It Will Take Unselfish Churches to Fulfill the Great Commission
By Pastor Rick Warren
Fulfilling the Great Commission—helping everyone have an opportunity to know the Lord—is an enormous task. Working together so that everyone, everywhere has access to a Bible, has the chance to know a believer, can become part of a local body of Christ, is prayed for by name, and experiences a tangible bridge of love is going to take enormous sacrifice.
The temptation for every church will be to sit back and say, “Let’s just forget it. We’ve done enough. We’re a nice, happy church. Let’s just live for ourselves. Let’s relax and take it easy. Let’s stop pushing. Let’s stop reaching out. Why should we go after these people? Why should we plant another church? Why should we pray for a city we might never visit?”
I’ll tell you why: Because everybody deserves to hear about Jesus.
We reach out because everybody needs Jesus. There’s not a person God made who doesn’t need Jesus. There are people in your city and around the globe who need to hear that Jesus died for them, that they’re not an accident, that God has a purpose for their life, that their past can be forgiven, and that they can have a home in heaven. More than any time before, I’ve seen how deeply people need purpose, meaning, strength, and God’s blessing and power.
We Must Overcome the Discomfort That Comes with Reaching Out
We all want our churches to reach new people, but we often don’t want it to happen at the expense of our personal comfort.
I learned from personal experience that the bigger the church gets, the more headaches, the more stress, the more pressure, and the more needs there are. Honestly, my favorite church size was 300 people. At that size I knew every family—every husband, wife, kid, cat, and dog.
Whenever you grow, there are growing pains.
There is no growth without change.
There is no change without loss.
There is no loss without pain.
There is no pain without grief.
That’s called life.
Growing our church meant we all had to be willing to be uncomfortable, do things differently, learn new tools, and develop skills we didn’t have so that lives could be changed. I believe that sacrificial attitude was one that God blessed.
It takes unselfish people to share their building, to share their pastor, to share their seat, and to share their programs. You have to be willing to give up your usual spot on the weekend. You might have to grow from one service to multiple services. Your may need to start accommodating different languages and cultures.
So how do we overcome the discomfort? We adopt the mind of Christ. Jesus said, “Your attitude must be like my own. For I, the Messiah, did not come to be served but to serve” (Matthew 20:28 TLB).
Reaching out requires members who will say, “We will do whatever it takes because there’s something more important than my comfort: that more people get into heaven. We will not rest as long as there is one person who doesn’t know Christ. We have to care because God cares.”
I remember a man named Gary who was one of the original members of Saddleback. He came the second week of the church. During that first year, every Thursday night I went to his house. I had him read through the Bible, and then I’d say, “Ask me any question about the passage you studied this week.” I personally discipled him every Thursday night.
As Saddleback grew, I didn’t get to talk with Gary like that anymore. I was lucky if I saw him in a service and waved to him.
One day another pastor said to him, “You must really resent all these new people who have come to Saddleback.”
And Gary said, “Yeah, sometimes I miss those old days.”
But then he said something I’ve never forgotten:
“Then I look around and I think, which of these people would I not want to experience what I’ve gotten to experience?”
That’s unselfishness. It’s being willing to give something up so somebody else can experience Jesus.
Reaching the Lost Means Surrendering Our Rights
It’s human nature to think about our rights.
We think: I have a right to sit back and let other people serve; I’ve been serving for decades. I have a right to park up close to the service. I have a right to attend the service that is most convenient for me. I have a right to let other people give and not sacrifice anymore. I have a right to keep my small group just the way I like it. I’m not interested in growing; I like these people I’m with.
Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9:12, “We haven’t used our rights. Instead, we would put up with anything in order to not hinder the good news of Christ in any way” (GW).
Think about that: “We would put up with anything in order to not hinder the good news of Christ in any way.”
Are you willing to put up with anything to bring more people to Jesus?
That question applies to our churches too.
Are we willing to change something we like because it will help us reach people who aren’t here yet? Are we willing to give away resources? Are we willing to send people we love to plant new churches? Are we willing to cross a culture, try something new, or partner with somebody who does things differently than we do?
Your Church is Not in Competition With Other Churches
There’s another misconception we need to clear up if our churches are going to be effective at reaching the world for Christ: your church is not in competition with other churches.
If you love Jesus Christ, we’re on the same team.
It’s silly to think that any one church is going to reach everybody. It can’t.
My guess is that in any community in America, every church in town could probably run 500 or 1,000 every weekend and we still wouldn’t be reaching everybody. Every church in a major city could run 5,000 and we wouldn’t be reaching everybody. I once went and added up all the seats of the other churches in the Saddleback Valley, the region where our church was located, and figured out that if we filled up every seat in every church twice on Sunday, we’d still only be reaching two percent of the population. We’re not in competition.
God blesses the church that gives itself away. This looks like planting other churches, starting new ministries, sending missionaries out, and working in cooperation with other churches to reach the lost. God looks around and says, “That church that really cares about other people – that’s the church I’m going to bless.”
Every Number Represents Somebody Jesus Died For
People sometimes critique churches that want to grow. They accuse them of being “all about numbers.”
Well, here’s why numbers are a big deal: Every number represents a soul Jesus died for.
Every number has a name. Every name has a story. And every story represents a precious soul Jesus died for. We count people because people count.
Jesus illustrated this when he talked about the Good Shepherd who leaves the 99 saved sheep to go after the one lost. How did he know one was lost? Good shepherds count. Good shepherds count to know who is accounted for —and who is still lost.
The Bible says the Lord is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9). Really, the number of people attending your church is irrelevant. What’s important is the commitment to the idea that we’re never going to stop reaching out. We’re never going to stop stretching. We’re never going to stop having faith. We’re never going to coast, because people need the Lord.
Every once in a while, when I was leading Saddleback I would hear someone say, “Isn’t our church big enough?”
That’s the wrong question.
The right question is, “Should anybody be left out?”
Does anybody have a right to hear the gospel twice when there are people in the world who haven’t heard it once?
Love demands that we keep reaching out.
Let’s Believe God for a Little Bit More
The reason Saddleback became what it is today is because God found a group of people who were willing to believe him for just a little bit more.
The things we saw God do didn’t happen because the people in our church were smarter than other people. It was just that this was a group of people who decided, “We’re going to go after a little bit more.”
There are a lot of things in life we don’t have control over. You didn’t control who your parents were. You didn’t control when and where you were born. You didn’t control the natural giftedness you were given.
But one thing you do have control over is how much you choose to believe God.
I have decided that I’m going to believe God for a little bit more. Always just a little bit more.
What would happen if you and your church made that same decision? What if churches around the globe believed God for a little bit more?
What if we were willing to make room for one more person, reach one more neighborhood, cross one more culture, send one more leader, plant one more church, pray for one more unreached people group, or partner with another church to go somewhere neither of us could go alone?
Finishing the Great Commission will require churches that refuse to make comfort their goal. It will require pastors and members willing to embrace change, sacrifice their comfort, give their best, and keep reaching, because God has never made a person he doesn’t love.
To learn more about how to lead your church on a journey of growth, check out the “Leading Your Church Through Change” lessons in Pastor Rick’s Healthy Church Master Course, available now in the Healthy Church Teaching Network Platform.
