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