Imagine your gospel community has announced plans to multiply. Several individuals are upset & frustrated with this vision because they would much rather stay together. How would you address their concerns & build for them a biblical rational for multiplication?
I think the desire to stay together rather than to multiply a gospel community is best addressed by developing a biblical picture of God as the first missionary, disciples as God’s missionaries & the church community as a missionary organism. (Lk. 19:10; Rom. 1:16; Eph. 2:11-22; 4:1-16; Matt. 28:19-20; Jn. 20:21; Acts 2:42-47)
We must address our picture of God…
How could this picture of God inform our desires to stay together rather than to multiply? God is a missional God. We must begin by understanding that our God is a missional God who’s mission is to “Seek & to save those who are lost” through the message of the gospel. Jesus didn’t stay in his comfortable & clean place in Heaven but instead He came to our sin-filled Earth to ultimately sacrifice not only His comfort but also His very life so that we could be redeemed.
We must address our picture of disciples…
How could this picture of disciples inform our desires to stay together rather than to multiply? Disciples are missionaries. I think it’s important to understand that discipleship & evangelism are two sides of the same coin of mission. Take away one side and the coin is flawed. In other words we cannot divorce discipleship from evangelism and visa versa without creating some sort of mission drift in our gospel community. We will either create so-called discipleship groups who quote-un-quote focus on growing inwardly in holiness to the neglect of evangelizing the community or we will create so-called evangelistic groups who quote-un-quote focus on evangelizing the community through a variety of pragmatic approaches. Another way of saying this would be to say that as disciples we are being discipled to be missionaries & if we understand this to be the biblical picture of making disciples then we will always be about the process of multiplying missionary disciples who are growing in internally & externally through the message of the gospel to the extent that the gospel is proclaimed through relationship in word & in deed.
We must address our picture of community…
How could this picture of community inform our desires to stay together rather than to multiply? The church is a missional community. The church as a community is not merely a group of people who gather together because of mutual interests or even for the sake of community. The church is a community that gathers together for the sake of gospel mission. In other words the church is a community that is formed by the gospel for the sake of the gospel flourishing within community and producing the fruit of more disciple making disciples who multiply into other gospel communities.