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Seven
Dynamics for Advancing
Your Church in Missions
Page 5 — Dynamic #3: Spiritual
Disciplines
This is the process of providing the spiritual vitality that executes the
vision and strengthens the management. Just as all believers must dedicate
themselves to personal spiritual disciplines in order to progress spiritually,
in the same way every church must dedicate itself to certain mission-related
spiritual disciplines in order to maintain and grow an outward mission focus.
Any mission program will fail if it is not built on healthy spiritual disciplines.
Each
discipline serves as an antidote to cultural forces that are undermining mission
involvement. Corporate prayer for world evangelization serves as an antidote
to the secular influence of American culture. Local evangelism serves as an
antidote to the pluralism of our society. Mission giving breaks the grip of
materialism. Sending missionaries from one's own congregation, makes missions
very personal and tangible and counteracts the self-centeredness of our American
way of life. Helping to mobilize other congregations in missions helps mission
leadership in the church to give away their expertise instead of hoarding
it for themselves.
Adopting
an unreached people group is a great spiritual discipline for a church because
it forces us to focus on the task remaining instead of focusing on oneself
or on one's own missionary. Praying, witnessing, giving, sending, mobilizing
and adopting are all spiritual disciplines that counteract the negative forces
of our culture and nurture our participation in God's global cause! There
is a spiritual dynamic at work in each of these disciplines that gives spiritual
blessings that cannot be understood nor explained naturally.
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