Your Church Doesn’t Have to Be Big to Have a Global Impact

By Pastor Rick Warren

When I was a young pastor, I wanted to be a missionary to China.

Kay and I both felt called to foreign missions. But it was the 1970s, right in the middle of the Cultural Revolution. There was no way they were going to let an American in.

When God shut that door, it was the biggest disappointment of my life.

I said, “Lord, I don’t understand it. When so few people are willing to go overseas, and we are, we’re ready, we feel called, why won’t you let me go?”

And God said one of the two or three things that turned the trajectory of my life: “You’re not going to get to be a missionary, but you’re going to be a missionary-sending church.”

That became the vision for Saddleback Church.

I’ve said for years that you judge a church not on its seating capacity, but on its sending capacity.

You don’t judge an army by how many people sit in the mess hall and eat. You judge an army by how many soldiers are out there on the front lines actually serving.

From the very beginning, my goal was to build a sending church, a missionary-sending station. And here’s what I learned: You don’t have to be a big church to fulfill the Great Commission. You just have to have a Great Commission vision.

 

There’s No Shame in Being a Small Church

When I moved to Southern California in 1980 to start Saddleback, I was 25 years old. I had no members, no building, no support, and I didn’t know a single person there.

We had everything we owned piled into half a U-Haul. We didn’t even have enough money for a motel that first night.

I walked into the first real estate office I could find and said, “Hi, my name is Rick Warren. I’m here to start a new church. I’m 25 years old. I don’t have any members, I don’t have any building, I don’t have any money, and I need a place to live.”

The man, whose name was Don, just laughed and said, “Well, let’s see what we can do.”

He helped us find an apartment, got us the first month rent-free, and became the first member of Saddleback Church.

As I was driving to that little apartment with him, I said, “Don, do you go to church anywhere?”

He said, “No, I hate church.”

I said, “Great. You’re my first member. I’m going to start a church for people who hate church.”

So we started the church in that little apartment with my wife and me, our little girl, Don and his family, and one other person.

But from the very beginning, we built into the DNA of our church that we were going to be a sending church.

There’s no sin in being a small church. But there is sin in having a small vision.

Even if you have 15 members, you still have to care about the whole world.

 

Missions is Simultaneous, Not Sequential

Most pastors misread Acts 1:8. Jesus said:

“You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (NIV).

Many people read that verse as though Jesus said, “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, then Judea, then Samaria, and then the ends of the earth.”

But that’s not what it says.

It says “and, and, and.” Not “then, then, then.”

It’s not sequential. It’s simultaneous.

A lot of churches think that first, you start in your own Jerusalem and build your church up. Once it gets big, then you go to Judea, the area around you. And once you start reaching that area, then you go to Samaria, the people who are cross-culturally different from you. And finally, once you get big enough, you go to the rest of the world.

And a lot of people think that Finishing the Task is something you do once you’ve got your church established.

No! You’ve got to put Great Commission DNA in the church when you’ve got five people, and then 10, and then 15, and then 20.

You don’t have to wait until your church grows to begin reaching the world.

 

Where Are Your Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria?

In Acts 1:8, Jesus gave us a map for fulfilling the Great Commission. He told us to take the Good News to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth.

What does that mean for your church?

Jerusalem is your own backyard. You start with those closest to you. You start with your family, your relatives, your neighbors, and the people you work with. These are the people God has already put in your life.

Judea is the area around you. For Saddleback, our Judea was Southern California. We began mobilizing small groups to reach beyond our immediate community and serve people throughout the region.

Samaria represents people who are different from you. The Samaritans were people who lived in Israel but weren’t Jews. They came from a different ethnic and cultural background. Your Samaria includes people of different languages, cultures, and backgrounds, as well as groups you might not ordinarily encounter.

The ends of the earth means everywhere else in the world. Jesus wants us to take the Good News to every nation, every tribe, and every people group.

You don’t have to finish reaching everyone in your own community before you start caring about people around the world.

You’ve got to have bifocal vision: local and global. You’ve got to be able to see both at the same time.

From the very beginning, Saddleback was committed to “and, and, and,” not “then, then, then.”

We wanted to be a church that cared about more than ourselves.

 

Begin with the End in Mind

One of the things we have to do to mobilize churches is teach them to begin with the end in mind.

When you plant a church, you need to know that it’s going to reach the whole world.

When Jesus told the disciples to go and make disciples of every nation, it was physically impossible for them to travel to every part of the world. They didn’t have planes, trains, or automobiles.

But today, we have opportunities to reach people around the world that previous generations could never have imagined.

There is no excuse for a church of 20 people not to have a global vision.

 

God Uses Ordinary People to Reach the World

From the very beginning, our goal at Saddleback was never simply to build a crowd.

A crowd is not a church. You have to turn a crowd into a church through a system of discipleship.

We wanted to bring people in, build them up, train them, and send them out.

Over the years, that commitment led Saddleback to send tens of thousands of members on mission around the world.

But it all started with a handful of people and a vision to reach the world.

When we developed the PEACE Plan, we defined it this way: Ordinary people empowered by God, making a difference together wherever they are.

Ordinary people. The PEACE Plan is not for superstars, super saints, or super mature people. It’s for normal people like you and me who are very busy and lead very full lives.

Everything gets done through ordinary people.

But we are empowered by God. What God gives us the direction to do, the command to do, he empowers us to do. He gives us the ability, he gives us the energy, he gives us the wisdom, he gives us the contacts, and he gives us the resources.

Whatever God asks you to do, he’s going to empower you to do.

And we do it together.

I can’t make much of a difference in the world on my own. You can’t do much on your own. God never meant for us to be Lone Rangers.

We are made for each other. We’re created for community. We’re formed for fellowship.

We’re better together.

That’s why the PEACE Plan was built around small groups. When Jesus sent people out, he never sent them out alone. He sent them out in teams.

We taught our members to think about three different dimensions of mission: personal, local, and global.

• Personal: Reaching the people in your life—your family, friends, neighbors, and coworkers.
• Local: Serving and reaching people in your surrounding community, often alongside others in your small group.
• Global: Taking the Good News and demonstrating God’s love to people around the world.

 

You don’t need a church full of professional missionaries to do that. You need ordinary people who are willing to be used by God.

 

What Is Your Church’s Sending Capacity?

We need to change the way we measure success in our churches.

Too often, what gets rewarded is size. But a church can be big and strong or big and weak. It can be small and strong or small and weak.

Big is not necessarily better. Small is not necessarily better. Better is better.

You don’t have to be big to be healthy.

I’d like to see us start rewarding churches that are planting new churches and reaching people who don’t yet know Jesus.

Whatever gets rewarded gets repeated.

The mark of maturity is the ability to reproduce.

So let me ask you: Are you measuring your church’s success by how many people come in or by how many people you’re sending out?

Are you helping your members see their responsibility to reach their neighbors and the nations?

God is looking for willing people.

It doesn’t mean you’ve figured it all out. It doesn’t mean you’ve resolved all the problems. It doesn’t mean you’ve conquered all your doubts or figured out when, where, how, and why.

It just means you’re willing.

Let the size of your God determine the size of your goal.

You don’t have to be a big church to fulfill the Great Commission. You just have to have a Great Commission vision.

 

To learn more about steps any church can take to Finish the Task, visit https://finishingthetask.com/10-steps/