples and churches that multiply. But as church planters, if we're not careful in this thing of planting churches and multiplying churches, we can step right over the biblical missiology that's given to us that allows us to lean in to God's kingdom activity.
At Send Network, we call it the missionary task. And the missionary task is really built around three biblical principles. It's some principles that you see repeated over and over again in the New Testament as churches are being multiplied and the kingdom is being expanded.
It's really around three phrases, and I wanna unpack those for you in this course. And then over the rest of this series, we're gonna dive deep into what this missionary task is. When we at Send Network talk about joining in God's activity through church planting, we talk about it just a little bit differently.
I've got it here on the screen beside me, three boxes that really unpack what it looks like in every context to see a church planted. There's box number one that says, "Plant a church. " And this is where most people typically start.
About 95% of church planting in North America starts right here. You move into a town, you rent a storefront, you find a school, you find a movie theater, you buy a slick pulpit, you send out a mailer, you tell 'em why your church is gonna be cooler than any church they've ever been to before. And boom, you plant a church and then out of that church that's been planted, you try to begin to make disciples out of the people who are coming to that church.
So a church is planted, people begin to gather, and then you try to begin to disciple people who are coming to that church in that fellowship. And then the third phrase, the third box is to engage the city with the gospel. So move into a new town, see a church planted, begin to make disciples out of the people that are attending that fellowship so that you can ultimately establish ministries that will begin to engage the city with the gospel.
Most of the time when people talk about church planting in North America, this is exactly what it looks like. You start with a church, you make some disciples, and then you try to reach the city out of the church that's been planted. You know the problem with this?
It's missiologically backwards. This is never the way Paul did it in the New Testament. It's not the way Jesus commanded us to accomplish the great commission.
Jesus didn't say go and plant churches. Jesus said, go into all the cities and make disciples. And then Jesus actually said, "I will build my church.
" When you start here, this is not really church planting, this is starting church services. And Jesus never said, you'll never find one time in the New Testament where Jesus gave us a command to go in the city and start a church service. What he commanded us to do was to go into cities, take the gospel into those cities, engage those cities with the gospel, see disciples made in those cities, and then those disciples are are formed into a church.
God births his church, and then they begin to send out of those church plants back into the city so that this happens all over again and the cycle is repeated. This is a very important part of the church planting process because it's following a biblical missiology. Lemme give you a couple reasons why this is so important.
First of all, this is the way church planting was done in the New Testament. Paul would go into a city, for example, the city of Philippi in Acts 16. Paul goes into Philippi.
What does he do? Start a church service, invite people to come hear him preach. No, Paul goes to the riverbank.
Why? Because he knew at the riverbank is where the life of the city flowed. He went there, he met a woman named Lydia, leads her to faith in Christ.
Then takes, goes back to Lydia's home. Lydia says, will you come and share this with my family? The whole household of Lydia comes to know Christ.
They begin to make disciples out of those people that are attending, they're in Lydia's home, they're becoming a part of what God's doing there in the city. And God births this new church there in Philippi, and the church begins to flourish and send out of that church to continue to reach the city. So it starts with a city, disciples are made, and then God births his church.
It's the way it was done in the New Testament. It's the way it's been the pattern of the church throughout church history. It's the way it works around the world.
For example, you would never go to Iran, Afghanistan, or China and rent you a storefront, send out a mailer and invite a bunch of people to come to a church service. You know why? Because number one, nobody's coming.
Nobody in that culture would even dream of attending an invitation to a church like that. But secondly, you'd probably lose your life in some of those countries. You can't go into a place like that and start a church service.
What do we do when we go to Iran or Afghanistan or China? We go in, and we start with a city. If you're a doctor, you go on the platform of medicine.
If you're an educator, you go on the platform of education. And through the domains of society you begin to engage the city with the gospel. And as disciples are made, churches are then planted.
And out of those churches we send back into the cities to begin to engage again with the gospel. It's a cycle that's repeated over and over and over again. And it's what happens in other parts of the world.
And my premise is this, if what we're attempting to do in North America, 'cause some would argue, well, it's been successful. We've been able to see church services started that have ultimately seen people come to Christ, and that's true. I'm not saying it doesn't work at all.
What I'm saying is if we're really join the movement of God, we have to get back to a biblical missiology. And a biblical missiology is always a cross-cultural missiology. Meaning if it's really born out of scripture, you can drop it into any culture in any country in any part of the world and see kingdom fruit born because the Bible ultimately was not written simply for North America.
The Bible was written for the peoples of the earth. And so what God gives us in scripture will work anywhere. And my premise is why are we using it anywhere in the world if it doesn't work everywhere in the world to see the kingdom of God expanded in cities and nations?
So we have to get back to this idea of a biblical missiology. If we're gonna be about reaching the nations with the gospel, we need to do something that's reproducible and that could be planted in cultures all over the world. But here's another challenge with what we're doing when we start with the church service.
Demographers tell us that by 2043, there'll be no majority population left in America. Meaning this, within the next 20 to 30 years, America is going to be a majority minority culture and country. Yet most of our churches in North America, 80% of them are homogenous.
What does that mean? It means they're either all white churches or all black churches or all brown churches. Why is it that churches are so homogenous?
Lemme tell you why. When you start with a church service, you attract people who look like, walk like, talk like, vote like, sing like, think like you. But when you start with a city, the gospel doesn't skip over culture.
The church becomes a reflection of the community. When God called my family and some other families to Las Vegas, Nevada over two decades ago, there were three families that were the initial team that went out. There were 10 other families that moved with us, but the three initial families were all white families from the Bible belt.
We pick up our white families from the Bible belt, move to Las Vegas, Nevada, which was this multi-ethnic city. We began this way. We started engaging the city with the gospel and saw disciples made.
God birthed a church that had 54 first languages spoken in that fellowship. Vance, are you telling us that every church has to have 54 languages? No, what I'm telling you is when we start with a city and engage a city with the gospel, the church begins to look like the community.
If our churches don't look like our communities, there's a missiological problem with how we're engaging that community with the gospel because the gospel doesn't skip over households and only attract one culture. That's how you wind up with Lydia, the upper crust businesswoman, the demon possessed slave girl and the blue collar jailer's family all in the brand new church at Philippi because as the gospel invaded that city, it invaded every strata of society. Both from a generational, geographical, cultural, economic standpoint, the city was engaged with the gospel.
This has to happen for us to see cities begin to be changed and transformed, and it's the key to the future of the church in North America because of the way demographics are changing across the landscape. So that's why this missionary task matters. These steps, these biblical principles to engage a city with the gospel, make disciples and plant a church, they are more than a strategy.
They are a biblical missiology that's rooted in scripture, that's been practiced for generations by the church, and that's allowed us to join in the expansion of God's kingdom to the ends of the earth. So over this video series, we're gonna dig deep into these three principles so that we can all understand practically how do we engage a city with the gospel? How do we make disciples that are multiplying and healthy?
And how do we birth churches that are sending people out to join in the big picture of what God's doing? We look forward to walking with you in this study.
