“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 28:18-20)
We call this closing passage of the Gospel of Matthew the “Great Commission” because here, the resurrected and ascending Christ gives His Church her core mission statement. The Greek word translated as “nations” is ethnos and refers to all people groups: ethnic groups and cultures as well as tribes and nations. (Revelation 5:9, 14:6) God loves all people and wants to make disciples of all people.
Disciples of Jesus are trusting, obedient pupils and followers of the One who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. (Matthew 4:19, 23:8-10; John 14:6). You make disciples through a two-step process of evangelism and discipleship.
Evangelism begins with our Lord’s declaration that we will be His Spirit-indwelled witnesses in our hometowns and throughout the world. (Acts 1:8). As Peter later explains:
“…You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a dedicated nation, God’s own purchased, special people, that you may set forth the wonderful deeds and display the virtues and perfections of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.” (1 Peter 2:9 AMP)
When our life witness and words quicken the hearts of others to believe, we invite them to repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of their sins so they too can receive the Holy Spirit and be born of God. (Acts 2:38; John 1:12-13, 3:3-6) Their spiritual rebirth initiates the second step in the two-step process: discipleship, which involves teaching them to obey all that our Lord Jesus has commanded, including the foundational command of unconditional love. (1 John 4:7-12) As more disciples make more disciples, the kingdom of heaven grows from the smallest seed to the largest plant in the garden. (Matthew 13:31-32)
The early Church successfully embraced the Great Commission in Jerusalem and, thereafter, spread the Gospel throughout the Roman Empire. (Acts 2:31, 42-47, 4:4, 5:14, 6:7) So, how is the Church in America doing today?
Credible polls reveal that as recently as the early 1990’s, 90% of U.S. adults identified as Christian while only 5% were religiously unaffiliated. Today about 63% identify as Christian and 29% profess no religious affiliation. Among young adults (20-29), less than 50% profess Christianity. Over 30% of people raised Christian leave the faith by age 30.
Weekly mass attendance for Catholic Christians has dropped from 43% to 30% in the last twenty years. Southern Baptist church membership has dropped for seventeen consecutive years, and the evangelical percentage of our population has dropped from over 25% to 15%. The dramatic decline of membership and attendance in our mainline Protestant denominations is described as “plummeting”.
While analysts often blame social media and other worldly changes for these tragic developments, I believe we must explore at least three factors within the Church to find out why everything is going backwards.
First, nothing has impacted our Catholic siblings more than the ongoing child sexual abuse and cover-up scandal exposed to the public in the 1990’s. They relied upon their hierarchal priesthood for discipleship and justifiably feel betrayed. You must be disciples to make disciples.
Second, mainline denominations began, in the name of love, to accept homosexual practice in the 1990’s, but the real issue was the authority of scripture, not homosexuality. If you do not accept all scripture as divinely inspired authority for what the Lord declares to be right and wrong, you are deciding those issues on your own and cannot fully make disciples for Jesus. (2 Timothy 3:16-17; Matthew 5:17-19) Love without God’s truth is not God’s love.
Third, the evangelical church began to assert themselves in the 1980’s and 90’s as a “moral majority” voting bloc and political action group, much like the black church had done during the civil rights movement in the 1960’s.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting godly government or having a voice in how our government makes laws, but when you begin to treat those who disagree with you as your adversaries, or even worse, as those “bad”, “evil”, and/or “stupid” people, you push them away and are no longer treating them as the harvest. You forget that Jesus came for the tax collectors and sinners, and now sends you to do the same. (Matthew 9:10-13) Laws are unable, on their own, to bring anyone to salvation or discipleship. (John 1:17; Romans 8:3-4) Truth without love is not God’s truth. (Ephesians 4:15)
Jesus is with us always. Fully embrace His Great Commission as a few wonderful congregations in our region are already doing, and things will turn around.
God bless you, and God bless our community.