Mission isn’t a bolt-on feature or a singular gear in the engine; it’s the fuel that drives every part of the church ecosystem. Integrate it, and the whole church comes alive.
Greg Lee unpacks how mission can and must be integrated into every area of church life, from welcoming to administration. Doing so doesn’t drain ministry, it ignites it.
Greg Lee is the lead pastor at Hunter Bible Church in Newcastle.
Greg’s longer workshop from the 2024 National Conference
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TRANSCRIPT:
The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.
If you were to come and visit Newcastle and can I say to our out of town visitors, come, come and visit us.
0:41
We’re just an hour north of here and Newcastle is a lot like the Central Coast.But we’re the addition of history and culture and class.And if you come and visit, some of the classy culture that we will show you is the new E foreshore on a Saturday night where the young people of Newcastle congregate together to discuss things like Rd. safety and driver’s etiquette and fuel economy and tyre maintenance.
1:24
Actually, come to think of it, that’s, that’s actually from our staff Christmas party last year.That’s what’s interesting though, you know, is most of these young people, they don’t have enough money to buy good cars.And so most of them are just driving normal 4 cylinders.
1:42
They’re driving Corollas and Mazdas and Hyundais, but in order to transform them into sports cars, they put a massive spoiler on the back.Humongous wings that turn their little buzz box into a high performance machine.
2:07
Of course, what they don’t realise is that just adding a spoiler does not make it a sports car.It’s just an old banger with a wing on the back.And it’s funny, you know, churches can do the same thing with mission.We think that adding one component onto our church is going to turn our church into a high performance mission machine.
2:28
So we add training, we add a course in two ways to live or how to do your testimony.And we think that’ll get mission firing.Or if we can just mature people in growth groups, then of course they’re going to become evangelists, they’ll know to evangelise, they’ll have all the answers.
2:47
Or if we run a life course, or if we want to run a mission once a year, that will take our church from nought to 100 in six mission seconds flat.Look, don’t get me wrong, I am a big fan of training and I’m also a fan of maturing people.
3:05
And a life course is something that I wouldn’t be without in our church.But to get mission really working in our church, we need to build the sports car from the ground up.We have to get the whole church working together so that mission really begins to fire.
3:23
And so for the next 15 minutes, we’re going to look at how the whole of the ecosystem of church can serve to get mission really firing.I did think about turning the ecosystem into a sports car and so loving God could be the engine mission could be the steering wheel.
3:41
You’ve got a kid seat in the back.Youth would be the loud muffler.But they said no, stick with the old diagram.That’s just going to be safer.So how can each area so much less inspiring, right?
3:57
It is just so not Newcastle.How can each area of this ecosystem work together in order to get mission flourishing?So let’s start with in community.How can the in community area of our church support mission?Look, it starts on a Sunday morning.
4:16
It starts with a whole church and particularly a welcoming team that expects and desperately wants unsaved people.There.I watched one of our wonderful MTSS who is a team leader for the our welcoming team.She was inspiring her team recently.
4:32
Here’s what she said.She said last week at this congregation we had 10 first time visitors.This week we’re expecting at least 10, maybe 15.Today could be the day that changes their eternity and we get to be the first face they see.
4:51
That is how you get a welcoming team on board.And so they’re looking out for not just first time visitors, they’re looking out for people who aren’t saved.And they don’t just smile as people walk past.They stop them and they engage them in conversation.
5:06
And if the person looks even remotely new, they’ll say to them, have we met before?I’m Greg, Welcome.And then they’ll walk them to a seat and they’ll sit with them in their seat.And at the end of church, I reckon you’ve got about 15 seconds before that first time unsaved person decides to leave. 15 seconds.
5:32
And if you think I’m exaggerating, that’s 10 seconds.Imagine being sitting there as an unsaved person in a strange foreign environment of a new church.
5:58
That means that during church, every single new person needs to be assigned to someone.Don’t leave it to chance.This could be the Sunday that changes their eternity.Now, just to encourage you, last Sunday we failed at this majestically.
6:19
We had some people who are here at this conference visiting church and I watched them sit in two of the most prominent seats in our entire building and no one spoke to them for 5 minutes.I died inside after Sunday though.
6:35
This is where that in community team gets to make first contact with people, and the sooner they do it and the more personally they do it, the better.There’s good evidence that suggests that after Tuesday, the likelihood of someone coming back to church halves every day if we haven’t contacted them by Tuesday.
6:54
By Wednesday it’s half the likelihood.By Thursday it’s half again, call by Tuesday, get in touch by Tuesday.And the earlier and the more personal we can make it, the better.Then we can invite them to take the next step.Whether it’s a life course, whether it’s coffee, whatever it is in community can have a huge impact on mission from Sunday through to Tuesday night, but can actually have a huge impact on the life of church as well by building a community that is at the same time close but also outward looking.
7:26
When you think about it, people who feel connected in their church, people feel like they’ve got relationships.We’re more likely to invite someone new to that and someone who’s not saved to that.Because why would I invite someone to a church where I don’t feel connected?But it has to be mission focused, community close.
7:47
Loving community for its own sake actually kills mission.Because the fact is, I can always be more loved.I can always be more connected.I can always be more cared for.If you promise close connected community for close connected community’s sake, I will always be dissatisfied because you can never fill up my love tank.
8:11
And I’ll always resist growth and I’ll always resent that new person who’s coming along because they’re a threat to me being loved.Churches that over champion community without mission often end up very small and grumpy.But if we’re a mission focused community, I will happily sacrifice community in order to reach new people.
8:33
I’ll be happy when church gets big and I don’t know everyone because it means that people are being saved.And I’ll join that congregation plant and leave my friends because it means that people are being saved.Because my being, my people being saved actually Trump’s the community that I want to be part of.
8:50
Build community, but for the sake of mission.Now, again, just to make you feel better, I watched our church.This did break my heart.We had a Christian visitor join come along to our church on Mother’s Day.They were welcomed really well at the car park, welcomed really well on the way in three times when they walked into our auditorium, they said to someone, can I sit here?
9:12
And the person said, no, I’m saving that seat.It broke my heart.The temptation at that point is to get grumpy, to get angry.But what I need to do is shepherd my church.Would you say that the in community part of your church is hindering or helping mission?
9:32
Let’s move on now to deep in the word.Sometimes people will say, if we can just mature people, they will naturally know to evangelize and they’ll want to evangelize.But the fact is, they won’t mission.Maturity is important for evangelism, but it’s not sufficient.
9:52
I need to be connected to unsaved people in order to do mission.I need to be competent and confident about the gospel and my relationships in order to do mission.I need to be inspired by being part of a missional culture in order to do it.Maturity is important, but it’s not sufficient.
10:10
And in fact, we know that because often the most effective and the best evangelists in our church to the new Christians, aren’t they?They’re immature, they’re unchanged.They don’t know what they’re saying, but they’re out there and they’re saying it.And so deep in the word cannot drive mission, but it can support it.
10:29
It can help it partly by just continually helping our church to see the vast importance of the gospel and of heaven and hell.Because over decades in our own hearts and for the people in our church as Christians, our horizon tends to drop a drops from the big things of heaven and hell and God’s glory and mission.
10:51
And the Christian life just becomes, I’ve got to be a good mum, I’ve got to be a good worker, I’ve got to raise my kids, I’ve got to have my quiet time.And the role of the deep in the Word part of church is to lift people’s eyes to these great truths of salvation, God’s glory, and eternity.
11:11
On top of that, growth groups are often the most empowered, the most powerful encourager for mission.In my experience, they’re not the best program for mission for a couple of reasons.One, a normal Bible study discussion is just too chaotic.It’s too all over the place for your average unsaved person to be able to follow along and clearly get the gospel.
11:32
But there’s also a social contract there.It’s a relational thing, which makes it hard to look someone in the eye and say, So what do you think?Will you place your trust in Jesus?It’s really difficult to do that in a growth group.And so something like a life course or something similar is actually much better.
11:50
But to encourage mission, to pray for each other’s friends, to introduce our friends to each other, to hunt as a pack, to build connections.Growth groups are amazing.Now, one key way that Deep in the Word can really help mission is by sacrificing our best leaders.
12:08
Often in churches, all of the mature Christians end up becoming growth group leaders.And then they get rusted on and they lead growth groups for the next 20 years, which actually starves all of the rest of church for mature leaders.And so we end up with our youngest, least mature Christians involved in the mission area.
12:27
And so a Deep in the Word team that’s happy to say this person, they love Jesus, they’re a mature Christian, they’re good with people, get the idea of heaven and hell, take them.That’s a wonderful way that they can serve mission.Would you say that the deep in the word area of your church is helping or hindering mission?
12:53
What about loving God, the loving God area of church?Well, why do we so love God?It’s his missional heart, isn’t it?Our Father is the Father who longs for lost children to come home.Our Father is the shepherd who rejoices when lost sheep are found.
13:13
Jesus wept over sinful Jerusalem.Loving God and mission go hand in hand because I love God because of his missionary heart, but actually the loving God area can really help and serve mission as well.Sunday is going to be a key moment in our church.
13:31
We talk about Sunday as Jupiter.It’s the not the God Jupiter.We have one God.It’s, it’s the biggest thing in our weekly solar system growth groups are Saturn youth is Uranus is the way we talk about it.But the fact is most people, no matter what size your church is, most people who are new will still come along on a Sunday.
13:56
And so even though I do believe that Sunday is for Christians, I want it to be superb for the unsaved person.The feel we go for in our meetings is not what makes Christians comfortable.We are aiming for the kind of person in Newcastle who thinks burnouts are high culture.
14:17
That’s our aim in Newcastle.So we’re in formal, we are guitars and drums, our preachers wear T-shirts and thongs.In fact, on Sunday a bloke who’s fairly new came up to me and he said, Greg, I almost didn’t recognise you this morning.And I said why?What do you mean?He said you were wearing shoes.
14:33
What’s going on?Because that’s what we’re aiming at.We aim to welcome people from the front.If you’re new here today, we are absolutely pumped you’re here.Stay.We want to get to know you.You’re welcome.You can expect some singing, you can expect to talk.
14:49
We’re going to be talking to God for a little bit, but stick around.We’d love to meet you.And it’s not said like a formula, it’s said like this is our home and having you in our home is absolutely making our week.We want unsaved people to feel like them being at church has made our day and we want to preach to them.
15:12
Not by being really obvious and ending every single sermon with if you’re a Christian it means this, but if you’re not a Christian, then you need to become a Christian today by doing worldview preaching.Here’s my take on worldview preaching.Worldview preaching helps everyone, including the unsaved person, to see how God’s Word crashes into our world.
15:32
And so at one side of that diagram, it explains world view preaching, explains the beliefs and the thoughts and the ideas of the world around us.And then it shows how they trickle down into our culture, into movies and music and art and books and TV and songs, and how those things then shape and form our personal values and our priorities and our desires.
15:55
There’s a cascade down there.And then it brings this passage with all of its beautiful, confronting truth and also the Bible’s unfolding story, biblical theology, and ultimately the character of God himself had brings all of that to bear.
16:14
That’s what worldview preaching looks like.And it shows how true and insightful and powerful and relevant God’s Word is.That kind of preaching equips believers to endure and equips believers to evangelize.
16:32
But it also confronts and helps the unbeliever every time we open the Bible for them.World View preaching is powerfully effective for mission.But other aspects of Sunday matter too.Generally on a Sunday, we only ever advertise 2 things.
16:50
We only advertise the Life series and our joining series.And we tell our regulars, it’s up to you to get informed.We’ve got Facebook groups, we’ve got emails that go out, we’ve got growth groups.We’ve you can be informed, but Sunday is just too precious for us to be announcing the male roster.
17:12
Is the Loving God area helping or hindering mission in your church?Let’s move on to serving.When you think about it, mission is actually one of the best motivators for anyone to serve, aren’t they?If we can show people how they’re serving impacts mission.
17:31
So how their admin help, or how they’re crash leading, or how standing out in the rain and parking cars, if we can show them how that furthers mission, then people will serve in deeply sacrificial ways.They will willingly stand in a rainy car park because they can see how it impacts mission.
17:49
And so mission actually feeds serving, but serving also feeds mission in return.One big way is our calendar.So as we plan our year, mission is the first thing that goes into the calendar.
18:08
So all the big moments like Christmas and Easter and Mother’s Day and all of the connection events that go into them and the life series that come out of them, all of that goes into our calendar first.Our church calendar is first and foremost a mission calendar, and then everyone else fits in around them and our our mission, our ministry area, our serve area constantly and consciously feeds mission first.
18:36
So at our joining course, they’re sitting around and they’re looking at people and they’re saying this new person, they’re pretty good with people.They know the Bible, they get heaven and hell.We’ll give mission first crack at recruiting these people so that mission gets our best people.
18:55
So is the serve area helping or hindering mission?Let me finish with an unlikely one.Admin.It’s hard to imagine the administration area of your church serving mission, isn’t it?
19:10
I mean, in the sports car analogy, admin is the boot.It’s where you put all the stuff you don’t want upfront will Chuck it in the boot.Our admin team is very consciously part of the mission to reach NUI.
19:26
They’re really conscious.They’re often the first voice that a non Christian hears on the phone when they call us and so they’re always warm and welcoming.They have the relationships with the contractors and the landlord.When the photocopier guy turns out to service our photocopier, they’re giving him coffee, they’re giving him morning tea, they’re inviting him to church and the life series.
19:47
I never get welcomed the way the photocopier guy gets welcomed into our office.But you know the big thing that they do?Our admin team consciously see themselves as an accelerator for mission, not a break.
20:04
So when we want to do something, they don’t say we haven’t got the money or we haven’t got the people.I say that’s brilliant.How can we get the money?How can we find the people?How can we accelerate ministry and enable ministry and supercharge the ministry?
20:23
They’re not the break, they’re the they’re the supercharger.Even something like your database can make mission easier or harder.Can we find the names?Can we create the lists?Can we track the people to help them to move from their first visit into life and beyond?
20:41
Even a database can have an eternal impact.So what have we seen in the last 15 minutes or so?Getting mission firing is not as simple as just bolting one thing on to your existing church.
20:59
Now it all has to work together.Every area of our church either thrives or falls together.That’s ecosystem thinking.But more than that, there is something special about mission.There is something unique about mission.
21:20
It adds heat to the whole of the ecosystem when we focus on mission and when we resource mission and when we pray for mission and when we celebrate mission, when we get everyone owning mission, it doesn’t draw heat from any of the other areas.It adds heat to them and actually serves all of them and supercharges them.
21:40
I’ll pray our Father, we praise you for your mission heart.We praise you that as Jesus looked out over the city that would execute him, he wept not for himself, but for them.
22:02
We praise you that you are the the shepherd who longs for lost sheep to come home.And father, we pray that this would be the beating heart of our church.We pray that you would use us where as your children, as your servants, we just long to be used by you.
22:19
We pray that you would save millions in our land.We pray that you would so work in our hearts that we too weep for our cities.And we pray that as we lead our churches that we would have everything funnelling towards seeking, saving the lost, and that from that the whole church would thrive.
22:37
We would love you, we would mature, we would serve.We’d love community for the sake of mission.Amen.
