Underneath the veil of American Christianity is hundreds, if not thousands of Christians who are crying out for a personal hands-on experience to be a difference maker for Christ. They come to church to be challenged and mentored, not indulged because they are starving for purpose. Their goal of an ultimate destination is to have a hands-on ministry to serve Christ but have to be shepherded and led to be ministers of reconciliation. Therefore, organizing and teaching disciples to go out and find opportunities to fulfill their ministry should be today’s churches greatest passion.
The true issue today is churches are not focused in the marketplace to produce faith-in-public ministries. This is seeking opportunities to market Christ in areas outside the church where disciples live, work, and play. Almost every church leadership tells the body that Christ has an ambitious plan for their lives, but they only offer in church activities i.e. greeters, serving communion, sound, video or other in church activities. They boast of the number of trained Disciples but do not focus them on opportunities outside the church to bring non-believers to Christ. Many hundreds, if not thousands of Christians nationwide want to take a larger role and be active ministers of reconciliation in their community but are given little training, nor focus or opportunity.
Disciples of Christ understand the biblical truth that Christ has to be witnessed into the marketplace of ideas to positively affect our culture, our community to accept the righteousness of God as our country’s foundation. Sadly, this knowledge, this truth is being ignored and we wonder why our country’s morality is going to hell.
The truth is the body of Christ is commissioned to reconcile the world to God by putting on the full armor of God to stand and withstand evil to defeat darkness with the sword of the Spirit, the word of God, for which we are ambassadors who speak boldly, as we ought to speak (Ephesians 6:10-20). This is being involved and speaking Christ’s truth outside into every aspect of our culture so the Holy Spirit can save the lost. Jesus is our example and He was accused of having dinner with many tax collectors and sinners who came and ate with Him and His disciples (Matthew 9:10-17, Mark 2:15-22, Luke 5:29-39). Jesus was teaching His Disciples that to reconcile evil people to God disciples have to live, work, and play among them. This is evidenced when Jesus “appointed seventy…, and sent them out two by two” (Luke 10:1) and they “returned with joy” (Luke 10:17). This is the direction today’s church is commanded to focus because the body of Christ is commissioned to work, strive, and serve Christ by going out “…to open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Christ” (Acts 26:18).
Sadly, many Churches today are focused on bigger, nicer buildings to house larger services to invite more tithers to fund larger internal ministries that offer salvation to the few unsaved invited to church. They have little or nothing that goes out into the body of Christ’s work, play, and civic involvement. These churches without knowing have become spiritual bottlenecks, because they habitually focus on diverting salvation to inside the church and not into the community where the fields are ripe for harvest (John 4:35). They concentrate on encouraging attendees to invite others to church to be saved, rather than teaching the body to go out and make disciples. This plays into Satan’s hands as he profits when the voices of millions of Christians are constrained to inside thousands of churches. Could this be disobedience? Wasn’t the servant who hide his talent disobedient and sent to the outer darkness (Matthew 25:18-30)? The brother of Jesus wrote, “Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin” (James 4:17). Is it time to repent?
America desperately needs spiritual leaders to help fill the void outside the church into our culture with the truth of Christ by training Disciples to fulfill their personal ministry of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:18). The ministry of the Word honors God’s righteous demand that we bear witness of Christ so the Holy Spirit can change man from being an enmity of God to friendship with God (James 4:4). This is our most important purpose after salvation. However, to be a disciple we must first read the Bible, second pray and third fulfill our commission, our purpose to witness Jesus Christ to ends of the world. Barna studies prove that less than 10 per cent of church attendees read their Bible, most pray for themselves, and only a small fraction tell others about Jesus Christ. The fault for this disaster falls upon America’s Church.
Every Minister and Christian should know where the battles rage outside the church is where the loyalty of the soldier of God is proven. If we are steady on the battlefield, we are proven loyal to the cause of Christ “to bear witness to the truth,” (John 18:37) and if not, we disgrace ourselves at the point of testing.
Therefore, for the Christian church to do what Christ called the Church to do, they must fill the void outside and emphasize faith-in-public ministries! Christ defined leaderships mission statement when “…Christ Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ (Ephesians 4:11-12). Delegative Christ like leadership equips disciples to stand on their own, through instructive and supportive means that encourages them to go out and do the work of their ministry.
For churches to equip saints for the work of ministry, they must:
- Have a truthful biblical vision of God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit to go where people live, work, and play to make disciples.
- Actively hunt for opportunities and resources to positively affect the culture where they live.
- Invest resources and teachings to equip the saints for the ministry of reconciliation.
- Create structures in the church to enhance, support, and focus on sustaining these individual ministries.
- Encourage the whole body to take responsibility for reconciling the culture outside to Christ where they live.
- Train the youth, men’s, and woman’s ministries to include a focus outside the church so they can individually create their own faith-in-public ministry.
- Empower the body of Christ to seek volunteer leaders to organize, control, and promote these ministries. This is crucial so the body of Christ can become innovators in bringing people to Christ.
What would change if Church Leadership was really serious about equipping saints for the work of ministry?
- Leaders will have to step back from control and become Christlike masters of delegating responsibility. This is needed to successfully equip the saints with the knowledge and authority to go out on their own and make Disciples (Acts1:8).
- They would be praying for guidance for the purpose of what Christ commissioned disciples to do.
- Preaching would be filled with biblical encouragement to lead the whole body of Christ to seek public opportunities to reach the lost, wherever they are.
- This would change the church’s focus to not only be a place for pastoral care, but as Christ’s chosen entity where Ministers of the Word are trained.
- Men’s, woman’s and youth meetings would focus on ways to obtain salvation for the lost in the public realm and rejoice with individual successes.
- All this would be to focus the Church to honor the righteous demands of God.
SOME AREAS OF WHERE THE MINISTRY OF RECONCILIATION NEEDS TO BE FOCUSED, (NOT IN ANY ORDER)
People’s Daily Workplace
Churches need to see their daily work as part of the church’s ministry. Where are our people during the week? What opportunities exist to spread the gospel of Christ? These churches give the people of God a sense that they have been strategically placed by God in their living, working, and playing environments to make a difference for Christ and be ministers of reconciliation.
Encouraging Volunteerism and Civic Engagement
Churches have to inspire their members to be involved in their communities through charitable work, food kitchens, and other civic participation. Examples include local clean-ups, donating blood, membership in righteous community associations, voting, census, and civil participation. These are areas where Christ’s truth needs to be spoken to influence the culture and make Christ the priority in America.
Home Schooling Co-ops
The largest antichrist threat against our children is government schools. They are teaching our children to accept sexual immorality as normal, hate America, and are not successful at teaching children to read, write, and know America’s history.
Most home-schooling co-ops are foundationally biblical. Co-ops have a small margin of profitability so they cannot afford space. They are desperately needing free Church space to educate our children. They are also in need of teachers, tutoring, special occupation experts and all kinds specialty programs, i.e. finances, woodworking, and history to name a few. This is where the seniors in every church could provide tremendous hands-on education for our most important resource, God’s children.
Senior Group Homes
There is a great need for seniors living in group homes. Many times, even their families do not visit them and there is not enough encouragement and activities.
Political Engagement
“I believe that one reason why the church of God at this present moment has so little influence over the world is because the world has so much influence over the church.” —Charles H. Spurgeon (1834–1892), preacher. Political engagement with the word of God has been sadly lacking. If the word of God is not spoken into politics America will continue to be led by evil people. Shepherds need to focus on exposing and warning the body of Christ of the dangers of today’s political activism. The “rulers of darkness of this age” (Ep. 6:12) arrogantly stand on their foundation of envy, hate, resentment, and bitterness. Proving they are fanatics devoid of character and have no sense of shame, while becoming those, “who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worships and serves the creature” (Romans 1:18-32).
Christians have to be involved in politics because it is dangerous to remove the authority of the Church from influencing government. The word “politics” means authority over a land. God gave Jesus all authority in Heaven and on earth. He carries the government on His shoulders. Christ is the Head of the Church; we are His body. A head without a body cannot live in peace. Disciples are His hands, His feet, His voice, taking the Gospel into all areas of dark influence. When we refuse to exercise God’s authority in any area, evil will step into this vacuum. If we abdicate our responsibility to oversee civic government, we invite corruption in – rather than exposing it (Eph 5:11). In Mark 16:15, Jesus said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature”. Nothing is more creature like than the dark side of politics.
Since there has been a lack of the voice of Christ in the progressive secular leftist party, the body of Christ now needs to encourage members to become involved and try to become elected representatives to create a faith-in-public ministries in the political realm. This enables Disciples to physically stand and fight against despotism, and all the different forms of darkness supported by the extreme WOKE agenda and other radical immoral principalities that stand against Christ and freedom of religion.
Ministry Opportunities Where People Play. There are thousands of opportunities, but many churches have ignored training disciples to go into these fields that are ripe for harvest.
Mentoring at Organizations like Adult-Teen Challenge. This is where men and women can be involved in a challenging ministry of the Word mentoring the lost back to righteous living.
There are thousands of additional areas for ministers of reconciliation to address. Church leadership has to realize they have much to learn to gain an entrepreneurial spirit and create market based, faith-in-public ministries through the body of Christ. Just as businesses must be highly adaptive in order to stay competitive in an ever-changing market, so must ministers of the Word have flexibly to adapt quickly in order to best serve and speak the truth of Christ into the ever-changing needs of God’s people. Successful churches will delegate responsivity and never limit their disciples to a single approach. To be an innovative spirit, reconciliation ministers must have the power to dream, pray, and create God’s destiny for their ministry. They must have the spiritual ability to fail, re-evaluate, adjust and innovate to gather the strengths from different processes, and selectively adopt those best suited to be effective ministers of reconciliation.
Strategies for churches to help themselves to become better equippers of the saints requires enhancing the congregation’s expectations and church culture. This is focusing inside for preparation and outside to “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that Christ has commanded you;” (Matthew 28:19-20). Therefore, a broad spectrum of disciples from across the church have to be led to accomplish faith-in-public ministry. The immediate benefit is this will require the whole church to acknowledge and learn their responsibility to become ministers of the Word and call upon the power of Holy Spirit to witness Christ to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).
Never forget, there is an unknown wealth of creativity in the body of Christ waiting to be tapped. There are innovative methods to be developed through the power of the Holy Spirit that will far outpace what is currently being done to bring people to Christ. When given permission, control, encouragement, and adequate support the body of Christ will become pacesetters of faith-in-public ministries. They will accomplish through the Holy Spirit what has not yet even been imagined. In the current age of ever-changing technology and public dynamics, including the impact of the global informational age, this type of outreach ministry will breed new innovation sponsored by the Spirit Himself who bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, (Romans 8:16). Amen!
David Howard, Foxhole Ministry Billings, MT