(I’m taking notes, not quotes getting the gist of the message but not the word for word blow by blow!)
Told of his church’s aggressive church planting strategy.
John 12:20 -25 Greeks came to see Jesus.
Jesus explained the principle of the harvest. His plan was not the growing of one institution, but by seeds dying, being spread and growing in new life.
Reasons to Send
1. Jesus’s Promises about the greatness of teh church were always tied to sending.
John 14:12 – Greater works than these will he do
Spirit in us is better than Jesus with us.
We must realize that the celebrity pastor mentality is not the method of God. Sending people out into the world is God’s way.
2. In our day, more and mor peope will have to be reached “outside” of the church walls.
We will see a few flashier and flashier megachurches competing for a bigger share of a smaller pie.
In Acts, God’s miracles took place OUTSIDE the church. 39 of the 40 miracles were in th world, not in the church.
3. God only multiplies what we sow.
Often, we are reluctant to “sow” our leaders, to give them up for church planting. But you can’t outgive God. And if we are stingy with our resources, people see that and may be stingy with theirs.
We must sow our resources, financial, people, etc, and God will multiply them.
Why don’t more of us gravitate to this?
Obstacles to Sending
1) Our personal ambitions
It can expose the idolatry of our personal ambitions and desire to make a name for ourselves.
So often when we say, “Thy kingdom come” we are really saying, “my kingdom come.”
The greatest threat to churches being sending churches is pastors who are working for pride and personal kingdom building.
We are called to altars, not to platform building.
2) False measures of success.
We sometimes go for the big splash instead of our real effect.
It’s not seating capacity but sending capacity.
We have no idea who planted the major planting centers in the NT church. They were evidently planted by regular people not church stars.
Mostly, our church growth is attracting bored Christians from other churches.
3) Fear
The man with one talent who was afraid ws “wicked.” To fail to invest what we have in God’s kingdom is wicked. To fail to sow broadly and give away widely is wicked.
NOTES: JD Greeeeeeeeeear (does anyone actually know how many e’s there really are in his name?) is one of our best and brightest! This was a fantastic message.
He said several things that we need to hear.
- MINISTRY IS NOT ABOUT CELEBRITY – powerful point. It’s about sending out normal people to do God’s work. Always has been.
- IT IS WICKED not to invest. That was a great point from the parable of the talents. It wasn’t just that the man who kept his talent and didn’t invest it wasted an opportunity. He did something wicked.
- IT’S ABOUT SOWING — about giving and laying down our lives.
- ITS ABOUT DISCIPLESHIP and building leadership.
I don’t know about availability of this message. He did say that these concepts were from one of his books. Excellent stuff. You can tell I’m more moved by the preaching of the Word than by music or skits or any of that. But this was a great message with a lot of biblical and practical wisdom about sending into the lostness, into the harvest.
