Gospel, Mission, and Focus

After just finishing reading Bob Clem’s book, Disciple: Getting Your Identity From Jesus, it is safe to say that it will be one of those reads that will be on the re-read list. Simply because although a short book, roughly 220 pages, it is packed with one key point after another, therefore to adequately digest the material it would be wise to go back and re-read the content slower so that a better understanding of the Biblical definition of a “disciple” will shine forth. With that very brief review of the book aside, it is the purpose of this article (and the one’s to follow), what is the Gospel Mission of the Church?
Before embarking on examining that specifically, unpacking the idea of community is important in the context of the church. This will be done in a backwards manner of sorts, first a look at the distortions that can easily overlap into the community of believers and then what a biblical model of community as developed from Scripture.
Distortion #1: Community as therapy
Little wonder there is any real change among many so-called believers in today’s society. When examined closely, the core reality is that most believers go to a small group for “therapy” from a sin habit. Now on the front end this is not a bad thing, but on the opposite end of things this can cause detrimental problems. For most this will create the “should we continue in sin, so that grace may abound?” scenario. In order to continue feeling wanted or needed in the group people will continue in their sinful state in order to have something to bring to the table, or so they think. Instead of creating an atmosphere of life change in order to image the image of Jesus in their lives, there will be a constant struggle that will see no end in sight.
Distortion #2: Community as networks
When the word networks is used, most people think of a corporation that is building a firm or a group of CEOs that meet on a regular basis to discuss how to better “network” their product. By doing so such a group is simply focusing on each other’s strengths and if and when a weakness is involved it is quickly dismissed and taken care of. Now before the accusations arise, that it is being said that the church should not network with other individuals and even other churches, that is not at all what this article is directed towards. Instead, there needs to be a caution in groups of believers that they do not always focus on one another’s strengths in order to be the perfect church or even for growth. Their weaknesses need to be brought to the forefront more often than they do simply because when the weaknesses are made more evident, reliance upon Jesus and the gospel being a life-changing agent is even more necessary in everyday life of the community.

[More to come in this series]