Michael Jordan—commonly referred to as the greatest basketball player of all time—was as legendary on the practice court as he was on game day. His coach, Phil Jackson, said of Jordan in an ESPN commentary titled, Play Hard, Practice Harder, “He accepted coaching.” Jordan, like every great athlete, never thought he had trained hard enough or been coached too much.
Likewise, the apostle Paul gives robust instruction to those tasked with building the church: And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (Ephesians 4:11–13).
If we are to reach the 1.2 million unchurched people in Palm Beach County, we are going to need lots of instruction, encouragement, equipping and training. If we are going to “build up the body of Christ,” we must begin with a humble acknowledgment that we all need to be equipped and trained.
Jesus’ training methods are the ones we most want to emulate. Jesus trained His disciples by telling them what to do and then showing them how to do it. He would sit down and talk with them at length, but then He would bring them along as He lived out His mission. Jesus started the original missional community and it is still multiplying to this day.
Reaching 1.2 million begins by turning strangers to neighbors, neighbors to friends, friends to followers, and followers to disciples. (We learned that here.) This happens through simple introductions, simple invitations, simple hospitality, simple generosity, simple shared meals, simple shared life and simple intentionality. It’s easier to wrap our minds around the 1.2 million when we view them as one neighbor, one friend, one follower and one disciple.
In the end, we can measure the effectiveness of our missional communities in three ways. First, are people believing the gospel and becoming followers of Jesus? Second, are we developing leaders? Third, are our missional communities starting more missional communities? By asking these questions of our missional community leaders, we hope to ensure that we start on a healthy trajectory and we multiply disciples—just like Jesus.
Here are some areas in which we will spend intentional training time over the next couple of years:
- Gospel clarity
- Continuing to apply and communicate the gospel
- Authentic relationships (not making people projects)
- Helping our members understand that they are the church
- Helping our staff understand their role in equipping and multiplying
- Understanding true hospitality
- Understanding the importance of shared meals
- Setting clear measurements for effectiveness
- Developing disciple-making missionaries
We know that we have a lot to learn and, like Michael Jordan, we’re willing to be coached.
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