Equipping the Global Church

A recent article on Mission Network News looks at the growth of the global church in some parts of the world. It also helps provide the context for understanding Distant Shores Media's focus on "equipping the global church". Here is an excerpt from the article (emphasis added):

Very few organizations are training leaders in some of the most difficult areas of the world... It's well noted that in Southeast Asia, Christianity is growing at a staggering rate. Despite rising resistance and persecution, these new believers are also starting to take responsibility for the Great Commission. There are more churches being planted in this region of the world than ever before.

Good news, certainly, but it also presents a unique challenge. Young Christians are working to plant and multiply churches, reproducing new churches ahead of Bible training. Over 90% of them have no formal instruction and will never have the opportunity to get that kind of education.

The global church in parts of the world like Southeast Asia is planting churches so rapidly that Bible training ("equipping the global church") is unable to keep up. This is a great problem to have! But it is a problem—not because the church is growing too rapidly, but because churches without depth and discipleship training often do not last. Research suggests that as many as 95% of church plants fail within the first 5 years. In the context of world missions, one of the reasons that churches do not last is that church planting is the means to the goal, not the goal itself. Our goal must be the same it has been since Jesus first commissioned His disciples in Matthew 28:18-20: "make disciples of all people groups". The history of world missions clearly indicates that we have often been very good at evangelism and church-planting, but less effective at the follow-through of making disciples.

"Making disciples" is demanding, difficult work that often does not generate exciting numbers for reports back home. Disciples require careful teaching and translated, contextualized discipleship resources that enable them to continue growing as "learners" of Christ. Church planting without Bible training and leadership development is an incomplete and potentially tragic strategy for world missions. The world is littered with fragile, poorly equipped and sometimes broken churches in people groups all over the world—churches that are "a mile wide, and an inch deep".

God is doing great things in the world and bringing about the expansion of His church in some of the most afflicted and hostile parts of the world. Let us make it our ambition to not rest until the Church is not just spread out into many places, but firmly rooted in the Word of God and solid teaching that will enable disciples of Christ from every nation, tribe, people and language to grow in spiritual maturity and "go the distance".

Photo: based on a work by herr_hartmann, made available under by-nc