The Destiny family is very serious about the mission of the church so what is it?
So many people do not understand the mission of the church. I’m talking about people who are in the church – all of us!
Rather than deciding what to believe and then searching for Bible verses to substantiate our conclusions. Let’s allow the Bible to define what we believe even if it stretches us.
Some would suggest that the mission of the church is the fellowship of believers. Place where we spend time together building relationships and better preparing for Jesus’ return.
Some would point to a higher purpose of the church is to praise God experiencing and expressing his presence in wonderful ways.
Perhaps others might say the purpose of the church is to teach practical Christian living, to train people for various responsibilities in the church, to instruct with an objective of bringing them to maturity in Christ.
The fact is that fellowship, worship and instruction is absolutely essential to the church. However none of them individually or combined are the mission, purpose or goal of the church.
The mission of the church is discovered in the mission of Jesus. If we could only figure out why Jesus came into the world we’d know the mission of the church!
John 18:37 …for this reason I came into the world, to testify to the truth... NIV
God knows the more we're exposed to the excellence of His wisdom, the more likely we are to forsake our old ways. Our responsibility is to expose our world to the excellence of God’s wisdom.
Matt 28:19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and Holy Spirit. NIV
This idea of making disciples is expressed by a Greek word matheteuo, that means a believer and a learner.
The Greek word itself does not allow this to be one who believes or one who learns. It’s both. We are to make believing learners or learning believers. The believing learner puts their faith in Christ and follows a life of learning God’s ways!
John 8:31 "..If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine.” NAS
The New Living Translation says, “You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings.”
The New International Version says, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.”
So, the mission of the church can be defined as making believing learners out of all nations.
Effectively making disciples begins in the home. The first disciple you must make is you!
To memorizing the Bible is to memorize the mind of God.
To turn the page is to expose yourself to the mind of God.
Jews constantly worship God in the home with Sabbath celebrations, feasts and festivals.
Christians typically worship God in the church. The fact is that we don’t need better children’s ministries or better Youth ministries to effectively make disciples in the next generation. We need parents who are fruitful in their home taking their kids with them on this journey of faith!
It’s not as hard as you might think. God doesn’t require a lot from us to do great things! Have a family meal where you simply talk about what God is up to:
• Anybody reading anything that stands out in devotions?
• What’s God been putting on your heart lately?
• Anything you learning at church that’s been with you all week?
Even if the conversation doesn’t seem to take off there is incredible value to just having the meal together!
The more often families eat together, less likely kids are to smoke, drink, drugs, depressed & consider suicide, & more likely to do well in school, delay having sex, eat veggies, learn big words and know which fork to use.
GP4RL: Have communion in your home this week inviting a deeper more meaningful family connection with Jesus.