GlocalNet

I received an email from a young church planter we are working with.  This guy is really kickin’ it good!  He went to a church planter conference where there were several huge churches, most reformed, to talk about how to plant churches in the US.  When he asked about working globally the response was, “our hands are full here, that’s later.” These churches are thousands with budgets of millions.  He was stunned by the response.  These were also “younger” guys so he didn’t expect that.  He’s not the first to experience this. 

If they don’t have enough people and money to engage the world, who does?  If they can’t do it now, when will they?  Chances are, if they are that big they never really will engage globally that much.  They’ve adopted missions as one of the many things a church does, versus what the church is. 

I’ve discovered guys in their 30’s can be incredibly “old school” when it comes to global engagement.  The only area in the West where missions is exploding is in volunteerism.  It’s driven primarily by people who travel in business.  A hundred years ago it was the pastor who made the church global by funding mission agencies.  Now it’s the businessman and often they are leading or frustrated with their pastors who don’t get global.  I’m convinced the first global generation, those in their early to mid-20’s, will see this different.  They are already responding differently.

Another observation comes from knowing about many of the current church planting movements and having studied past global church planting movements, I can’t think of any that are “reformed”.  There are reformed missionaries as was Carey, and mission agencies for reformed denominations, but for the most part, church planting movements have a far simpler theology than reformed theology. 

Think about it, did Luther and Calvin start churches or did they switch the churches over?  They switched them from Catholic to Reformed!  I am reformed to a large degree and I cannot ignore this reality. 

Teaching strong Biblical doctrine is not enough.  Without prayer and without engagement of the farthest and the least from those doctrines, they are a slow death for the church.  We should strive for good theology. We should not make a correlation between good theology and church planting movements.  In Antioch the church took off by laymen, and then had teachers help for over a year. 

There is no such thing as “too busy with what we’ve got.”  Thank God the church at Antioch didn’t fall into that rut.  Global engagement has never been about money, it’s about connecting with the big picture of God and his kingdom.  If you had 100 million dollars and gave it to a nation, it’s gone, and its really not that much in the scheme of things.  It’s when we’re obedient that God does the unexpected.  Gatekeepers follow Christ and the masses ensue. 

It’s not about money, time, busyness.  It’s about the kingdom of God and fulfilling Christ’s command.  I don’t read where anyone gets a pass on that to wait until you get so big, so much money, so much of this and/or that.  The real question is not do you have enough, but are you going to be obedient or disobedient.  The Sovereign God comes down to humanity and reveals himself to those of us lost in our sins without hope so we can respond, and we have the unmitigated gall, the shear audacity to say “thanks for saving me Jesus” maybe later we’ll get around to those other people you died for, but I can’t obey you now because I’ve got to get more organized.  Give me a break!  Listen to some John Piper, now there’s a reformed guy who doesn’t just get it, he does it!

OK, I feel better now.  On my way to Seoul to visit with 30 global pastors, a couple even reformed, who have all started their churches.