Memphis Mission Trip | 2018
OUTWARD FOCUSED CHURCH I started a journey a couple of years ago, one that I had not anticipated. I started reading about disciple-making movements around the world. I learned that the fastest growing church in the world was in Iran. I was stunned. The Gospel was also spreading rapidly in northern India, in an area that had once been known as the “missionary graveyard” because of how many had failed to reach people for Christ. As I read about their strategy and results, I became more and more convicted, more focused on God’s call upon our church family, and me. If you could look at my notes from those days two years ago, you could read it almost like a roadmap through the last eighteen months. You could probably see some of them and recognize the effects of what you have heard from me, too.
LAST SUMMER We were on a journey through the book of Acts, and we came to chapter 15, where the apostles had to decide what the core of the Gospel journey is. And I talked about our “Acts 15 Moments.” I said that day, “We must CHOOSE an outward focus. The natural inertia will always draw us to focus inward.” 6 Spring 2020
By Bruce Prindle
So, what does that mean? In the first two centuries after Jesus’ resurrection, the Gospel spread very quickly, despite pronounced persecution that every Jesus Follower had to face. It wasn’t some slick marketing campaign that fueled that spread. It wasn’t a grand church of programs that fueled it. It wasn’t driven by a supportive government, by extravagant financial resources, or by dynamic preachers. It spread through ordinary people who put into practice what we have been talking about for months: living and loving like Jesus.
LIVING WELL Michael Green is a New Testament scholar who describes the early followers as people who combined two things: holy living and open mouths. They took Jesus’ teaching seriously and discovered a great life— the Jesus Life. They were different from their culture. Their integrity was noteworthy. They looked at Jesus’ instructions as the BEST way to live, and they trusted them, practiced those ways of living.
