Thoughts on Biblically Living and Serving Incarnationally, Part 3

In review, here is the suggested model for living and serving incarnationally in missionary church planting.

In Scripture (1 Peter 3:8-9, Ephesians 4:1-6) Christians are called to submit to and live in deference one to another. In Hebrews 13:17 Christians are called to submit to their leadership (within Christian mutual submission). Being a churchman can and should be a very humbling experience. As much as the human being desires absolute autonomy, the simple truth is that in Christ we are unified to each other. In Christ we are to submit to one another with humble selflessness, giving deference to each other. If a man cannot do this in a local church, how can he have any reasonable expectation of asking men and women to follow his leadership as an undershepherd? How can a pastor hope to lead like Christ unless he can first be led? There is so much emphasis in evangelicalism on being a good leader that many people forget that in order to be a Christ-like servant-leader you must be a Christ-like servant-follower. Pastors are servants, under-shepherds, slaves and messenger boys, called of God to minister to Christ’s Body.

It is within this context that certain men are called out of the body of believers into roles of leadership. Yet, this does not necessarily happen instantaneously. In the examples of Barnabus and his protégé Paul, and then in Paul and his protégés Timothy and Titus, there is a very strong element of pastoral mentoring that occurs.  In this modern era of Christianity, most of the heart of pastoral training is expected to be completed at a seminary. There is on the job training that happens, as with any job, but usually, to be a pastor means that one must go to seminary, get a degree of some kind, and then wait for one’s resume to be picked up by a church somewhere who will then call the candidate in question and examine him. Where is the ownership in the local church for a man’s training and development in such a system?  Seminaries are not bad institutions. There is a lot of good that come out of seminaries, as well as bad. The problem comes when the local church abdicates her responsibility and ability to train her own pastors, missionaries and missionary church planters by farming out the work to the plethora of available para-church organizations and denominational institutions.

Once the pastors or missionaries or missionary church planters are trained and ready, who sends them? Should the local church rely solely on Missions agencies and church planting networks to send their men and women to the field? I think the example of the Holy Spirit through the Church in Antioch is a hearty no! It was the local church in Antioch that sent Barnabas and Paul. The local church must send out her own! This duty, calling and privilege is not the purview of the missions agency or the denomination. Are missions agencies or denominational missions wings bad? Again, not necessarily. Problems arise when local churches renege on their responsibilities. The church must train her people and she must take ownership of her calling before God to send them out among the nations.

Finally, as men and women are sent around the world to spread the good news of the Gospel, it must be done within the realm of planting churches that plant churches. Thus we see the organic nature of the Church: by God’s Grace, in Christ and through the Spirit’s power, churches reproduce. Interestingly enough, the three previous elements of this model happen at this point. One the one hand serving, teaching/learning and sending comes into play with this fourth element; but at the same time, the planted church is learning how to serve, teach/learn and send. In order for a church to be able to plant churches there should be a corporately similar trajectory of growth for the church as their should have been for the missionary church planter.

There are two additional aspects of this model that should be explained.

First, each subsequent element of the model is within the context of the previous element. Every Christian should be a part of a local church, that’s the large context of the model. Yet not everyone will be mentored to be a pastor/church planter. Even fewer will actually become pastors and even fewer will actually become church planters. Of the church planters and the churches that will be planted, even fewer churches will be planted that actually go out themselves to plant churches.

Secondly, every subsequent element of the model envelopes a larger and larger focus. For the first element, the focus is within the local church. As mentorship progresses to being sent the focus grows, finally culminating with an ever-expanding reality of planted churches planting churches for the purpose of worshiping God and evangelizing and discipling of all the peoples in all the lands throughout all the world.

A potentially obvious question is perhaps apparent. How is this incarnational?  I’ll answer that with the last and final post.