Cultivating Your Calling

Moving the Mission Forward Through Gospel Friendships and Fluency

Tyler Daniel, 2020 MDiv in Christian Ministry

Executive Pastor, Centerpoint Church, North Charleston, SC

I stepped onto the campus of Southeastern Seminary in February of 2016. Leading up to my campus visit, God had loosened roots and was preparing me for the next chapter in my life. He had begun to give me and my wife a desire to serve the local church and to invest in and train others for ministry.

I remember reading signs on the drive up to Stealey Hall saying, “Every classroom a Great Commission classroom.” On that cold February day, God clarified that Southeastern was the place where I would spend the next season. Over the next four years, God helped me to understand the call to make disciples and the role local churches play in training workers for the harvest.

Through my studies at Southeastern, I began to grow more and more passionate about church revitalization and church replanting. I remember wrestling with the thought, “What about the churches that are dying?” God gave me a desire to serve in a setting where the Spirit of God would take a dying congregation and move it toward multiplication.

Gospel Friendships

At Southeastern, God showed me the importance of gospel friendships. As I watched friends be sent throughout the entire globe, I grew discouraged. There I was, sitting in Wake Forest, while others were articulating their gospel call to foreign countries, urban settings or rural churches. It was hard to watch friends “Go” while God was telling me “Wait.”

I sit here now, reflecting on this time, and smile. I am now serving the Lord in a church replant in Charleston, SC. Just last week, I reached out to a friend in Louisiana with questions about their Sunday morning gathering. I receive monthly updates from a friend who is currently serving in Utah. I have friends who are busy planting a church in Rock Hill, SC. I have a friend currently serving in North Africa and the Middle East. The kingdom is far larger than I could have ever imagined, and God continues to send workers out into the harvest.

Gospel friendships help us to see the Great Commission being actively fulfilled. They help us to see that we are not alone. At Southeastern, God showed me other brothers and sisters who were serious about training, sending and going wherever the Lord wills.

Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge over the Cooper River

God gave me a desire to serve in a setting where the Spirit of God would take a dying congregation and move it toward multiplication.

Gospel Fluency

I am also seeing just how beneficial theological education is. Leading in ministry is very difficult. While it’s true that writing a position paper can be a rather daunting task, it’s also true that God uses these assignments to solidify our convictions. It’s as if the Lord is developing muscle memory in us.

Charles Spurgeon said, “Visit many good books, but live in the Bible.” In my time at Southeastern I was consistently challenged to do just this. The number of good books that were “visited” is far more than I was expecting to take in. As I pored over these books and spent time in God’s Word, convictions were clarified.

A few months ago, God helped me to apply what I had learned at Southeasetern. I realized that many are literate in the Scriptures. Many can quote the Bible, many know the truths of God’s Word and can point to theologians who back their perspectives. There, unfortunately, are not as many followers of Jesus who are fluent in the Word.

Gospel fluency is the ability to take the truths of God’s Word, the call to go, and apply them to everyday life and ministry. At Southeastern, God made me both more gospel literate and gospel fluent. He moved me from merely knowing truths to being more fluent and knowing how to apply truths.

Application

So how do these two ideas collide? How do we take gospel friendship and gospel fluency from being ideas or concepts and move them toward mobilizing God’s people?

At Centerpoint Church, we are pressing into gospel friendship by encouraging our congregation to celebrate and partner with other churches in our area. We are building relationships with other local pastors in hopes that God would align us as we seek to take the gospel to North Charleston, SC. We believe that we are better when serving together, and desire to see healthy, multiplying, gospel-centered local churches.

We are leading our church to be fluent in the gospel through expositional preaching. With each message, we challenge our congregation to put faith into practice. We desire that our members take the gospel to their friends, family, coworkers and neighbors. We desire that every man, woman or child has multiple opportunities to see, hear, and respond to the gospel.

Southeastern Seminary helped to solidify biblical convictions. These convictions are helping our team to take slow, meaningful steps as we seek to make disciples of Jesus.

Tyler Daniel is seeking to further the Great Commission by discipling his congregation to put their faith into practice.