Audio Transcript:

Welcome to Missions on Point, the Propempo perspective on church and missions. Today we're gonna be doing the first of a small series on the centrality of the local church and why it is so important for the local church to be the focus of Great Commission ministries. In fact, I maintain that you cannot fulfill the great commission as we see it in Matthew 28 without the planting of local churches. Let's go back and talk about the centrality of the local church and missions as foundational concept that is extremely important and biblical. If you haven't seen this before, it will rock your world. If you're a pastor, you're going to ask why wasn't I shown this before? Because it is so important to our understanding of the local church and of missions. So we're gonna go to Ephesians chapter three. We're gonna look at verses seven through 11 and verses 2021.

Missionary Attrition

Let me start out by telling you one of the reasons this is so important, and it has to do with missionary development and attrition. This biblical concept is so neglected, missionaries neglected mission agencies miss it even otherwise. Good Bible teaching churches fail to apply this concept in their vision for missions, and the consequences are very significant because missionaries get to the field and they get so distracted by missionary activities and methodologies that are inconsistent with the biblical concept of the centrality of the local church and missions. Mission agencies fail to give proper biblical respect and partnership to local churches in the process of vetting, fielding and shepherding missionaries. Local churches tend to be shortsighted about their role and responsibilities in the Great Commission. So it has lots of practical aspects to it. The consequences are catastrophic for missionary attrition. We know that in general, about 85% of those who say they want to go to the mission field or think that God wants them to be a missionary never make it.

But even worse than that is approximately 75% of those who do make it to the difficult fields remaining on the earth. The unreached people group kind of fields don't remain five years later. The preventable attrition that is leaving field ministry for preventable reasons is worse than the slaughter of Omaha beach at Normandy on D-Day on June 6th, 1944. So yes, it is important to the life and ongoing ministry of the church in missions to understand this.

Ephesians 3

Let me read this passage and I'm gonna pull out some key points for us. Ephesians 3:7-11, and then skipping down to verse 20 and 21. Paul writes,

"of this gospel, I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace, which was given me by the working of his power To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles, the unsearchable riches of Christ and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things so that through the church, the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus, our Lord. ... Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen."

So I want you to see five simple truths.

The central agent

First, the church is the central agent in God's plan. He says in verse 10, "so that through the church, the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known." This whole chapter is saturated with missions. It's got missions through and through. It's Paul's calling to missions, and it results in God's glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations. The central idea is that Paul became aware by special revelation from God that it was through the church that these things take place.

The church is the agent of God in fulfilling his purposes on earth. I would say that when Paul says church, he's not just talking about the universal church of sort of all Christians, wherever they are, whatever they're doing anywhere in the world, all through time. He's talking about local churches. He's addressing local churches in his epistles. We'll see that again later, but he's thinking of local churches and this unique living dynamic of the body of Christ in a local place with committed believers and biblically qualified leaders regularly meeting for worship, for evangelism, for equipping, for study of God's word, those kinds of things.

The primary means

So the church is the central agent in God's plan, and apparently secondly, the church is the primary means of displaying God's wisdom. When we look at the church, any particular local church, we know it's not perfect. There's a lot of humility there.

"when Paul says church, he's not just talking about the universal church... He's talking about local churches."

There's a lot of people that are just sinners saved by grace, and they're transforming their lives through the word of God and the spirit to be able to be a little bit more like Christ. Day by day, the church is the primary means of displaying God's wisdom.

God's plan A

Third, it's clear that the church is God's plan a forever, and there is no plan B. This was his plan and the eternal purpose, it says that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord. So this was according to his eternal purpose. This is what God planned to do, is to use the church in this way.

Beyond Expectations

Fourthly, God's plan for the church achieves far more than our expectations. That's this benediction part in the last verses of the chapter that we misuse so much, but it's about the church and about God's word, his mission, moving forth through the whole world that says to him, who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever.

Amen. So often when we read this, we miss the church. We say horray for Jesus. He's our leader. He's our Lord, he's our savior, our shepherd, and we missed the church part. But it says right here that he gets glory in the church throughout all generations. It's an important thing to remember. Ephesians three is oozing with missions, importance in the brightness of the indicative truths about the gospel and of Christ. We often fail to see the instrumental means God has appointed to accomplish his purposes on earth. That is the local church.

Missionaries come from churches

So here's some bonus applications for you supported by many biblical arguments, some of which we'll get into.

First, missionaries are the product of a vibrant, responsible local church rather than simple volunteerism. We don't allow anyone to lay hands on themselves just because they say, God told me, or God called me, or God is leading me. Those claims have relatively little weight unless the local church is similarly told, called and led.

Secondly, qualification for effective long-term missionary service, particularly in the most challenging fields, takes time, work, humility, and accountability with the local church. It's really interesting that young people think that they can go to a foreign field, foreign culture, foreign language, and be church planters, and yet never have any solid experience. Working in a local church training and choosing a missionary is an awesome, exciting, labor intensive task worthy of the Lord Jesus Christ and the gospel. There is nothing like a local church getting skin in the game by sending one of its own to a humanly impossible task. So if you yourself are feeling compelled to go into missions, let your church know you will be thankful. You should cooperate with your local church in becoming fully qualified, skilled experience in those things that you need to be effective on the field.

For God's Glory

So we look at this last thing, and that is that God's glory is in the church for all ages. This is what the scripture says, and this is another reason why we need to keep the church in focus no matter what our ministry is. We say this that you can have all sorts of methodologies, strategies, ministries that contribute to the planting and development of strong local churches, but if you don't have those ministries, methodologies, and strategies aimed at planting and strengthening local churches, you're off target. You're never gonna hit the bullseye. You're doing a lot of extraneous peripheral things, but they need to be wired in to planting and establishing, strengthening local churches. That's what God's plan is about. That's what it says right here. So we want you to keep that in mind. The centrality of the local church from Ephesians chapter three.

you can have all sorts of methodologies, strategies, ministries that contribute to the planting and development of strong local churches, but if you don't have those ministries, methodologies, and strategies aimed at planting and strengthening local churches, you're off target. 

There's more scripture that would lend credence to that and support, which we may  take up in future podcasts.  But today I want you to grasp this. God loves the church. God designed the church to be his agent, to accomplish his will on earth. It is the primary agent and the primary result of biblical missions. Let's just take a step back and think about this passage again. Paul is writing this while in prison. His whole missionary career has spanned decades before. This time he's writing to a church at Ephesus likely to be circulated to other churches in the province of Asia, and he's saying that the church is the primary instrument of God to fulfill his purpose. He's saying that his calling was to explain this as he went everywhere, planting churches and seeing strong church leaders established to continue to strengthen the church and grow the church in their regions. Paul, in his experience and his perspective of age and wisdom and skill in working in missions work, the premier missionary of all time perhaps, is saying that it's the church, the local church where the action is.

Our Goal

That should be our goal. That should be what we are striving to achieve in partnership with God. Now, I wanna make one statement of clarification. This doesn't mean that the Propempo perspective is against mission agencies per se. We're just for the local church mission. Sending agencies have a rightful place and role, and they fulfill some very significant help to the church in fulfilling its ministry. But the mission sending agency should never replace the church and the church's role. By and large, over time, the local church has abrogated its responsibility and given it over to the mission agencies that are not wired by God to take care of the missionaries and direct the ministry and have the focus of ministry on local churches as it should. So I wanna say we're not against mission sending agencies. We love 'em for what they do, but we definitely want a local church to step up and be the kind of church that Ephesians three implies, and we'll see later, Matthew 28 and other observations from the New Testament demonstrate here's where we are. We've seen today that the local church is central in God's plan and purposes and the ultimate result of missions.

We're going to take a look at more local church centric concepts from the Great Commission itself as found in Matthew 28, and we're gonna follow that up with observations from the New Testament in the upcoming episodes. Have a good day. Hey, thanks for joining us today on Missions on Point, the Propempo perspective on church and missions. We trust that you'll find more resources and help on the website, propempo.com.