The Question is Not 'What?' but 'How?'

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19, NIV)

The text above is our marching orders from our Commander-in-Chief, Jesus Christ. We don’t need to spend a lot of time debating what we’re about as a church. Jesus already told us. Our job is to make disciples.

What we do need to prayerfully wrestle with is how we shall approach our responsibility based upon where we are, who we are and who is within our sphere of influence. Pastor Furman “Puck” Fordham who led us through our first afternoon session of “Extreme Makeover: North Church Edition” gave us some good advice on how to get started with this dialogue.

Sabbath afternoon, October 9 at 3:00 p.m. in the North Philadelphia sanctuary we want to encourage you to come and participate in this discussion. Print out this Pastor's Page as it summarizes the seven steps that Pastor Fordham shared with us.

1 Define Mission
As we already said, Christ gave us the mission, which is to “go and make disciples.” You have heard me repeatedly suggest that we have a three step process we are seeking to implement in making disciples: We want people (1.) To meet Jesus, (2.) To walk with Jesus and (3.) To work for Jesus.

The sermon from this morning’s message is the third installment on the sermon series on “What It Means to be a Disciple.” The first sermon on “Meeting Jesus” was based on the woman at the well. When we meet Jesus, or truly have an encounter with Jesus, we leave different than we came to Him -- changed!

But I went on to preach about “Walking with Jesus” and used Jesus’ call of the disciples to demonstrate that there is learning that should follow meeting Him. We may come to worship, but we don’t know how to walk. And by walking with Him (Bible study and prayer, both private and corporate), we learn to imitate and emulate Him. In that sermon we noticed that (1.) Christ calls all kinds, (2.) when He calls us, there are some things we must leave behind, but (3.) when we follow Him (Christ) we will find that we will become like Him. After worship we need to learn how to walk like Him.

And in the message from Sabbath morning, October 9, the focus is to show how that third step of “Working for Jesus” in cooperation with other believers is the completion of the cycle. Our work for the Lord is not to earn salvation. We work for Him because of what He’s done. And when we unite our gifts as believers, we rightly represent Him to a lost world. When we work together, we fulfill the Great Commission to “go and make disciples.” Jesus did not speak to only one of His disciples; He spoke to all of them for He knew that it would take all of them working together to accomplish that mission.

2 Discard Everything Else
Once we have defined the mission, Pastor Fordham suggested that we then discard everything else. This corresponds with the book Simple Church when it talks about the need to Focus. Like a sculptor, we must chisel away the unnecessary so that the important can be seen.
This takes guts. We have to have the courage to put everything on the table. If we truly want to be a church that hears the Lord say, “Well done,” we have to ask ourselves whether or not what we are doing is helping make disciples.

3 Determine Our Strategy
The strategy is an outgrowth of the mission and it should be sequential. In other words, we want people to meet Jesus before they start working for Jesus. At the end of time Jesus will tell some folk who worked for Him, “I never knew you.” So, a sequential strategy is important.

4 Develop Ministries to Fulfill the Strategy
This is where some ministries we have “discarded” may come back. Those ministries will be more productive because they will be focused. This is where we plug things in with purpose.

5 Document Ministry Descriptions
The tenure of the Seventh-day Adventist pastor is generally shorter than that of his or her ministerial colleagues of other denominations, documentation is helpful to the congregation.

6 Deploy Members According to Spiritual Gifts

7 Do Ministry Evaluation

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