Reading: 1.4—Great Commission Central

1.4 Great Commission Central: I have come to understand that the Great Commission is central to both the vision and the strategy of the church. A much broader treatment of the biblical underpinning of vision is available in my book, Simply Vital: A Jumpstart to Basic-Yet-Complete Church Revitalization, so please go there for additional scriptural input. In this section, our focus is on the striking simplicity and clarity that church leaders can find in embracing the Great Commission as the core vision and core strategy from which all else flows. God has a vision of a church that goes in the authority of Jesus Christ and makes disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey all that He has commanded, resting in and empowered by His continual presence through His Holy Spirit. 

The church that follows through on this commitment is a church that is effective at reaching the lost among the harvest and is effective at bringing glory to God. The visionary question, then, for a given church, is, “What will ministry look like if our church commits to being a Great Commission church, centering our ministry on the mandate of the Great Commission.” This commitment will drive the articulation of vision and will become the primary criterion for decision-making, resource-allocation, and ministry evaluation. It will, also, influence the selection and development of staff and lay leaders and will determine the direction that leaders prescribe for the congregation. Strategy, again in striking simplicity and clarity, will focus on the HOW. The question that will be framed is, “How are we going to go and make disciples?” As that question is answered, strategy will emerge.

The following is an adaptation concerning the Great Commission Model from Simply Vital: A Jumpstart to Basic-Yet-Complete Church Revitalization:

The Great Commission Model (The Great Commission Triangle):

We’ll begin with the simple rhyme scheme, REACH – PREACH – TEACH. We’ll use these three rhyming words as shorthand for the full Great Commission as found in Matthew 28:18-20. Align these three words with the three-word phrase, GO MAKE DISCIPLES. Though this association is not without challenge, connect REACH with GO, PREACH with MAKE, and TEACH with DISCIPLES. Going one step further, connect REACH and GO with OUTREACH, PREACH and MAKE with EVANGELISM, and TEACH and DISCIPLES with DISCIPLESHIP. These connections produce the following table:

Again, REACH – PREACH – TEACH is our shorthand for the Great Commission, also represented by the short phrase, GO MAKE DISCICPLES. Outreach, Evangelism, and Discipleship are typical headings for programs in the church, but in our usage of these terms, these three will not be positioned as programs but as movements within the church. A ministry area becomes a movement rather than a program when it’s positioned as a thread that runs through every ministry area, or every program, of a church. In the Great Commission Model, Outreach, Evangelism, and Discipleship are ministry elements that are present in every ministry or program of the church. So, we will treat them as movements and not as programs. 

God has a vision of a church that goes and makes disciples. Moving from vision to strategy, the question becomes, “How will our church go and make disciples?” Answer: We will REACH, we will PREACH, and we will TEACH.

REACH creates and leverages the going ministries of the church, going into the plentiful harvest to make connections and build relationships. These connections and relationships provide the opportunity to walk alongside people in their journeys through life, positioning ourselves to be at the right place at the right time when they become open to the Gospel, and when the Holy Spirit begins to draw them to faith, to the church, to Jesus. Each ministry area of the church develops its unique reaching strategies through which insiders GO, creating OUTREACH to outsiders. We know from Scripture that the harvest is plentiful (Matthew 9:37) and that Jesus is building His church (Matthew 16:18). Our responsibility, our opportunity, is to REACH, to GO, to OUTREACH into that harvest, finding who’s missing from the family of God and bringing them home by the grace and to the glory of God. We do this strategically through congregational ministries and, individually, on our own.

PREACH creates and harnesses the proclamation ministries of the church and its people, and this is much wider and deeper than a pastor’s preaching from a pulpit. Pulpit preaching is an important element, but there is much more to proclamation. PREACH includes the verbal sharing and explaining of the Gospel, whether it be from a pulpit or over coffee at a local café. PREACH also includes the witness of our lives as we mingle with others in the neighborhood or at work or in times of recreation or during our participation with any kind of affinity group. In other words, for the Christian, all of life is a proclamation of what we believe and know to be true. The challenge, of course, is to live up to our beliefs such that our witness is a positive witness that truly reflects the character of Jesus Christ. Again, we do this congregationally and individually.

Several Scriptures come to mind. I’ll cite a couple. 1 Peter 2:9 says this, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” You are who you are in Christ in order that you might proclaim Christ, that you might share what He has done in your life with others. This is how you PREACH, how you offer proclamation through what you say and through how you live. When a congregation corporately grabs hold of this reality, our collective witness, our collective proclamation, can be used mightily by God to build His family. Paul spells out the effect of this kind of proclamation with the stairsteps of Romans 10:13-15, “For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!’” First, we REACH, then we PREACH, and God quickens the hearts and minds of whom He will. When we strategically operate in this manner as a congregation, the movements of OUTREACH and EVANGELISM are truly alive and become fruitful.

TEACH, as a parallel to PREACH, is something we engage both congregationally and individually. As a product of the western movement of the church, our approach to teaching tends to be academic and intellectual, the acquisition of knowledge. However, the emphasis in developing Christian maturity needs to focus on obedience to what we know and not just on knowing what we know. With REACH having done its job of connection and relationship and PREACH having done its initial job of clarifying the Gospel and leading the missing home, TEACH grows both new and seasoned believers in their faith through DISCIPLESHIP that is experiential as well as intellectual, and that centers on developing a disciplined and obedient life.

Notice the small, upside-down triangle in the center of the Great Commission Triangle. Two phrases are prominent: Come to Faith and Grow in Faith. The text box to the left connects a couple of REACH – PREACH – TEACH dots. REACH and PREACH work in tandem in helping people Come to Faith, while PREACH and TEACH work in tandem to help people Grow in Faith. So, PREACH has a role in both EVANGELISM and DISCIPLESHIP. The text box to the right features several important Scripture references. Matthew 28 is listed because it’s our baseline Great Commission reference. Acts 2:42-47 and Ephesians 4:1-7, 11-16 are listed together to frame a picture of the Acts 2 – Ephesian 4 Church, a tag I have been using for over twenty years. It’s my perspective that these two passages give us a description of the first century church and a prescription for the twenty-first century church, or the church of any time for that matter.

Rightly discerning and developing a godly vision places the Great Commission front and center with the commissioning of the disciples by Jesus Christ established as the root of both vision and strategy. What is our vision? We will go and make disciples. What is our strategy? We will actually go, centering our actions on going. In so doing, we will reach the lost and grow the found in their faith, all to the glory of God.