Yesterday we looked at deciphering whether we personally or we as a church are living in maintenance mode or we are living with a missional mindset. \u00a0In case you missed it, you can go here to read it:\u00a0http:\/\/www.westlakebaptist.org\/blog\/mission-vs-maintenance-part-1\/<\/p>\n
Today, we want to be more practical in terms of how can we fan the flames of a missional mindset or get out of maintenance mode? \u00a0Before you can be changed, you must be able and willing to admit that change needs to happen. \u00a0Apart from acknowledgement that something is wrong, you won’t have the desire for God to change you. \u00a0The first step will always be prayer. \u00a0The mission isn’t about you individually or the church corporately. \u00a0It is God’s mission for God’s glory. \u00a0The fight to live on mission for Jesus Christ is above all else a spiritual issue, which means spiritual warfare will be involved. \u00a0We cannot fight spiritual battles with earthly weapons. \u00a0We must pray and confess our sin of not living as a “sent one.” \u00a0We must pray and ask God’s Spirit to empower us to have a change in our heart which will lead to a change in our mind, which will fully manifest itself in a change in how we live. \u00a0This is a heart issue, and therefore only God can fix it. We need to pray that the Spirit will give us grace and strength to persevere when it gets hard (and it will get hard). \u00a0The second step is to ask God to change your attitude. \u00a0One thing that keeps us from living on mission is our attitude of, it’s all about me. \u00a0I need to ask God to help me have the attitude of, it’s about You God and it’s about others. \u00a0We must have the conviction that apart from faith in Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection; a person cannot be right with God. \u00a0Therefore, if they die in their rejection of the Gospel, they will spend all of eternity in the lake of fire separated from God. \u00a0David Platt, the leader of the SBC’s International Mission Board, has said on more than one occasion, “when will it become intolerable to Christians that people are dying and going to hell?” \u00a0The mission we have been given by Jesus is bigger than us, it is bigger than the here and now. \u00a0This is a mission that has the eternity of every person hanging in the balance. \u00a0No, we are not able to save anyone. \u00a0But we have been given the message to share that can save them. \u00a0We must have the attitude of “I am going to share the Gospel with you regardless of how uncomfortable I may feel about it and regardless of what it costs me.” \u00a0I would say the next logical step will be getting equipped to be a disciple who makes disciples, and be a church that plants churches. \u00a0In this step is the requirement that we practice what we preach. \u00a0It means we are going to have to make church attendance a priority in our life. \u00a0Paul is clear in Ephesians 4:11-16 that God gave the church spiritual gifts for the training, equipping, and building up of the body of Christ. \u00a0To neglect regular church attendance is to neglect your relationship with Jesus. \u00a0The church is a gift from God for encouragement, but also for accountability. \u00a0This step also requires that church leadership be intentional about training its members in how to be a disciple. \u00a0There are a plethora of resources available for individuals as well as churches to help in this area. \u00a0Some of my personal favorite discipleship resources are Experiencing God by Dr. Blackaby, the MasterLife Series by Avery Willis, and The Disciple’s Path by Lifeway. Some of my personal favorite evangelism resources are Sharing Jesus Without Freaking Out by Dr. Alvin Reid, FAITH Evangelism by Bobby Welch, and Evangelism is by Dr. David Wheeler. \u00a0The church must become better about training disciples by leaders modeling it and the church teaching it. \u00a0The final step in becoming missional is to follow Nike’s advice, just do it. \u00a0You can pray for God to give you His heart and passion, \u00a0you can receive encouragement and training from the church, but if you don’t do anything with it, what have you truly accomplished? \u00a0Will it be clunky at times? \u00a0Yes. \u00a0Will it be difficult to start Gospel conversations at first? \u00a0Absolutely it will. \u00a0But the deeper the conviction, the more confident you become through training, the more comfortable you will become in being a disciple who makes disciples.<\/p>\n
Maybe now more than ever, there must be an intentionality in the heart and life of Christians to reach the lost around us. \u00a0The nominal or cultural Christian is fading from the landscape of our society. \u00a0This means more and more people are no longer attending church, even on holidays that 20 years ago it was expected that people would attend church. \u00a0We can lament this, talk about a bygone era where families went to church, and we can condemn those who don’t attend church. \u00a0Or we can love God and love them enough to pursue them just as God pursued us. \u00a0I am convinced that people by and large are not against God, the Gospel, or the church. \u00a0They simply aren’t being told about God and they aren’t hearing the Gospel as often as they once did. And that is something that by God’s grace and with His help that can be changed!<\/p>\n
Pastor Justin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yesterday we looked at deciphering whether we personally or we as a church are living in maintenance mode or we are living with a missional mindset. \u00a0In case you missed it, you can go here to read it:\u00a0http:\/\/www.westlakebaptist.org\/blog\/mission-vs-maintenance-part-1\/ Today, we … Read More