Recently we had some first year seminary students visit our church to talk about our mission and visit the community around the church; our mission field.  After talking with them I began to think about how we train our church leaders for future ministry.  Given all the various gifts a person can have and all the various roles a pastor is called upon to fulfill I think there are two overriding categories into which most pastors fall; chaplains or missionaries.

When one looks over church history it is the missionaries that move the church forward.  They are the ones at the forefront of change and they are the leaders who become the driving force for kingdom growth.  Starting with the apostle Paul every great movement in church history is marked by a leader(s) who heads up the mission outreach of the church at the time.  Given Jesus commission to “go into all the world and make disciples of all nations,” this is what one would expect.

Recently I have been looking at and preaching on the Great Commission.  It is the last thing Jesus gave the church to do and to continue to do until he returns.  Shortly after his ascension Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to empower the church to do the work of the mission that he started when he was among us.  The spreading of the kingdom by making disciples is the chief responsibility of the church.  We are commanded by Jesus to make disciples, we are filled with the Holy Spirit that empowers us for the mission, and we are told that the gates of Hell will not prevail against the church.

The image of the gates of Hell is a powerful one for me.  It is Hell and all of its evil forces and powers who are pictured trying to withstand the onslaught of the church.  Gates are defenses.  The gates of Hell are not strong enough to hold back the spreading kingdom.  To often we picture and act as if the church is on the defense.  We huddle in our places of worship trying to hold back the attacks of Satan and his cohorts.  We have it in reverse.

This hold the fort mentality leads to frustration and a hopelessness that is evident in many churches where the joy of the Lord is absent and people are just trying to maintain.  The world is seen as too big to conquer, and it’s problems insurmountable.  You witness this as you trace the movements of congregations in the city.  The plagues on their buildings tell the sad story.  They started in one community and then as the neighborhoods changed they continually moved farther and farther from their original location.  There are lots of reasons for these moves, but one that cannot be denied is that the neighborhood change was viewed as decline and the church was moving to greener pastures.

We have bought into this idea and made it a part of our culture.  What was needed to sustain this model were chaplains who would minister to the people in the pews exclusively.  They were open to and would embrace any who wondered in and made themselves at home, but the focus was exclusively inward.  So year after year seminarians were trained to be essentially chaplains of the church.  The result is seen in small congregations with many empty seats.

Before I go on let me say up front that the people in the pews must be nurtured and ministered to.  That having been said they need to be equipped for the ministry.  The role of the pastor according to Paul is to train the church for the work of the ministry.  What we need is trained missionary pastors who spend time training the church to do the work of the mission.

Immediately we want to turn to programs to reverse the declining in our congregations.  What is needed is church bodies that see their purpose as existing for the sole reason of spreading the kingdom of God.  Pastors need to be equipped to build up existing churches, plant new churches, and evangelize the unchurched not just on foreign soil, but right here on the streets of the cities of America.  They must also be instructed on how to not only teach the Christian faith but on how to train those in their congregation to take the gospel into the places they work and play.

Chaplains or missionaries?  Chaplains are needed but they don’t spread the kingdom.  We need to get back to first things first.  Go make disciples of all nations under the power of the Holy Spirit is our commission.  It is where we need to put our focus and attention.  Our best and brightest need to be trained to spread the kingdom of God not just to maintain the status quo.  Let’s stop holding the fort and start breaking down the gates of Hell.