Limp Gloves
What do I need to be a successful church planter and
missionary? I’m called to be an apostle
to the unreached in my area. My heart
longs to see them coming to Christ. I
pray and work to see people coming into the Kingdom of God, growing and being
discipled. I dream of seeing not just
one small, struggling fellowship started, but of hundreds, even thousands from
my people group coming to know and follow Jesus. It hasn’t happened yet, but I’m doing my
best. I learn all I can. I attend all the seminars. I read books.
I pray. I wonder…what are the
keys to seeing my dreams for this people group come about?
I go to one seminar on Leadership,
and I learn about management skills. I
come home knowing that I need to clearly write out my vision and lay out my
goals and objectives step by step. I go
to another seminar and I learn about team dynamics and team leadership. Yes, I think, the key is for my team to work
better together. We need to understand
each other’s personalities more, and function in our different giftings more
smoothly. I pull out my SOFM notes and
books to study. That’s it, I think, I
need to focus more on the FM values.
Maybe I should contextualize our service more, or maybe we should do
more with training the local leaders. I
talk to another leader from a nearby organization about these things. “No, no,” they say, “the real key is prayer
and ministering in the Spirit. All those other things are just philosophies of
man. You need more of the Holy Spirit.”
I feel a bit confused. I want to see my people group reached, but
what does it take? What do I need to
do? What should I focus on? How do spiritual things like prayer, work
together with strategic things like the principles I learned in my SOFM?
Many serious and committed church
planters experience these kinds of confusing questions. It is important that we in Frontier Missions
remember that strategies, seminars, and the many tools and teachings that are
given, are only effective when they are Spirit anointed and Spirit led. Romans
8:14 says, “the sons of God are led by the Spirit of God.” There is not only a balance between the
spiritual and the strategic. Instead,
you can think of strategies and tools as a glove. Without the hand of the Holy Spirit inside of them, giving life to them, they
are limp and ineffective.
Sometimes I think we spend too much
time focusing on the glove or tool, and too little time reminding
ourselves as church planters of our need for intimacy with God, fellowship with
the Holy Spirit and a growing, alive, walk with Jesus. If our relationships with God grow distant or
dry, no matter how much strategy we know and how many tools we have learned to
use, we are still only holding a bunch of empty gloves, which will fail to be
effective.
2 Cor.3:6 says “He has made us
competent as ministers of a new covenant-not of the letter, but of the Spirit,
for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” Our competency as ministers, or our ability
to produce good fruit and results, is not because of our skills as church
planters. Our competency or our
fruitfulness flows out of our relationship with God.
Does that mean we should throw all
our notes from SOFMs and SCPLs and all our books on church planting strategy
away? No way! What we must do though, is take all the
knowledge and skills available to us and use them for God’s glory. Not becoming proud in our knowledge, but
depending deeply on Him and seeking a closer walk with the Lord each day. Remembering that it is only as His Spirit gives
life to our plans and strategies that they will bear the fruit we so much long
to see.
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