EMQ » January–March 2021 » Volume 57 Issue 1
By Kenn Oke
In the Great Commission, Jesus told us to plant churches. It’s worrying to hear people say that he didn’t. In blogs, books, journal articles and even in conversation with church planters, I’ve been told that Jesus didn’t tell us to plant churches, he simply told us to make disciples. J.D. Payne says that it is “a truly radical thought” and “a fascinating fact: Scripture does not call us to plant churches.”[1] Roy Moran goes further and states that Jesus might reprimand us for thinking that we should plant churches. He writes, “Jesus might even ask, ‘Why are you doing what I said I would do – build my church – and not doing what I commanded you to do – make disciple-making disciples.’”[2] It seems that many have been quick to accept a missiology based on three verses rather than on the entire corpus of Scripture. Further, it is a missiology based on an interpretation of these verses that does not seem to ask or answer some basic hermeneutical questions.
In this article I will propose the idea that church planting is at the heart of the Great Commission. I won’t attempt to outline a missiology based on all of Scripture but will focus on demonstrating that the commands to make disciples, baptize them, and teach them to obey, all point to church planting. I will start by addressing an apparent confusion about what church planting is. I will then show that when we take the time to do the hermeneutics, the Great Commission is clearly a call to plant churches. The scope of this article does not allow me to flesh out fully some important terms that arise out of the topic, like Kingdom, covenant, and community. I have attempted, however, to give them enough attention so that they don’t detract from the crux of what I’m proposing.
Confusion Around the Term “Church Planting”
How do we define church planting? A careful reading of the authors mentioned in my introduction reveals some confusion in how the term church planting is defined. They use it synonymously with either starting a church service or reshuffling believers into new groups. For many, that is what church planting has come to mean. Given that definition, their assertion that Scripture does not call us to plant churches is accurate. Jesus’ big idea was not to reshuffle believers in order to start more 11:00 a.m. Sunday services. I suggest, however, that this is a weak definition of church planting.
To be clear, I am not saying that these authors are confused about the nature of true church planting. They are simply using the term to refer to a watered-down version of it. Rather than accept a poor definition for the term, however, those who write and teach about it should define it accurately. If we don’t our communication on the topic becomes unclear. Payne, for example, ends up writing a very confusing statement based on the weak definition of the term. When talking about the core of mission he states, “It is not about planting churches. It is about making Kingdom Citizens who will live according to a Kingdom Ethic in covenant relationship to God and one another as the local expression of the Body of Christ.”[3] In essence he states that it is not about church planting, and then proceeds to give a wonderful definition of what it means to plant a church. Rather than add to the confusion, let’s take Payne’s excellent definition and accept nothing less as true church planting.
Why Does This Matter?
Both Payne and Moran write against a form of church planting that is simply reshuffling believers into new groups. They rightly point out that biblical church planting is all about bringing new people to Christ. Church planters might start with a vision to grow the church through evangelism, but if that gets tough it’s possible to put together a good worship band and solid teaching and fill the seats with Christians. I agree with Payne’s assertion that this is not what the Great Commission is about.
Reshuffling can only happen, however, in contexts where a significant percentage of the population are already believers. Over the past twenty-five years, my ministry has been planting churches among the least reached, i.e., places with less than 2% evangelicals. In these places, there are so few believers that it’s hard to play the reshuffling-Christians game, (though I have seen it done on a small scale). When evangelism is slow, or the church fails to launch, the last thing that church planters need to hear is, “Jesus didn’t tell us to plant churches.” That missiology allows them to justify their decision to abandon the call to plant churches through evangelism. Rather than plant new churches, they often come alongside existing national churches working with existing believers as one-on-one spiritual mentors. This is all rationalized because the experts who are writing the books are adamant that Jesus only told us to make disciples.
There is an irony here. In a context with a lot of Christians, we say “Jesus didn’t tell us to plant churches” in order to encourage ministries to focus on evangelism rather than current believers. The same phrase in a least-reached context, however, is used to justify ministry that is focused on current believers rather than evangelism. If church planters in least-reached places are to stay the course, and persevere in their efforts to plant new churches, they must have an unwavering confidence that this is what Jesus has called them to do.
As we move forward and look at the Great Commission, then, it must be understood that true church planting is not simply about establishing a worship service. We’re not talking about reshuffling current believers into new groups. Church planting happens when Kingdom Citizens are brought together to live out Kingdom values in covenant relationship with God and one another.The rest of the article will demonstrate that this is exactly what Jesus called us to do.
A Comment on Hermeneutics
Perhaps one of the more difficult tasks in biblical interpretation is to look at a familiar passage as if we were reading it for the first time. This is especially true when the passage has words in it that we have already defined for ourselves, like baptism and discipleship. In order to take a fresh look at the familiar, I suggest that we return to the basics of hermeneutics. Klein, Blomberg, and Hubbard state that “We must understand each passage consistent with its historical and cultural background.… Any suggested explanation of a passage that would have been inconsistent or inconceivable in the historical or cultural setting of the author or the recipients could not be valid. One must ask, given the original circumstances, what meaning fits most naturally.”[4] The question for us is, what did Matthew, and consequently the other ten apostles, understand when they heard make disciples, baptize them, and teach them to obey?
Make Disciples
In the twenty-first century church in the West, we define discipleship, essentially, as one-on-one spiritual mentorship.[5] It is a methodology that has greatly benefited the church. We need to ask, however, whether that definition is consistent with the historical context and cultural setting of Matthew 28? Conveniently, the Great Commission comes as the final three verses of an entire Gospel where Matthew describes three years of ministry in which Jesus made disciples. The apostles hearing these words would have understood that they were called to do nothing more or less than what Jesus had just done for them over the past three years. So, what were the key elements of Jesus’ disciple making?
Though this is not an exhaustive list, I note three big themes in Jesus’ approach to disciple making. All of them flow out of the main thrust of Jesus message – He was establishing a Kingdom (Matthew 4:17).
- Jesus called his disciples to join his Kingdom community. They learned together, travelled together, ate together and were considered by Jesus to be family (Matthew 12:49–50).
- He instructed them on Kingdom values. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus describes the cultural values of his Kingdom, and then reinforced them in over three years as they lived together. (More on this when I address teach them to obey below)
- He involved them in ministry proclaiming the Kingdom, casting out demons, healing every kind of disease (Matthew 10:8), and feeding the crowds (Matthew 14:12, 15:36). They learned from their successes and their failures. (Matthew 14:22–33).
Based on Jesus’ model for discipleship, none of the apostles would have concluded that Jesus was asking them to establish one-on-one spiritual mentorships. When they heard “make disciples,” they heard, “bring together a community of Kingdom citizens, living out Kingdom values, as they minister together.” That’s what Jesus had modelled for them. That’s what he was commissioning them to do.
It begs the question: How have we missed the Kingdom and community aspect of Jesus’ command? Jamieson suggests that, “Our neglect of ecclesiology walks in lockstep with the individualistic and anti-institutional biases of the late modern West.”[6] When we interpret Jesus’ command as one-on-one spiritual mentorship, we’re imposing our individualistic, anti-institutional culture on the text and miss its full meaning. Disciple making, for Jesus and the apostles, involved bringing together a community.
I am not arguing that one-on-one spiritual mentorship is a bad thing. I am simply saying that it is not what Jesus’ disciples would have understood when they heard him say, “make disciples.” Those who interpret the words make disciples in an individualistic way view the church as simply the inevitable by-product of discipling many individuals.[7] Their idea is that if you make disciples who make disciples you’ll end up with church. Churches, however, are not merely the by-product of disciple making.
In Ephesians we’re told that the church, and consequently each local representation of the church, came into existence according to God’s eternal purposes. “His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Ephesians 3:10). Earlier in Ephesians, Paul says that the glorification of Christ was “for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way” (Ephesians 1:22–23). The church, and each local expression of it, reflects God’s glory to the cosmos. It’s not an afterthought or a by-product of making individual disciples. Jesus called his disciples to participate in bringing together communities that show off his manifold wisdom to the seen and unseen realm. That high calling is lost if we accept an individualistic interpretation for make disciples.
Baptizing Them
What would the eleven apostles have understood by Jesus’ command to baptize the members of their communities of disciples? They were familiar with John’s baptism and the baptism of Gentile converts to Judaism called mikveh. John’s baptism and later Christian baptism were both modelled on mikveh,[8] which explains why none of the gospel writers feel the need to explain it – everybody knew what it was.
Mikveh involved full immersion in water. It is what made converts to Judaism ceremonially clean.[9] Jewish law restricted unclean people’s involvement in the community. Converts, therefore, needed to undergo ceremonial cleansing in order to fully participate in the life of the covenant community. This is what would have come to mind for the apostles when they heard the command to “baptize.” Baptism is what signals their disciples’ entrance into full participation with the New Covenant community.
Jamieson takes this one step further. He argues that, just as circumcision was the mark of the Abrahamic covenant, baptism is the mark of entrance into the New Covenant. He notes that God’s plan of salvation included the creation of a New Covenant community as 1 Peter 2:9–10 explains, “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God.” (emphasis mine). Jamieson concludes, “Since the New Covenant creates a public people, entrance into the covenant requires a public promise, namely baptism.” In baptism, then, the individual declares their entrance into the covenant community, and the community confirms this on behalf of the community, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
How have we missed the covenant community aspect of baptism? Jamieson is once again helpful. He states that, “If we think of the whole Christian life in individual terms, we’ll think of the ordinances in individual terms. We’ll see baptism as an intensely individual profession of faith.… What we won’t see is how these ordinances knit us to the church and knit the church together.”[10] Once again, we’ve imposed a Western individualistic definition on the text. The apostles would have understood baptism to be the sign that knits the church together as a covenant community.
Teaching Them to Obey
Finally, what did the eleven apostles understand to be the content that they were to teach their disciples to obey? A brief survey of Matthew’s Gospel reveals that Jesus’ teaching focused on community. His main theme was proclaiming the Kingdom of Heaven (Matthew 4:17). The Sermon on the Mount describes the radically different cultural values of the Kingdom. Most of these values can’t be lived out in isolation. Values like meekness, mercy, or peacemaker can only be demonstrated in community. He teaches them to be reconciled to each other (Matthew 5:23–24) and explains what to do when someone in the community won’t be reconciled (Matthew 18:15–20). He teaches them how to talk to each other, with their yes being yes and their no being no (Matthew 5:37). They are taught not to judge each other (Matthew 7:1–5). When he teaches them to pray, it is a corporate prayer. It begins “Our Father” not “My Father.” It is clear then, that a significant part of “teach them to obey what I have commanded” is teaching them how to live together in these new covenant communities. R.T. France agrees, stating that, though Matthew’s primary purpose was to present the life and ministry of Jesus, it is clear that, “Matthew designed his Gospel to be of practical value in the teaching and leadership of a church.”[11]
Summary
The Great Commission is not just a call to establish one-on-one spiritual mentorships. I am not suggesting in any way that we should throw out spiritual mentorship. It has become a vital part of growing mature believers in the West. The Great Commission, however, calls us to do much more than that. If the eleven apostles were asked to paraphrase Jesus’ command to make disciples, baptize them, and teach them to obey they would say something like this: “Jesus wants us to gather a community of disciples, just like he did. We should have them covenant together through baptism. We need to teach them all that he taught us about how we interact in this new covenant-Kingdom-community.” That’s what the apostles understood from Jesus words. In twenty-first century Christian parlance, the paraphrase is even simpler – plant churches.
Confirmation from Acts
To test this interpretation, we can look to Acts. The apostles’ actions in Acts demonstrate how they interpreted and lived out Jesus’ command. Notably, when 3,000 converted on the day of Pentecost, the apostles didn’t try to set up one-on-one spiritual mentoring for them. Instead, they brought all of the new believers together to be taught, to fellowship together, to eat in each other’s homes. They baptized them to show that they were now a part of this group who had received forgiveness (Acts 2:38) “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer… All the believers were together and had everything in common.They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts.” (Acts 2:44–46). They set up a community of Kingdom Citizens who were brought together to live out Kingdom values in covenant relationship with God and one another.
Final Thought
Much of my current ministry involves encouraging church planters, in least reached places, to stay true to their call. Establishing and growing healthy churches in these contexts can be slow going and sometimes discouraging. In order to keep pressing forward when things get difficult, church planters need to be certain that Jesus’ final commission to his disciples was to plant churches. He knew that what these tough places need is more vibrant communities of faith that reflect God to the people around them – Kingdom Citizens who are brought together to live out Kingdom values in covenant relationship with God and one another. He called us to plant churches.
Kenn Oke has worked with Avant Ministries, planting churches in the least reached areas of the world for the past twenty-five years. He currently serves as Avant’s Vice-President of Field Ministries. He has a Masters in Cross-Cultural Communication from Columbia International University and is working on a PhD. in Inter-cultural Studies. Kenn currently lives in southern Spain with his wife Doreen.
Notes
[1] J. D. Payne, Apostolic Church Planting: Birthing New Churches from New Believers (IVP Books, 2015), 17.
[2] Roy Moran, Spent Matches: Igniting the Signal Fire for the Spiritually Dissatisfied (Thomas Nelson, 2015), 49.
[3] Payne, Apostolic Church Planting, 17.
[4] William W. Klein, Craig L. Blomberg, Robert L. Hubbard, Jr., Introduction to Biblical Interpretation (Zondervan, 2017), 232.
[5] “Discipleship | Cru,” Cru.Org, accessed April 1, 2020, https://www.cru.org/us/en/train-and-grow/help-others-grow/discipleship.html. Five of the eight articles in Cru’s discipleship page focus on spiritual mentorship.
[6] Bobby Jamieson, Going Public: Why Baptism Is Required for Church Membership (B&H Academic, 2015), 1.
[7] Moran, Spent Matches, 50.
[8] Ceil Rosen, “Baptism: Pagan or Jewish” Jews for Jesus, last modified July 1, 1983, accessed April 3, 2020, https://jewsforjesus.org/publications/issues/issues-v02-n10/baptism-pagan-or-jewish/.
[9] Rosen, “Baptism.”
[10] Jamieson, Going Public, 18.
[11] R. T. France, The Gospel According to Matthew (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1987), 21.
EMQ, Volume 57, Issue 1. Copyright © 2021 by Missio Nexus. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced or copied in any form without written permission from Missio Nexus. Email: EMQ@MissioNexus.org.
