The Great Commission is bigger than your local church. How should that shape your priorities and posture as a pastor?
Jesus commanded his disciples to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Trinity, and teaching them to obey everything he commanded (Matt. 28:19). And he promised to be with them to the end of the age (Matt. 28:20). This charge is global in scope. Therefore, the Great Commission necessarily involves more than one local church.
After all, a church in Uganda can’t do much to make disciples of native Argentineans. Of course, they can send missionaries to Argentina, but then those missionaries will evangelize, disciple, plant a church, and the whole process starts over.
Because each of our churches is engaged in a mission that is bigger than any of them, we should proactively partner with other churches in order to fulfill it. Many churches’ denominational ties aim at this kind of partnership. But I’d like to suggest that the Great Commission should form in us, and in pastors in particular, a more pervasive posture of partnering with other churches to fulfill the Great Commission.
In other words,
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