Video Transcript: Five Key Functions of the Church
We continue with the curriculum from multiplication network. And we've already looked at various things. Today we're going to look at five vital functions of this church. And those vital functions create a healthy church. We're gonna first of all look at evangelism even a little bit more than we looked at it in the past. So what is evangelism? The church announces the good news of Jesus Christ in the word indeed and invites people to be part of the Kingdom of God, as we see in Acts 1:8, Lord added to their numbers daily, those who are being saved. There is a tool in evangelism is called the Engel scale. And we're going to look at that we're also going to be reminded that it's about calendar and checkbook these documents, let us see if the church is really interested in and committed to evangelism. The Great Commission is not an option to be considered. It's a command to be obeyed. So, as we think about evangelism, this is a critical element in the planting of a new church and we need to understand elements about evangelism. You know, let's talk about evangelism further, really, what is evangelism, it's really proclamation. The church announces the good news of Jesus Christ in word and deed and invites people to be part of the Kingdom of God. The Great Commission is not an option to be considered. It's a command to be obeyed. That's what Hudson Taylor said. So proclamation, you know, in a lot of ways, that's what preaching is. Preaching is in your personal life. Preach in your personal life is proclamation, maybe evangelism, your testimony in your marriage, you want to share with your spouse, but you want as a couple to share with others. In your family, you're raising your children up in the Lord, there's an evangelistic piece. So when you do your devotions in your family, you're practicing evangelism in your friends, it's about sharing who God is. That's a form of evangelism. And if someone doesn't know God, it's about sharing how someone will come to know God. evangelism in a community, maybe there's intentional evangelism. But proclamation is very important. And let me make you aware of the Engel scale. The Engel Scale, basically looked at how does a person come into that process of knowing God of knowing Christ. And, you know, basically, negative eight is the person has some knowledge of a supreme being. And what that means is, they might be agnostic. And but they're somewhat open maybe. So in their openness at negative seven, they find out a bit about the gospel, then it leads to negative six, well, where there's they start to understand the basics of the gospel. In other words, the claims that God is God in His Son, Jesus was sent to our world born of a virgin incarnation, just a few of those things, they started thinking about, in that this Jesus laid down his life for the sins of humanity. Then at negative five, there's a beginning understanding of personal implications that the gospel is just not out there as some truth or some reality, but it personally has something to do with me. And then at negative four has a positive attitude to the Gospel, it's no longer foolishness. They're actually wondering that maybe the gospel is for them. And then negative three considers what making a personal commitment to Christ will
cost them. And in other words, they're living their life, and there's things they're doing in their life that's so incompatible to the gospel, and they know it, and they're starting to figure out is the gospel a better way for me than the way I'm living now, then comes the step of faith. And maybe they're attended church, maybe they'll attend your church, maybe they'll actually start praying. They'll start talking in they're sensing that God is listening. It's steps of faith. And then, finally, there's that, you know, there's the God, I need you. I want to put my faith in you, Jesus Christ. And then after that moment of regeneration, the Engel scale goes further, where now they're starting to evaluate their decisions, evaluate their decision to follow Christ. In other words, they now have made that commitment and They're starting to look at the implications of that commitment to follow Christ. And then you'll find the plus two is, is incorporated in the body of Christ. In other words, they want to hang around with other believers and support, their growing sanctification, their growing commitment to serve the Lord. And then it's also the start of a life of discipleship and service. In other words, the implications of the gospel means I want to share others. Now, what Engel didn't bring up and I would add a fourth of you say, what's the Henry scale? I would also say, plus four is called to lead others to where they have come. In other words, share the Gospel. It's not just regeneration, it's now you know, yes, it's service, but I'm thinking specifically of calling as well. So we've looked at evangelism, another vital function of the of a healthy church, is this discipleship itself, and how do we lead others to go on that Engel scale? So discipleship education, the church helps people to see God more clearly and get to know His will for their lives, and equips them to follow him in all aspects of their life. And in discipleship kind of a worldview of discipleship is to keep the four C's in mind. That's conduct, character, content, and commitment. And these are the issues of discipleship, almost, you can just have a small group, for instance, and every single small group, you could ask this question, how did this affect our content? How did this affect our character? How did this how did the content of this message change me? Inside of me? And what commitment do I need to go from here? So when we're looking at discipleship, understand that basically, there's two critical issues in discipleship, and that is, the segmented faith and integrated faith in segmented faith would be really a new believer, someone who's just coming in. And as we look at segmented faith, if you look at them, it goes like this segmented faith basically has, you know, sports, faith, politics, finances, everything's our little compartments, where integrated faith has, it goes this way. My faith has something to say about my sports, about my politics, about my family, and so on. And in discipleship, that's what we're always promoting, is that faith informs all of our life decisions. So what does that biblical worldview then look like? If faith is to inform all our decisions? Well, that faith is the center. Our worldview comes from our faith in the Lord. And that then affects our values, our attitudes or behaviors, actions. It's the very consequences of our
life. And what happens then is transformation occurs not only in our life, our marriage, our family, our community. So our faith has everything to say about marriage, about life, about family. And that's the discipleship worldview, that we're going to be sharing in all our churches, like sermon series, will have that constant operating system of what does faith do to inform all of our lives? So I've looked at evangelism, discipleship, service, every church, Jesus said to if you've done this to the least of these, my brothers and sisters, you've done it unto me. So we want to have churches that have that service aspect, that the church addresses the needs of people in the name of Christ and invites them to be part of his discipleship and invites them to be His disciples. There's three types of relationships between service and evangelism that we have to keep in mind when we help someone. What one way we can have a relationship where we're just in the result of giving help, and that's, that's loving them. Another is that help is connected to a bridge, so that somehow we have the opportunity to share the gospel. But we also push forward with the idea of accompany so that the service and evangelism are coming together in a relationship. It's not just here's the result goodbye, or here's a bridge pointing to Christ. But the idea that we are in a community together and we serve each other in people see our witness, only a life in service to us. others is a life that is worthwhile is what Albert Einstein. He wasn't even a Christian. But he already saw that. So if unbeliever see that our gospel presentation is accompanying our relationship with them in service. That is the most powerful form of service and evangelism. So we've looked now at evangelism, discipleship service. Now we're going to look at fellowship, that's a critical function of a church. You know, we read in John 17, that Jesus desires that his disciples are one as he is one with the Father. So, in a lot of ways that fellowship, that hospitality thing, which we are going to talk about, even in more depth in this class, is very, very important. So community with God, the Father and God the Son together, and then seeing that small groups of people find that community. So in marriages and families, but also with in friends with other church members. And also we're to one vital thing in fellowship is conflict resolution. That is peace. The president of the Christian leaders board right now at the taping is Brian DeCook and he is, he runs an organization called Peacefire.net, which is about peace. So we've looked at these vital functions, evangelism, discipleship, we've looked at service, we've looked at fellowship, and now we need to look at worship. So the church gathers as a family of God to meet with the Father in worship, confession, gratitude, as well as dedication in to themselves in service in prayer. Evangelism is not the ultimate goal of the church worship occupies that place. Evangelism only exists, where there is worship. In other words, what's the point of evangelism is to get people connected to the God of the universe. And as John Piper says, in worship, that he is glorified, that he has saved our life, we're going to be worshiping God forever. So in church planting, there's a lot of concern about worship. The
church gathers as the family of God to meet with the father in worship confession and gratitude, as well as dedicating themselves to service and prayers, as I mentioned. Now, in Acts, we read that they devoted themselves to the breaking of bread to prayer to praising God. So you really do see that that's the end result that we're looking for is to get people to worship God and live for Him forever. Now, in this class, we're going to talk about defining your content in worship styles. And there are many factors that impact the worship style of your local church, you and the church leaders will need to objectively analyze the worship style your church has developed, what things to keep the same, and what things you want to keep modifying that it can bless a local congregation. Now, in this worship concept, very practical steps, our prayer, begin the practice of private personal prayer, that's personal worship as a church planter. It we've talked at Christian leaders Institute so much about the seven connections is the connection real in your own life. get others to support you in prayer for this very endeavor, that God will be glorified. And that you will find that cover of prayer. Pray regularly with leaders of the church and small groups, make sure that prayer is something in that worship that characterizes the entire church plant. So it's not just the worship service, but it's the worship of prayer that's integrated into your whole organization as you plant it, and develop a prayer ministry in your local church, where prayer is something that you take very, very seriously. You know, I want to jump back real quick to the analysis of worship styles. And there are many tools on the web for this, and we're going to talk more about this. But how is the worship style developed in our congregation is very crucial. And some in the body of Christ are very spontaneous. Others are more planned and some are very detailed. And if you were to say in this case, if you put a to on this year really not that detailed, which shows that worship occurs, but more spontaneously, it'd be interesting for you right now, as a church planter, where would you analyze your personal preference? Because as a church planter, when you start thinking about worship, you know, I like to really start it with your personal preference, what would be the leaders that you reach personal preference, and we're going to talk about people groups later on in this class that really gets into this eve? And more so here are the five vital functions of a church each of these will be looked at and we will be looking at them in the context of how you can plant a church and do really well at being a church planter