I was recently asked, “What is the mission field of your church?” (In this post I am referring specifically to our local mission field).
I immediately thought, “That’s easy – DeKalb County.” Others from my church would probably give a similar answer — a geographical location. Perhaps you might give your church the “mission field” of a demographical target – like “young adults” or “Hispanics.”
Dr. Hunter of Church Doctor Ministries showed me how wrong that was. Let me quickly explain why.
Firstly, these answers are incredibly institutional, and the days of the church functioning primarily as an institution are numbered. Church must become less of an institutional organization and more of an organism; a family. You see, if you declare your “mission field” as a location, you’ve immediately cut off all personal relationships.
Secondly, the Bible doesn’t say anything about the Church Leadership/Organization having a mission field. The instructions for Church Leadership/Organization is to equip the people. The command for Christians (the real Church, not a building) is to go and reach the lost.
With that said, I would like to join Dr. Kent Hunter in redefining our church’s mission field:
Our mission field is the sum total of the networks of every individual in our church.
That leads me to the topic of this post: The Greatest Hope for the Future of Christianity. It’s the contacts list in our cell phones!
Cell phone, tweets, Facebook, blogs. Mankind has never been THIS networked ever before in history. The mission field of my church is my network! Your network! I have an unsaved friend in another state – THAT’S our mission field! I have no idea who you are, but my subscriber list keeps rising and rising — I’m networked with you declaring Truth and we don’t even know each other.
The greatest hope for the future of Christianity is the Church (the people) being networked together with more people (many who are searching for Truth) than ever before. Our networking makes the future look bright — if we use it.
Please understand the greatest hope for Christianity is Christ. Period. I am in no way denying that. But I’m talking about the greatest hope for the FUTURE of Christianity – the spread of it.
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