And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:16-20.

The cornerstone text of Christ’s redemptive mission was to train and send out His disciples to the whole world. He trained them to share the greatest news the world could ever hear. The “good news” was that in spite of our sin and separation, through Christ broken humanity can be reconciled back to their Creator. This was about rediscovering life indeed.

Every believer should have heard this text if not know it by heart. This has been tagged as the “Great Commission” or, as some would state it, “The Great Re-Commission.” While stated to His own disciples, we have no reason think this was ever modified or rescinded by Christ.

But the danger is that many churches have accidentally re-written this commission to read slightly different than what Jesus intended. We often call this the functional (or dysfunctional great commission). It goes something like this:

Go into all the world and make Sunday morning worshippers attenders,

Baptizing them in the name of small groups,

And teaching them to volunteer a few hours a month.

The idea of successfully carrying out the Great Commission in many churches has been reduced to see if they can get 100% of their people to show up for Sunday morning worship. The next mark of success is to get at least 50% of that group to connect in small groups. Finally, if they can get 20% to serve in their ministry programs, most churches celebrate like they are doing what Jesus commanded.

This comes from a flawed concept that there are two different things the church does: discipleship on the one hand, and evangelism on the other.  This has killed the church because discipleship has become stuff we do for ourselves inside the church and evangelism is everyone’s responsibility outside the church.

The problem of course, this is exactly the approach that has killed more churches than Satan has managed to torpedo. The church has become very exclusive, introverted, and selfish. That being said, these things are not so much wrong, but this will never be sufficient to actually carry out Christ’s charge. Churches need to redefine their idea of success.

The key for most churches is they need to move the finish line from this model to actually calling Christians to understand Christ’s call on their life, to train people instead of just teaching more information, and sending them into the world to fulfill His commission.

Churches need to evaluate what they think is success. Building, bodies, and bucks still drive many churches idea of success and while we have to be good stewards of these things, these things cannot define success… at least if the church does not want to eventually die.

Brad Little