Elements of Engaging the Missional Mandate
HIS FAMILY CALLED the Church of God ministers in 181 nations. We have more than 7 million members and 40,000 congregations. Since the last General Assembly, we have averaged planting three new churches a day around the world and have led over a million people to Christ. From a remote mountain community in Appalachia, emboldened by the Spirit, this movement has reached around the globe. From Jakarta, Indonesia, where a Church of God has 250,000 members, to mud huts and simple preaching stations, we are sharing the gospel. From churches now numbering in the tens of thousands, to chapels in small hamlets and remote villages, we are sharing the gospel. Seven out of 10 of the largest churches of our movement are located outside the United States. Our membership in Indonesia equals that of the United States. We are the largest Protestant church in Guatemala and Jamaica.
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From full-service hospitals in Central America to simple health clinics on every continent, the Church of God has demonstrated care. The Pentecostal Theological Seminary is complemented by a dozen other graduate-level institutions. Lee University leads a parade of 23 colleges, 66 Bible schools, and almost two dozen lay- training institutes. There are homes for widows, 131 orphanages, feeding stations, compassion ministries, and church-planting efforts that encircle the globe . . . and it all began with a prayer meeting!
Propelled by Prayer
The Church of God began as the church in Acts 2 began—with a prayer meeting. God designed prayer as the genesis and source of our vitality, and there is no other force that can propel us for- ward to engage the missional mandate. The theme for the last two years has been Forward Together in Changing Times. But there are moments when destiny demands that a movement go “back to the future”! Our future is found in the richness of our heritage. The Church of God was born in a prayer meeting and destined to be a movement, not just another denomination. Churches grew out of prayer meetings. Men and
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women moved forward on their knees. Men with fire in their belly went to the next town or crossed oceans to carry the message. We were passionate about Jesus, and we were determined to share the message of His transforming love.
Today, we have programs for youth, vital ministries to men and women, jail ministries, nursing-home ministries, children’s ministries, music ministries, and on and on. Yet, our resources and ministries cannot be focused merely on self-edification; they must include a renewed emphasis on evangelism. We grow people to enable them to go—first near to friends and family who do not know Christ, and afar to people groups who have yet to hear the message for the first time.
We were born with such evangelistic fervor. Within 10 years of our first General Assembly, our missionaries were on foreign soil. Unfortunately and embarrassingly, we have some churches that do not report a single convert in the course of a year. Going “forward together in changing times” demands that we recover the spiritual dynamics found in our DNA—prayer, caring love, and evangelism.
There are three “greats” in the New Testament: • The Great Commission: Sharing the message of God’s grace (Matthew 28:18-20).
• The Great Commandment: Loving God and letting Him love us until that love overflows, and we love our unsaved neighbor right into the kingdom of God (22:34-40). • The Great Commitment. It comes from the apostle Paul—pray for men everywhere, beginning with government authorities, that we might live peaceable lives, and that people might be saved (see 1 Tim. 2:1-4).
Prayer is the means by which we invite heaven’s atmosphere into our lives, and release it into a dying and desperate world. Prayer and evangelism belong together. We cannot accomplish this task in our own strength. Our best resources and our most sin- cere efforts will fall short unless they are baptized in the strength of the Holy Spirit. Calloused knees and tear-stained eyes must
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