GREAT COMMISSION OF JESUS CHRIST BY PS DENIS LU

Aligning Our Local Churches to the Great Commission of Jesus Christ 

Foreword 

At the recent Exponential Conference in Florida entitled "DiscipleShift", I was blessed by a series of sessions by Jim Putman and his team of pastors and leaders from Real Life Ministries. One of the key components for shifting any church towards becoming a disciple-making church is church alignment. In this article, I present my notes on some takeaway points from one of the sessions. I am hoping it will be of value to our local churches. 

Introduction 

Every church starts out with a vision and sense of what God has called the church to do. For many churches, the Great Commission will be a key feature of their vision or mission statement, just as it is in our Hope family. But the truth of the matter is that, over time, each local church may unconsciously veer away from the Great Commission in subtle and imperceptible ways. Therefore, it is useful for every local church to review itself periodically so that the church leaders and members are on track and aligned with God's heart. Such a church alignment is needed to equip the church for its purpose of making disciples of Jesus.

Four key areas of alignment 

Relational alignment

We should value relationships in the same priority that God does. Jesus outlined the Greatest Commandment as being in a loving relationship with God and with people (Matthew 22:36-40). Jesus further highlighted that it is by our love for one another that the world will know that we are HIs disciples (John 13:34-35).

Therefore, to be relationally aligned, we need to understand our local culture of how we celebrate and care for one another, and continue to reinforce such loving expressions. This happens primarily at the small group level and in the local church gathering. The overflow of such an alignment of loving relationships will spill over to the local community as well. Then the local church will be identified by the world as belonging to Jesus Christ! Get the entire group aware of the strengths and weaknesses of their respective culture.

Organisational alignment 

It means that the time given to meetings, the church budget, the energy and focus inside the church building and outside the community are very intentionally focussed on keeping the purpose of the Church in the forefront. Therefore, a local church that is organisationally aligned to making the discipleship shift would have in its local church life, resources and time focused on moving forward the Great Commission.

Theological alignment 

This means that the local church elders, staff, key volunteers and key influencers all understand what the church believes and can explain the church's position and beliefs to whoever asks. Aligning people to our church’s theology is crucial to growing as a disciple-making church. A failure to be aligned on theology can lead to easily strained relationships and hurt spiritual infants. Therefore, it is up to the church leadership to bring clarity to these topics through teaching, discussion and so on, and unite the church. 

Philosophical alignment 

If the local church desires to align towards disciple-making, the church philosophy must be aligned with making disciples. This means ministry leaders and volunteers will make decisions and focus their collective energy towards that one mission statement. In other words, the philosophy would be expressed in the decisions and actions that cultivate discipleship making. 

Conclusion 

In summary, I hope that this brief article will start off discussions in your local church setting and provide pointers on what is needed so that disciple-making is powerful in wining souls, making disciples and planting churches! God bless.

Written by Pastor Denis Lu