Over 3.5 billion people on the planet have not had a good opportunity to hear and respond to the Gospel.  That does not include the 2.7 billion who have heard but have not believed upon the Lord Jesus.  Let that sink in just for a moment.

In recent days, I have spent multiple hours in meetings and conversations about how we mobilize Green Hill Church to engage the world in making disciples.  It has been exciting to see our enthusiasm for reaching the nations.  And God continues to open new doors to help us engage unreached peoples with the Gospel.

So how can Green Hill (or your church) take missions to the next level?  More specifically, how can we become a greater force in global disciple-making and church planting?

Here are a 5 action steps that direct our next steps:

We make disciples.

That may sound simplistic, but missions is not a department in the church.  Making disciples at home, across the street, and around the world is what we do.  So we structure our lives, our ministries, our budget, and our time around making disciples.  This mission affects the job descriptions of church staff.  It affects the way Life Groups function.  It helps us measure progress.  And it is the grid for evaluating new ministry efforts.

We do this together.

This is so fun for me because when missions is a church wide effort, everyone gets in on the action.  Missions is no longer a road trip or an airplane ticket, it is a church wide movement.  We can all pray.  Most can give.  And others will go.  But the entire church can practically engage in the mission to make disciples and start churches.  And we do this together 365 days every year.  It gets in our bones.

We start and strengthen churches.

When Jesus told the disciples to make disciples, He also told them to baptize and teach others how to follow Jesus.  Then we see in Acts that to accomplish that mission new believers started new churches in Jerusalem and throughout Asia Minor.  Any New Testament mission strategy focuses on starting and strengthening local churches because that’s how disciples are made.  And when disciples are made, churches are started that can then make more disciples.  There is no “Plan B”.  Disciple-making through local churches is God’s plan to exalt Jesus, redeem the world, and show His glory.

We develop strategic partnerships.

A church with a passion for disciple-making wants to go everywhere and is quick to say yes to the next opportunity.  But every church has limited resources.  So we must pray, pay attention to what God is doing in our church during this season, and then implement an Acts 1:8 model for disciple-making.  For us, this involves strategic partnerships with three to five specific people groups for an extended period of time.  These partnerships allow our church to get to know the people, to build trust, and to engage them at multiple levels.  Partnerships also give us the opportunity to be directly involved in disciple-making and healthy church planting.  And partnerships give people with different gifts and abilities the chance to be involved.  Whether you are bent to build buildings, feed the hungry, care for the sick, teach the Bible, work with kids, or go door to door sharing the Gospel, partnerships give everyone the opportunity to engage.

We fund the mission.

In order to develop healthy partnerships to reach people and to start and strengthen churches, we operate from a posture of generosity.  And we are intentional about how we allocate resources to accomplish the mission.  The church budget reflects this priority.  Additionally, a missions fund gives our people the chance to give generously above and beyond regular giving to strategically engage the nations.

We have much work to do to live out these 5 actions, but we are well on our way.  So let me invite you to join the mission of making disciples of Jesus for the global glory of God.  Pray with us.  Live generously.  And then walk across the street or go around the world.  But let us fulfill God’s purpose for Green Hill Church in our generation.