The Great Commission Is For Ordinary People

The Great Commission is not just for pastors and missionaries. It’s for all believers. Sadly we often leave this in… Read more The Great Commission Is For Ordinary People

The Great Commission is not just for pastors and missionaries. It’s for all believers. Sadly we often leave this in the hands of paid, professional staff and have no context for what this could look like for everyday people in everyday life. If we believe in the priesthood of all believers then we should realize we all have access to God who gives everything we need to make disciples.  

Jesus told His eleven followers, “ I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth.   Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.   Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”  We forget sometimes that Jesus was not giving a commencement speech for recent seminary graduates.  Rather, He was speaking to fishermen, a tax collector, a former Zealot, and other salt-of-the-earth individuals whose only distinguishing characteristic was that they had just spent the last 2-3 years as Jesus’ traveling companions.  In place of a formal seminary education, their training came from watching Jesus and learning to do exactly what He did.  It was their ordinary obedience to the Way of Jesus that fueled a movement that continues to grow and expand today (much like the mustard seed analogy Jesus used in Matthew 13:31-32).  

If we’re honest though, I think we all realize that our Christian experience today is much different than the dynamic movement of the early church.  How were those ordinary men and women able to build and sustain a movement that spread like wildfire despite constant persecution and resistance from the established powers of that day?  Why aren’t we experiencing the same vitality and vibrancy in our movement today that we read about in the book of Acts?  Perhaps one reason is the shift that took place over many years of church history from ordinary people living in the power and authority of Jesus to the rise of certified, credentialed, professional Christians who performed the functions of the ministry.

In 313 A.D. Emperor Constantine decriminalized Christian worship, thus ending the centuries of persecution that the early Christians had endured.  This was primarily a political move on the part of Constantine who realized that Christianity was growing in influence, and the result was that this dynamic movement that had grown organically from eleven ordinary people was suddenly co-opted by the Roman patronage and class system.  Suddenly, the church began to reflect the culture around it instead of transforming culture.  Without even realizing it, the clergy began adopting the same posture toward the laity as Roman patrons and benefactors would toward the commoners.  They started wearing clothing that set them apart from ordinary people and built basilicas that rivaled even the famed halls of the Roman forum.  Before long, the Bible was something only the clergy had access to, and ordinary people became dependent upon the religious professionals to dispense biblical teaching and knowledge.  Not much has changed in almost two thousand years as we sit in our pews and expect pastors and priests to feed us spiritually.

Bog Rognlien says it well: “No longer tested by the challenges of a pagan world hostile to their faith, the followers of Jesus forfeited their authority and power. Roman patrons turned them into clients, European lords turned them into serfs, and now capitalistic culture has turned many into religious consumers. We have largely forgotten how to claim the authority of Jesus and follow his example of exercising God’s power on behalf of the faithless, broken, and oppressed. We are the inheritors of this spiritual amnesia, and now face a postmodern, pagan challenge threatening to consign the movement of Jesus to irrelevance and impotence. The time has come to awaken, shake off our forgetfulness, and recapture the movement of empowered missional disciples who are once again following Jesus and carrying out the mission of God in his authority and power” ( Empowering Missional Disciples ).  

Do you long to play your role in this high calling of God?  Do you long to see God move again in our day like He did in the book of Acts?  I would love to embark on a journey with you to become faithful disciples of Jesus who make disciples like Jesus and His early followers did.  Feel free to leave a comment or contact me via email (rancebland@yahoo.com), and I’d love to walk alongside you in this process.   You can also start an online course on disciple-making at www.multiplicationschool.com. Also, I’ll be writing more blog posts in the coming weeks and months that will continue to explore this theme.  I hope you’ll join me!