[Adapted from a paper I wrote]
My experience in North American Evangelicalism is that there are many Churches that think they are established and yet have not established themselves when it comes to their participation in the Great Commission. Many Evangelical Churches can say that they fulfill the marks of a true Church with regard to their ecclesiological tradition. They can also say that they have fulfilled their state’s requirements to be registered as an official charity. Yet I have observed, both as a current Church leader and a former missionary, that this does not necessarily lead to a Church being able to articulate their involvement in making disciples of all nations.
From my limited perspective, it seems that the Evangelical Church has a renewed vigour for local and global Church-planting. This is very commendable. However, I am worried that existing Churches can often be pushed aside in the process of expanding new Church-planting networks. Hopefully, God will awaken a desire for existing Churches to evaluate how established they are in mission. The next few posts will be an attempt to look at the first missionary journey in Acts 13-14, and create a model for evaluating existing Churches and their commitment to missions.
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