This is a guest post by Patick Nix, pastor and blogger at Partners For the Gospel. Learn more about Patrick in the author bio at the end of the post.
Around here (in Louisville), you can’t go far without seeing BROWN. United Parcel Service (UPS) employs over 20,000 people to service it’s Worldport Air Hub.
That place is an engineering marvel – near perfect management of conveyors, scanners, airplanes, semi-trucks, and people. All for the sake of the package! Yep, they know logistics.
Click here to go behind the scenes with the UPS Logistics Campaign
.
UPS knows logistics. They love logistics. Do you?
You should.
After all, you carry the most valuable package of all – the gospel. TweetTweet this if you believe it!
What is logistics when it comes to the gospel?
There’s tremendous power in using logistics to spread the gospel
Logistics is: the planning, implementation, and coordination of the details of an operation.
Our package needs delivery… and fast! It’s not fragile, just precious. It’s vital and it’s about time it become viral. Will you deliver?
How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed ? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard ? And how shall they hear without a preacher ? And how shall they preach , except they be sent ?
As it is written , How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! … So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. -Romans 10:14-17
Serving the gospel the UPS way
We are merely news-men. Delivery-boy disciples. Christian couriers.
That’s it! Jesus already made the news – He IS the good news. And this news needs little-to-no editorializing.
We don’t have to add commentary, we just need to publish it.
“Extra! Extra! Read all about it!”
Gospel Logistics: from it’s Source, through me and you, to the ears of the hearers, into their hearts… so they may be saved.
But wait, there’s a problem…
The Church isn’t mobile enough. The current state of empire-oriented religion has tied brick and mortar to the gospel in such a way that it’s getting locked into a place.
Churches have become warehouses of the truth instead of distributors :-(.
We need messengers – delivering the good news. Jesus commanded us to take the gospel to every ‘critter’ (that’s Southern for creature).
As Curtis Hutson said many times: “We need to turn our Welcome mats into a Will-Go.”
We have strapped ourselves to the Gospel – and we’re slowing it down. Somethings terribly wrong when people have to leave their lives to come to church.
No! Church should be invading life and infiltrating culture with the gospel of Jesus. Tweet
Why the current church-model isn’t working
We will never multiply by assembling groups and seating them neatly into pews for an hour or two a week – not even three or four hours a week. We’ve got to train, equip, and mobilize Christians.
We need to de-centralize the church.
You don’t like it when the government gets too big & powerful – so how is the church any different?
Cut the emphasis on gathering and start scattering. Let’s stop hiding behind our websites and church billboards – calling it outreach. It’s time to reach out and evangelize.
7 Things you can do right now to spread the gospel
1. Print & distribute more gospel tracts – not just invitations to church. Don’t underestimate the power of a good gospel tract. There are tons of testimonies of how God used gospel tracts to bring people to faith. By the way, that includes Peter, the owner of this blog.
2. A good witness must have a credible lifestyle. Live the gospel in your actions and reactions.
3. There is NO substitute for a bold tongue surrendered to God. Share the gospel. Faith comes by hearing the Word. Your personal testimony has power – and no one can share what you can about what God has done for you.
4. Set aside time to teach someone else – don’t worry about starting a class or program if you can’t disciple one. Training builds a little confidence and helps the newbie deal with fear. Teach a class about sharing your faith (Check out these resources: PDF PUB).
5. Provide all the tools necessary. The proper equipment is essential to effective logistics. Jesus told us that the most important element of our mission is the Spirit. He is the secret to our boldness and to their tenderness.
6. Give other Christians / church members a reason to go. Our folks need a good reason to really step out of their comfort zone. Special days at church, seasonal emphases, and other programs might be a good help – but the greatest motivation is going to be the reality of a God to please in Heaven and of the damned souls in Hell.
7. Last, but not least, just go. As you are going, be telling. As you are going, be winning. As you are going, be discipling. Tweet
Key Takeaway
If people wanted religion, they’d come into your church. But there are many people in such tremendous need without any knowledge of the real answer.
“Instead of bringing people to church so we can bring them to Christ, let’s take Christ to the people.” (-Neil Cole, Organic Church)
We’ve got to stop feeling good about waiting on people to come to us and go to their rescue. They need redeemed and reconciled.
God is willing. Are you? So what are you waiting for? Close this silly browser and GO!
Serving the Gospel the UPS Way = Plan + Implement + Co
The price is paid. The gospel is powerful. People are waiting. God is watching. It’s time to go…
What things about the church do we need to change so that we can preach the gospel more effectively? What are the church’s biggest obstacles when it comes to sharing Jesus? Share a comment.
[dropshadowbox align=”none” effect=”lifted-both” width=”530px” height=”” background_color=”#ffffff” border_width=”1″ border_color=”#dddddd” ]
About The Author
Patrick Nix is a full time pastor at Lighthouse Baptist in Taylorsville, Kentucky. He also moonlights as a blogger at Partners For The Gospel. Follow him on Twitter and check out his blog.
[/dropshadowbox]
[images via Carol Kirshner, Daniel R., and Tyssul P.]
Comments 25
Great article Patrick. Good discussion starters too… I’ll take a stab at ’em.
What things about the church do we need to change so that we can preach the gospel more effectively? >>> we simply need to be overflowing delivery-boys as you say. As we read the bible, the Spirit reveals things to us and we overflow it to others. Like for me recently, he made Matthew 9.13 come alive to me… did you know that the word “desire” in this verse (ESV) translates in one sense as “will”, so God’s will is mercy? That’s awesome! So he new his requirement was sacrifice, so he paid it himself so that his will would be done. Awesome. Sorry, a little overflowing there 😉
What are the church’s biggest obstacles when it comes to sharing Jesus? >>> same deal… we need to be overflowing and that is not something that can be manufactured.
Thanks again for the article and if you are interested I’m part of a ministry called Relevant Revolution, you should check out the Sermon Jams stuff (especially if you like hip hop) http://www.relevantrevolution.com
Hi John, I just checked out Relevant Revolution and it looks totally awesome!.I’m totally intrigued by all the videos, I’m going to be checking them out a lot more 🙂
Amen brothers! By the way the vids on relevant revolution are just a bunch of gems we find around the net for the most part, the Sermon Jams (7 volumes of them) are really the unique part of the ministry, at least right now.
You guys should check out the recent interview of our founder (and my good friend John Mahshie) over here (it’ll explain it better)… http://www.journeychristiannews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1523:relevant-revolution&catid=50:local-outreach&Itemid=118
I was one of the people that got one of the 25,000 CDs John handed out back in 2005. Then I found out who was doing this sermon jams thing and realized he lived in the next town over from me. We became good friends and now I’m partnered up with John and am remixing/remastering all 7 volumes (we just put out volume 2 the other day).
To our King be all the glory!
Keep overflowing! 🙂
Thanks John for the update. I’m going to go back and check out the interview. I’ve also been watching some of the sermon jams since yesterday and they have completely blown my mind!
Hey Peter! Awesome, I’m glad you are enjoying it and finding the sermon jams helpful. Grace and Peace. And thanks for your ministry here as well brother. 🙂
I’ve had the Sermon Remix’s playing almost all day… loving it! Thanks for putting me on to that. Reminds me of Shai Linne’s new CD – The Attributes of God… awesome stuff.
John – Great stuff! You’re exactly right – ‘overflow’ is what it’s going to take. Jesus said ‘Follow me and I’ll make you fishers of men.’ We’re not going to be effective & productive ‘fishermen’ if we don’t ‘follow’ him first. The overflow that you’re talking about has to start with some spiritual in-flow of Scripture and prayer & worship. I would add that this OUGHT to be natural – but it has been made into something OPTIONAL for the Christian… as if we can take-or-leave Christ’s Great Commission. No! His command to go, win, and disciple is for every believer and every church of every age in every place.
PS – I’m sure I’ll be checking out your Relevant Revolution site very soon. Keep it up bro.
Sadly I believe that many of today’s churches are not even depositories of Truth. They teach their version of the truth which tends to be mix of the Truth, and things that have been made up out of whole cloth and/or teach only part of the truth.
Education on what the Gospel really is and says is paramount to the success of any type of evangelism. What the Gospel is may not seem like much of a mystery to many of us, but there are many, many people who call themselves “Christians” that do not really understand the Gospel. Some do not even believe in Jesus atoning sacrifice for us, others will even say that Jesus sinned while on earth. One cannot teach the Truth of Christ when one has not been taught it first.
Great article with many good points!
What great points you bring up Greg! One of the things that I hate is when I see someone preach the gospel without mentioning sin or repentance. What’s the point of preaching Jesus and leaving those essential elements out? It’s such a downer sometimes but God is on the throne.
Greg – OUCH! So true… there’s got to be a good balance of Truth and Grace in every ministry. From my viewpoint, it seems like the American church is getting ‘soft’ and is sliding into deep compromise b/c they are fearful of offending or ignorant of sound doctrine. The Book of Jude says that the we must “Earnestly contend for the faith… once delivered to the saints…” Keep up the good fight, bro!
There’s an old saying in Australia: “Those who can’t do it…teach it!” Yeah the article us fine…but the author is telling me off for “not takung Christ to the world”! I’ve heard this a thousand times & I’m doing my darndest…without striving of course because I’ll get told off for that in another blog post.
In reading the article, I didn’t notice one example of where the author was putting his 7 points into practice & leading people to Christ. I didn’t any newly redeemed names…like Laura who came to our church on Sunday & gave her life to Christ!!
Come on people, stop writing your points & blogs & instead share the real stories.
I’m trying hard…stop telling me how crap I am. Inspire me instead!!
Because maybe…those who can’t…just write blogs!
Darren – Australia
Hi Darren, I’m not the author of this blog post but I am the owner of the blog. From what it sounds like to me, I don’t think that what you’re trying to do is “crap” at all. On the contrary brother, it sounds to me like you love God and that you are doing things in your power in order to preach Christ and to do your part to bring others into the Kingdom. That is very commendable and admirable.
Darren, Sorry it came across so negative to you, bro. I definitely feel like I am trying to live out these points on a daily basis. We are currently going through the “Way of the Master” Evangelism Training Course at our church. I am convicted regularly of my witness. I’m not a great story-teller, but I’ll keep your advice to include more real-life transformational stories in my content. This was meant to challenge the fearful and apathetic to share their faith – that it’s not up to them, but in the power of the gospel. I could definitely tell you of how the gospel has changed my own life, my children, my friends… and how I wish it would do more through me! Thanks – keep up the good work!
Sadly a big part of
problem is self-focused pastors building their own kingdoms instead of God’s in
this multi-site, mega-church culture.
The reason they are not focused on getting the gospel out is because
their hearts are really set on their own glory, power, fame and profit. Thus, the mentality of “what can I do to grow
my kingdom” overshadows the desire to “invade life and infiltrate the culture
with the gospel of Jesus.” Yes, we need to
send messengers to deliver the good news, but perhaps first we need to pray that
God will send “Nathans” to bring rebuke to those who are promoting their own
agendas instead of His.
You bring up a really good point Angela. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the mega-church also. May I please ask you about your opinion about mega-churches? Do you think it’s possible for a church to be a mega-church because God blessed them or are all mega-churches led by pastors that just want more people in their pews? I’d love to hear your thoughts 🙂
Good question, Peter. First, I think it is important to keep the distinction
between the mega-church and the multi-site church (though the terms are often
used interchangeably). Second, the
question is not really about God’s blessing but more about what God’s blessing
looks like. I know that the Lord can and
does bless any church of any size that is obedient, humble, and focused on His
kingdom purposes and glory. Therefore, it
is possible to be a mega-church because God has blessed the ministry.
The danger has become wrong thinking about what God’s
blessing is. Unfortunately the rise of mega
churches began to fuel the erroneous thought that the bigger a church body is
the more God must be blessing it. We
know this isn’t true since many false teachers and cults have very large
followings with congregations numbering in the thousands. Obviously this has nothing to do with God’s
blessing, yet this distorted thinking has crept into the church. Going by the example of John MacArthur and
Grace Community Church it still seems possible to have a mega-church which remains
Christ centered and where the senior pastor still leads with humility, grace
and the right perspective. Sadly, this
seems to be the exception rather than the norm these days.
This leads to the next point which is the rise of
the multi-site church. The erroneous thinking
which equated God’s blessings with numbers coupled with that powerful sin of pride
that “lies to us” as Patrick mentioned, became the breeding ground for this
self-focused pastor syndrome. When you
mix in the natural human tendency to make idols out of people (musicians,
speakers, TV personalities etc) you get the perfect storm for what has
happened.
In previous days when a church got too big a new
church was started. But now we have
strayed from the Biblical model of church planting to the multi-site church
anomaly. There is no good reason for multi-site
churches in our society- at least not where most of us live.
If we are honest we will admit that the only reason for
having one man beamed into many locations is because he, or someone, has
convinced the masses that this elevated senior pastor is the best of the rest. The thinking is: He is so wonderful, so
superior to all the other little ordinary pastors out there that no one should
be deprived of listening to and being taught by him. After all, how could we deny all those people
of this great privilege and blessing, and subject them to the less than stellar
preaching that is available to them by the rest of the mediocre messengers out
there. What is that saying about all
those other pastors? These multi-site
churches even employ many of these “lesser pastors” who are allowed on occasion
to use their God-given gift to give a message!!
Really? What arrogance! And what is
it doing to the people but encouraging and leading them into idolatry as they
worship jars of clay instead of the Lord. (1 Corinthians 4:7)
Now I recognize that there may be some places,
perhaps in some very rural areas, or other countries where the missionary work
is just starting to bear fruit, where there are very few spiritual leaders and
pastors. In such a case the use of
technology to teach many congregations at once until elders and leaders can be
appointed and shepherd the flock would make sense and would be a great
tool. But that is not the case around the
Chicagoland area where I come from or most of the US where these multi-site
churches are thriving.
It is sad to see that great destroyer, that sin of
pride, wreak havoc on the body of Christ in this way. But that devil of old knows how to seduce the
hearts of men – the same way he did in the beginning. The lust of the eyes, the lust of flesh and the
boastful pride of life! (1 John 2:15-16)
And this is as short and sweet as my answer can be- though it could be longer. J
What such great insight Angela! Thank you so much for sharing all of that, there really is so much to glean from over here. Thanks for being a blessing 🙂
Thank you! – God bless you as you serve Him!
You too Angela, blessings to you always dear sister 🙂
Angela – that’s exactly what I am trying to address! As a Pastor, I know that I’ve struggled with the conflict of ‘building my kindgom’ vs. ‘building God’s kingdom.’ Pride is a very dangerous sin b/c it lies to us and tells us that we are doing what’s “right” and we don’t need to change. Appreciate your perspective – have you ever read any of Neil Cole’s books? His book – Organic Church – was one of the huge motivators behind this shift of perspective in my life.
I am not familiar with those books but I will check them out – thanks!
Hey Peter! Awesome, I’m glad you are enjoying it and finding the sermon jams helpful. Grace and Peace. And thanks for your ministry here as well brother. 🙂
I don’t get to read all the blogs here but when I do, I enjoy every read! What does the church need? I believe those that are in the pulpit need to revist the idea that as God is loving which I surely believe, he also is just. Angela touched on it with commenting about the prosperity preaching that is so rampent in the church. Also, I feel the whole building idea of church has warped the minds of some pastors. I find it very interesting that many believers claim to have a relationship with Chirst yet can’t maintain a relationship with a co-worker, or friend, or husband/ wife, which then leads me to wonder how then can one say they have a relationship with a spiritual being. I don’t know if pastors are teaching what relationship looks like, or what does saying you have one what actions should one then take. Like what does sacrifice look like as it pertains to everyday living. I really wonder when it comes to mega-churches how many are coming out convicted. You know how you’ve heard the term “the truth hurts” well if that be the case the feeling one has coming out of church should always be alot different, unless the truth is not being preached.
You definitely have a really good point here Trave’. I also believe that many pastors, when they are preaching the message of the gospel, that they are preaching a weak message. “Come to Christ because then you’ll have a happy life.”
While it’s true that life with Jesus is so much better than life without Him, the truth of the matter is that we need to pick up our crosses daily and follow Him. Like you said, there are many sacrifices that we need to make and it’s going to hurt. I think that if we preached more like this and more on repentance that we’re going to have more and higher quality disciples for the Lord.
Trave’ – You are right … healthy sheep SHOULD reproduce without coercion or force. The problem is anemic churches, dead pulpits, apathetic Christians, disconnected families! Satan is having a hay-day as he has filled the church with worldliness (worldviews, divisions, etc.) and has made it all-but-irrelavent in our society due to it’s lack of light & saltiness. Appreciate your heart – keep serving the Master!