How Can You Faithfully Do The Great Commission?
1.) Preach the Biblical Gospel - You will be amazed to know that most of what is called “gospel” nowadays has nothing to do with the biblical Gospel of our Lord Jesus. For instance, motivational speaking is not the Gospel. “Come to Jesus you will succeed” is not Gospel truth. “Come and watch me perform in my Gospel music concept” is definitely not about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The real Gospel, dear comrades, is when you arrive in a place – it doesn’t matter whether you find rich celebrities or poor farmers – and start announcing to those people that there is a Holy King in heaven, whom they have offended in word and deed. And you tell them that, because of these crimes, they have been found wanting. Yet, you have been sent to them with the Glad Tidings for the terms of peace: that if only they would believe in His crucified Son, and repent of their rebellion, they would be freed, pardoned and adopted as citizens of His new Kingdom. You invite, you call, you beg, and you warn those souls to get right with God. I wonder if we still preach this Gospel in our circles, dear brothers?
When you are at the end of your Gospel presentation, I beg of you, do not make the mistake of the modern evangelist of coercing people to pray the “prayer of salvation” so that you can pronounce them as “saved souls” to boast about among your ministry friends. Instead, leave those souls to God. He will deal with them through His Spirit. Those who are truly touched by the Word will come to salvation, with or without your prayer of salvation formula. Trust in God to convert sinners, in His own way, at His own time. That is how you avoid building your ministry upon the bones of false converts who only “accepted Jesus” because of the pressure from the evangelist.
2.) Plant a Biblical church - After you have preached the Gospel, the next step is to have those redeemed individuals gather in one place where they would be able to fellowship and worship together, and that you may teach them to obey those things that Christ has commanded. That is where the idea of a church plant comes in. Again, the goal of starting a church is not that you may fulfil your “leadership” ego that you got from worldly celebrities. It is not to have people who follow you and your prideful “great” personality. It is not to make a career out of the Gospel ministry. To the contrary, it is to simply and faithfully shepherd the innocent, hungry Sheep of Christ; to serve them humbly and fearfully. That is all.
3.) Appoint Qualified Leaders - Another plague that continues to invade the African church is spiritual leaders who have no business being spiritual leaders in the first place. Totally unqualified! And guess who is to take the first blame? Those who appoint them. I have seen this evil happen with my eyes: people being ordained as Gospel leaders because of their fat financial status, others, because they are friends and relatives of the lead Pastor. The church of Christ is not a family trust. You must appoint biblically qualified elders as per the standard of 1 Timothy 3:1-13, Titus 1:5-9, Acts 6:3 and Exodus 18:21. Those are the faithful men that will be able to teach others also, so said Paul.
4.) Take Church Membership Seriously - Another thing that we are losing in this generation is church membership. I have observed that many of our people are content to come to church as visitors for as long as they can and as less frequent as their flesh would like them to. Such bad habits eventually hinder Gospel progress. Because, how can they fully benefit from the church community, and how can you faithfully shepherd people who have one foot set on the church while another is somewhere else? It's time to start teaching our people the importance of being a church member; being part of a godly community of believers who care for your soul, who know your life, who can pray for you, encourage you in difficult times and even discipline you when you stray from the path of righteousness. Apart from that, things like the Lord’s supper, baptisms, family visits and the Church Members Directory can go a long way in promoting church membership.
5.) Take Doctrine Seriously - This is directly your responsibility as the leader. You must have strong doctrinal convictions yourself if you are going to have a chance in faithfully fulfilling this Great Mission. That is, you must know, without doubt, what you believe, and why you believe it. To have a clear understanding of the great Bible doctrines such as the doctrine of God, the doctrine of salvation, the doctrine of the Bible, etc. Then you impart your doctrinal emphasis on your people. That way, you produce sound believers who are not moved by every wind of lies that blows here and there.
6.) Community Empowerment Projects - The main aim of the Great Commission is the salvation of souls, yes, yet that is not all. We must also be willing to relieve the physical challenges of our people. You can start with your own church members, as we see in the early church, where a team of deacons were chosen to look after the poor widows among them(Act 6:1-3). The community where your church is located should never feel burdened by your presence as believers, instead, they must be grateful. I have seen some citizens complain about the churches in their areas because they do not see any use of those churches, except for the noise pollution during their services. So, question to you: how is your church useful to the residents around it?
7.) Train Your People in Evangelism - Take the best Christian from any church gathering these days and sit with them at a bus station next to an unbeliever who carries a pint of vodka and a stump of marijuana in their mouth and see how they interact. Usually in that scenario, nothing happens in terms of Gospel conversation. Our people just cannot share their faith. They have neither wisdom nor desire for it. And can you blame them? Nobody has taught them how to. I have often argued against the abundance of church conferences among us, because I believe there are no more useless things than such events. Unless we do conferences that are aimed at training people to do Gospel witnessing, including a hands-on teaching experience of how to approach someone with the Message of Jesus. Therefore, if you are going to accomplish the Great Commission, you will have to train the disciples of Christ to make other disciples of Christ.
8.) Send them Out - The final part of this Great Task is when, from within our assemblies, spring up men with extraordinary gifting and maturity in the things of the Lord. These are the foot-soldiers that you launch out to the mission field. Remember again: only biblically qualified men and women are to be sent out. Not people who are still morally flawed and doctrinally immature. Also, the reason why no sound men are rising up among us is that there are very few sound churches to begin with. Somebody needs to start one.
Conclusion: Brethren, we do not need worldly techniques and man-centred methods to draw people to the Lord. We just have to be biblical in our Gospel endeavours. In essence, the only strategy for completing the Great Commission is to know our Bibles, and to apply that Bible knowledge thoroughly to our individual Christian lives, to evangelism and to church governance. Well then, let’s get to work.
Sinothi Ncube
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