Theologue's Exploration on the Feasibility of Enterprise-like Church (2) - Mission of Church
The development of a company is determined by sales performance! No achievements, business will close down! It is not reasonable that the church longing for growth does not evangelize, depending only on God's preparation and choosing. Isn't it suggesting that the church is not doing her assigned work.
Though the church teaches that evangelism is the mission but the number of believers does not go up. More and more truth-seekers have lost their interest in Christianity. Maybe it is not proper for me to speak of the ministry of evangelism in the worldly words of "sales performance." But in fact, "evangelistic data" is similar to "sales performance." We do not need to reach a high level of achievement, but at least, we should achieve one tenth of their performance as our believers' growth rate.
For example, a typical enterprise's achievements for one year is some 10 million. By comparison, a normal church can set up the annual goal of believers growth as 100 people. The aim of 10 million can be achieved by enterprises both small and big at ease; the church has the same number of people or less after a few decades. In fact, in the sales area, remaining unchanged is backward. We Often hear people say they need to "pray for the city," but they never preach the gospel to people of the city. Should we not examine ourselves whether we have lost the mission to evangelize? We Often hear ourselves saying that we are willing to "spread the gospel of God in every corner of the world," but we remain silent toward our neighbors all the time. Should we reflect on our superior ability to talk in front of God?
With the dream of a sun, you can get the moon. This teaches us the real meaning of developing goals and plans. The church also needs to set up goals and make plans. For example, in terms of mission: how many missionaries are to be sent? How many people come to believe in Christ? For example, in social services: how much time spent in family visits and comfort? How much involvement in social welfare activities, so that more people improve their view of Christianity? For example, the ministry: Who will be preaching on Sunday? how to preach? Is it a planned preaching? There is a great need for the church to make plans.
With the plan and direction set up, it is necessary to take action. Do not end ministry in the "thinking" stage! "Thinking" is the first step, not the last; sales and evangelism are actually, in essence, recommending other people goods or ideas. How to promote product brands and keep the image of goods for salesmen? In other words, we need to create conditions and find ways to preach the gospel.
Thinking that evangelism is determined all by God's election, many people are not willing to evangelize. They do not consider it satisfying to see only a few people come to Jesus when they do evangelism as Peter did once in Acts 2. And when they do not see any obvious result in their evangelism, they owe it to God's election.I believe in God's election, but I also believe in man's work in evangelism. Faith comes from hearing and hearing from the words of Christ (Romans 10:17).
Where there is no evangelism, there is no mission. How can we keep asking God, "Who believe what we proclaim?" It is absurd for us to raise this question when we do not evangelize. It is written, "How beautiful is the feet of those who proclaim the gospel!"
Hopefully, more and more churches will give weighty consideration to mission and more missionaries like Apostle Paul can be sent to the un-reached land!
To be continued.
The author is a theology student.
Translated by Alvin Zhou
