Why did Jesus Christ give birth to a Church? Why does the church exist? Jesus brought the church into existence so that she (Church) could be a community of believers who would follow His teachings and spread His message of salvation to those outside the community. The Church does this by being obedient to Jesus Christ’s Great Commission.
Has the Church been successful in being the true community of believers? Has she been obedient to Christ’s Great Commission Command? Before answering these questions, we should first of all understand what success is. I believe we all understand that success involves achieving or reaching the right goal. The goal of the Church is to be both the community of believers and to fulfill the Great Commission in obedience to Christ’s command.
There is no success if nothing happens. Efficiency and effectiveness are the true by-products of success. “Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing right things.” (Leith Anderson). Therefore, success is doing the right things right at the right time (God’s appointed time is the right time). God calls His church to do both. The effectiveness and efficiency of the church in achieving her God given goal is embodied in Mobilization. The goal can never and will never be successfully achieved if the church does not mobilize.
Jesus has ordained the Church to execute her God-given role with efficiency and effectiveness. Settling for less than this is an insult to Christ’s efforts in enabling the church to be effective and efficient in her role. Settling for recruiting and sending out a few missionaries while Christ has called every single believer to participate in fulfilling the Great Commission is settling for less. Settling on building mega churches while Christ has called the church to reproduce people reproducing churches is settling for less. Settling for less hurts the main goal which the church is meant to achieve. Mission mobilization is vital because it is meant to address this and keep the Church on the right track and on her feet in achieving her God-given goal through Jesus Christ.
To achieve efficiency, all believers ought to be 100 percenters in a world of 50 percenters. Every single believer must come to the position of total surrender to God and His will, withholding nothing. Nancy Leigh DeMoss defines Christian surrender as coming to Christ on His terms, not ours. Just like in the narrative of the Apostle Paul, he consistently referred to himself as a slave of God, not a servant (though some Bible translations translate “servant”, which does not do justice to the correct translation of the Greek text).
In Greek, “slave” is doulos while “servant” is diakonos. According to the Greek language Bible, one never diakoneo to God—one never serves God; one only douleo to God—-that is one slaves to God. Jesus makes it clear in Luke 17:5-10 that however much you do for God, at the end of the day you say: “I am an unworthy slave; I only did what is the duty of the slave to do!”
Nancy quotes Webster’s Dictionary which bears out the difference in meaning between these two words. A servant is defined as “a person employed to perform services… for another.” A slave, on the other hand, is a “human being who is owned as property by and is absolutely subject to the will of another.”
DeMoss quotes Josef Tson in her book, stating that slavery is a concept resisted in the West and now the rest of the world has joined the party. We can barely swallow the idea of a servant, but the word slave sticks to our throat—as it should, if we are speaking of a coerced or involuntary slavery of a person who is owned against his will by another. That is an abhorrent relationship between two individuals, both of whom are created in the image of God. However, it is absolutely appropriate that human beings should choose to be the slaves of the Lord Jesus, whom they love and long to serve for all their lives. “For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible… all things have been created through him and for him.” (Colossians 1:16).
We should beware when we begin to serve God as a servant instead of as a slave, because this is when the fire of mobilization begins to die, and the Great Commission becomes an option for a few members to be recruited to obey on behalf of the entire church. This is when our ego occupies the place of God in His work. Our ego lies to us that it entirely depends on us and our abilities in partnership with God, while the truth is that it entirely depends on God and His abilities in partnership with the church which we are part of. If we choose to disobey and leave, the stones will do our job (Luke 19:40). We are not in charge, He is.
Therefore, wholehearted surrender is foundational to truly effective and efficient Mission Mobilization. It is at the foot of wholehearted surrender to Jesus Christ where the piece of true mobilization is found, picked up and carried on this long run towards the fulfillment of the Great Commission. It is at the feet of Jesus where the Church finds her purpose, where every single believer identifies their God given gift(s) and ministry roles, and takes part in fulfilling the Great Commission.
In agreement to this, Ryan Shaw explains that “Mission mobilization is a large, complex, multifaceted entity, with many types of leaders. We have generally lacked awareness of how many are in the category of “mission mobilizer. It is necessary to identify the wide variety of mobilizer roles. Not all are the same.” Mobilization cannot be detached from all other areas of ministry. At the foot of wholehearted surrender to Jesus, the element of mobilization is understood and picked up by all believers, and Pastors, teachers, evangelists, apostles and all others begin to serve not just as the office bearers of that office alone but as well as Pastor Mobilizers, teacher mobilizers, evangelist mobilizers, apostle mobilizers and mobilizers of different kinds.
Leith Anderson, A Church for the 21st Century; Bringing Change to Your Church to Meet the Challenges of a Changing Society, Bethany House Publishers, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55438.
Nancy Leigh DeMoss, Surrender: The Heart God Controls, Moody Publishers, Chicago, 2005.
Ryan Shaw, Rethinking Global Mobilization: Calling the Church to Her Core Identity, Published by IGNITE Media, 2022.
