What I see now is that we here in Australia need to learn to think like missionaries. In my book “The Genius in the Kingdom: How Discipleship Impacts Church Planting” I write:
“In my experience, I have seen three main states of missionary–mindedness among new churches in Australia. The first state that a new church can be in, is what I call the active missionary state. In this state, almost the whole of the new church is focussed on evangelism and discipleship and this has become effective to the point where the new church is oriented to movement and beginning to experience it. And, because of the thinking done about the community around them, the result is that there are many points of active mission interaction being engaged with by the planting leader and the team. The second type is the transition missionary–mindedness state. Here, the church still has the right focus in theory but because the whole church is going through a transition of some type, planned or unplanned, there is a lessening in the effectiveness of that focus. These transitions are discussed elsewhere in this book, but for this context, those involved would probably feel they were plateauing as a new church and may even be a little concerned about the situation that they as a new church have entered. A key indicator would be that there was a slowing of the growth of the new church, which was seen in the number of those being discipled. To emerge from this state requires intentionality that involves everyone engaging with those around them in building relationships that are based on trust which, in my view, is the best environment for the transmission of the gospel in Australia. The last type is the passive missionary–mindedness state. In this situation, the focus on evangelism and discipleship is still being discussed and perhaps even valued but the actual activity of the new church in evangelism and discipleship has lessened significantly and as a result, there are possibly only a few involved in missionary activity, with the rest being distracted to the point of passivity. The only real solution in this case is to do a review of the disposition of the church again. I have addressed this matter elsewhere in this book as the most reliable pathway to bring the church back into an active missionary state.”
If you are thinking about planting, find a missionary returned from the field and learn from their journey.
The book is now available on paperback and Kindle from Amazon.
Peace
Colin
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