Ten Ways to Turn Your Church Inside Out
Develop a culture beyond “inviting” and “bringing” to church as primary strategies. Add more focus on taking Christianity to others.- Build this worldview among Christians. Church is not a destination but a launch pad.
- Resurrect this culture: Every Christian is a missionary, a “sent one,” every day. A trip to Walmart is a short-term mission trip.
- Develop the concept that the mission field for your church is not “a circle on a map, reaching a three-mile radius,” but those far from God in your social network: friends, relatives, neighbors, and those at work or school. The platform for mission is not geographic. It is relational.
- The most effective strategy? Church leaders disciple Christians to be missionaries. This occurs more in one-on-one development (in a relationship) than in a class or through preaching.
- All people matter to God. However, strategic breakthrough for movement comes when you reach across cultural or social barriers.
- Stretch the mission horizons in your church. There is a unique and special opportunity for Kingdom growth when you reach the least, the last, and the lost.
- The strategy for reaching the least, the last, and the lost is to meet needs. However, avoid defining “mission” as only meeting needs.
- As needs are met, continue to sensitively develop relationships, and when appropriate, share the gospel. This has even more Kingdom value when you move to step number ten.
- Disciple new Christians to become missionaries to their own social networks. These networks are usually filled with nonbelievers. When one of them experiences a spiritual life change, the movement of the gospel explodes in growth exponentially.
This is excerpted from the January/February Church Doctor Report – Turning Your Church Inside Out: What Are You Missing?.
Kent Hunter, founder of Church Doctor Ministries, is known as the Church Doctor. His most recent e-books are The Future Is Now and The J-Dog Journey, available at no cost. Contact him at (800) 626-8515, by email, Twitter, Facebook, or visit www.churchdoctor.org.
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