Becoming a Redemptive Church: (What is its spiritual fabric?)

The first section of our seminar describes the aura of a church being prepared by God to carry his mission.  These chapters portray God's work in molding his people into his image, reflecting his nature, so that they naturally live and communicate the message of God.  Core to such a community are God's distinctive attributes--love, compassion, and mercy on the one hand and holiness, purity, and righteousness on the other.  A redemptive church thus does not "just happen" but goes through a process of becoming.  This section discusses four factors enabling churches to become God's communities of compassion: spiritual readiness, God's heart for the lost, equipping for local evangelism, and home-growing missionaries.

Spiritual Readiness.  A redemptive church, following the example of the Antioch church, is a praying, fasting fellowship empowered by the Holy Spirit to set aside leaders for missions (Acts 13:1-5).  God's people must seek his direction, pray fervently for his guidance, and act with a knowledge of his direction.

God's Heart for the Lost.  A redemptive church reads the bible with eyes that see God's heart for the lost and acknowledge his redemptive acts throughout history.  Mission does not originate with human sources, for ultimately it is not a human enterprise.  Mission is rooted in the nature of God, who sends and saves.  When Adam and Eve acquiesced to Satan's temptations in the Garden of Eden, God came searching for them, calling, "Where are you?" (Gen. 3:9).  This questions testifies to the nature of God throughout all generations.  He continually seeks to initiate reconciliation between himself and his fallen creation.  Because this theology of evangelism and missions defines God's purposes in the world and our relationship to these purposes, it permeates the education program of a missions-mobilizing church.  Practical methodologies, reflecting this theology, encourage missions thinking within the local church.

Training in Evangelism.  The local church is a seedbed nurturing those becoming God's ministers of redemption.  As young plants are cared for and nourished in a seedbed until they can be transplanted and begin to produce fruit, seeds for global ministry are planted and nurtured in local congregations through equipping the church to teach the lost.  Therefore, a redemptive church provides basic training for evangelism.  Specific guidelines and models for evangelistic equipping within the local church are given (based on the author's course Ministry of Redemption).

Home-growing Missionaries.  A church with spiritual readiness, a theology of evangelism, and congregational equipping for evangelism will naturally home-grow its own missionaries.  However, home-growing missionaries necessitates a radical change of rhetoric:  From "Why do you want to be a preacher?  You can make more money elsewhere!  Become a missionary?!?  Who is going to support you?" to "If you want to be a preacher or a missionary, we will stand behind you!!  We believe that the world can be saved only by the redemptive message of Jesus Christ."  This new rhetoric challenges the thinking that young people should not depend on the church because they will be let down; it says emphatically in word and deed that the world can be significantly transformed only by accepting the Way of God in Jesus Christ.  A redemptive church naturally home-grows its own missionaries because of its values, priorities, and practical training.