christian quotes on 'pressing the reset button'

Many people have been baptized into the church only to struggle spiritually as they don’t know what their next step is beyond “Show up to worship and class, read your Bible, and pray.” In fact, I’d venture to guess that the majority of Christians have never been truly discipled. While there has been a great emphasis on baptizing, the “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you part” is often lacking.

Sadly, because the idea of making disciples has been so closely tied to evangelizing and baptizing, and most of us aren’t very good at those two, the bulk of discipleship falls through the cracks. In other words, the answer to “What does Jesus want the church to do?” is “Make disciples.” The answer to “How do we make disciples?” comes in these participles. When you break it down grammatically, the imperative is not baptizing or teaching, but “make disciples.” The participles surrounding it – going, baptizing, and teaching – show us how we execute that task. While many think of this command as a call to evangelize, that’s only part of the equation. Jesus told us to go into all the world, but we’ve flipped the plan on its head and tried to get the world to come to the church. We call Matthew 28:18-20 the Great Commission for a reason. While none of that is inherently wrong, what happens at the building should be supplemental to the main work we’ve been called to do.

We’ll put on the worship services, we’ll try to cater to different desires without bending Scripture, and we’ll segment and divide up our programs so you feel like you fit somewhere. You’re supposed to fellowship with other Christians? We’ll host events at the building to accomplish that. You’re supposed to study the Bible? We’ll put on a couple of classes a week. Everything revolves around the building and the events held there. You’re invited to come, sit down, and be served by professionals. Most modern churches have been set up like restaurants. We must recover the church’s primary mission. I’m not sure where that disconnect originally happened – perhaps during the centuries of the Catholic church’s domination – but it’s time we hit the reset button. The more I study, read, and reflect, the more I feel that we’ve fundamentally misunderstood what the church should be.

Christian quotes on 'pressing the reset button'