10/07/2024
MONDAY MORNING MANNA- MODELING VERSUS MARKETING: In my Apostolic assignment to the nations, I cover and counsel spiritual leaders, about a myriad of issues concerning evangelism, discipleship, leadership development, economic development and community transformation issues just to name a few. Lately, I've had perspective CHURCH PLANTERS reaching out to me for wisdom on how to launch a church. The unfortunate part of these conversations is the lack of an Apostolic Perspective rooted in biblical truth.
THE ISSUE- MODELING VERSUS MARKETING
The Westernized Version of "Church", has embraced a capitalistic ideology concerning church growth. Very well intentioned, potential leaders, launch a church without the key essentials to establishing a church, growing a church, and then being able to reproduce churches around the world.
PROBLEMS
1. NO PRAYER COVERAGE- Before undertaking an assignment as weighty as planting a church, a real investment in PRAYER needs to take place, in order to hear GOD's DIRECTION for HIS CHURCH! Launching a church is not like launching a business. The spiritual dynamic surrounding building a spiritual community must be guided by the HOLY SPIRIT. Human intellect and demographic studies alone aren't sufficient enough tooling to help you build a work of note!
2. NO CORE TEAM- JESUS in LUKE 6:12, 8:1, 9:1-2, 10:1-2, show us THE APOSTLE, JESUS CHRIST, launched His movement by identifying, recruiting, training and delegating a CORE TEAM. This CORE TEAM, became the essential leadership foundation upon which His Earthly ministry was built. If JESUS needed a TEAM, how much more do we? Jumping into this level of work without the support of other gifted, skilled, leaders to whom you have poured into and prepared for this work is spiritual su***de.
3. NO CHURCH SUPPORT- 99.9% of churches in America are NOT APOSTOLIC! They have no SENDING DIMENSION at all embedded in their culture. The primary focus of these entities is GATHERING, not GOING. Within the context of these churches is no focus on sending or supporting church plants. They want to amass members, who dependent on the Sunday Morning Show to keep them addicted to a one dimensional offering, that lacks the potency of advancing GOD's KINGDOM across the Earth. If you are one of the unfortunate ones, who grow up in such an entity, and are called by GOD to launch, there will be NO SUPPORT in terms of human resources, finances, or Apostolic Wisdom to help you over the inevitable barriers you will face while building. Don't be afraid to seek out true Apostles, who have sufficient weight in building, to connect with and provide accountability to, for your growth and development in this sacred task.
4. NO MODELING: Lastly, eager and zealous church planters, often believe that simply "marketing" your ministry will be enough to secure members. The cold reality is, the Apostolic Church that is being planted in a region, must have modeling MOBILIZATION, at the core of its ministry activity. Endless gatherings of "church people", hosting "conferences" with "church people" and having "church people" activities, will do NOTHING to WIN THE LOST and connect them to your church for DISCIPLESHIP. If you did not come from a SOUL WINNING CHURCH, who was consistent and effective in winning the lost, you may find yourself completely out of teach and incompetent in this area. If you did not come from a DISCIPLESHIP HEAVY church, you will not understand the process of both academic and relationally discipleship and so you won't have the Structures and Systems in place to engage this task which will make your "church" weak and unsustainable. Your CORE TEAM, must have the capacity to MODEL CHRISTIANITY to your new flock and then have the skill and ability to REPRODUCE CHRIST in your flock, else you will be developing another BABYLONIAN COUNTERFEIT CHURCH, that has no connection to true Kingdom Ministry.
Do the work of carefully preparing yourself to be used by GOD in this arena by getting the WISDOM you need from those EXPERIENCED in this work. Guessing and trial and error, while being responsible for souls, is a horrible way to move forward on the journey to building a proper, Apostolic Church Community, that is able to transform a dying world, that's separated from CHRIST, His CROSS, and His KINGDOM!! SELAH ADR
Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ.
1 Corinthians 11:1
