Clearly those who conceived and organized the conference get it, or they would not have included the final day focus. However, I was disappointed that so many of the presenters (many well known, nationally prominent promoters of the missional church through their writing and their speaking) did not get it. Certainly not all the presenters, but more than a few, spoke about social justice without any linkage to the Great Commission. And they spoke about the Great Commission without any linkage to the nations.
There was, however, a striking exception to this pattern. David Platt is a young senior pastor of a denominational mega-church in Alabama. Platt is perhaps best known for his book, Radical, and a follow-up book titled Radical Together. He spoke with great passion about the transformation the church he leads was undergoing as they reject the American dream and focus on extending God’s global glory. Platt was articulate, well informed, and actively casting vision for ordinary believers to engage with people groups with little or no access to the gospel.
Unlike some of the conference’s speakers, Platt gets it. He did a fantastic job of helping his hearers understand that social justice must go hand-in-hand with gospel proclamation. And that a focus on reaching the lost in our communities must be coupled with a focus on the nations (with a priority placed on least reached peoples).
I read Radical a couple of years ago and found it be the most challenging book I had read in several years. It closes with a challenge to the believer to engage in a personal one year experiment in which they undertake five simultaneous challenges:
1. pray for the entire world
2. read through the entire Word
3. sacrifice money for a specific purpose
4. spend time in another context
5. commit to a multiplying community
I just finished reading Radical Together. It has a similar theme, but is geared to the local church, not the individual believer. How do we pursue God’s global glory together? My boss liked the book so well, that he is buying it by the case and giving a copy to every church missions leader that participates in one of Pioneers church partnership forums.
A few quotes from Radical Together.
"God has called us to lock arms with one another in single-minded, death-defying obedience to one objective: the declaration of His gospel for the demonstration of His glory to all nations. … And it is worth it for you and me, because we were made to enjoy the great pleasures of God in the context of total abandonment to His global purpose." – p. 5
“The plan of God is certainly not confined to large churches or gifted leaders. The plan of God is for every person among the people of God to count for the advancement of the kingdom.” – p. 75
“What we need to understand is that Jesus did not command us simply to take the gospel to as many individual people as we can. Instead, He made it clear that His followers are to make disciples among every people group in the world.” – p. 82
“we are to be selfless followers of a self-centered God. But the problem is that we often reverse this in the church. We become self-centered followers of a selfless God. We organize our churches as if God exists to meet our needs, cater to our comforts, and appeal to our preferences. Discussions in the church more often revolve around what we want than what He wills.” – p. 105
Let’s get radical about the gospel and about bringing it to those who have never heard. Let’s give all that we are to seeing the Great Commission completed in our lifetime – discipling the nations by establishing healthy, reproducing, culturally relevant churches among every people group on the planet.
