[0:02]
I'm about to introduce Andrew Heard. I will welcome Andrew to the platform. It's your platform, mate. So, um Yeah. Andrew's a lead pastor here at EV Church. Just a couple of things. If you want to stretch, I'd stand and have a stretch now because, um You'll be for a long time sitting. once Andrew warms up. Uh the other thing is in that uh Reach Australia app, there's a couple of things. One is uh we'll have a Q&A time after Andrew's spoken and the opportunity to ask Andrew questions or Ray. So, you can send through questions. It'll go through to

[0:33]
Scotty Sanders' uh iPad. Uh the other is if you look under the timetable and touch on Andrew's session, there's PDF copy uh of all the notes. Hurdy? Hm. We're all yours, mate. All right. Well, stay standing. We can do it while you stand if you like. I'll just talk. Was that Does that work? I think that probably should. Sit. Yeah. Grab a seat. Okay. Well, I've been asked to uh kick off our practical sessions on mission. So, as you probably picked up Am I causing problems here? As you

[1:04]
probably picked up the shape of the kind of time together, we want to open the scriptures here, just God speak to us from his word. Then we want to wrestle with some theological issues particularly and over this couple of days, the particular issue we're working with is uh the whole topic of mission, evangelism and so on. And we're going to be, you know, as we've tried to do, we're wrestling with that from the scriptures as Ray has wonderfully engaged with that. Now, we want to move into this kind of time each day looking at some real practical things about it.

[1:35]
And so, this is not a sermon, which is kind of frustrating the heck out of me. I want to I want to I want to preach at you and change lives and so on. But anyway, we're going to do a whole bunch of practical stuff on um church in mission. And I'm going to give you an outline of where I'm heading. And here it is. I'm going to give you introduction, which I've just given you. That's it. Um I'm going to offer my assumptions, which is I've got five assumptions I'm going to offer, then provide an excuse. Just one though, it could be many. But I'm going to provide an excuse. Then I'm going to give five points that are foundational for getting church on

[2:06]
mission. And the fourth point will have 10 points to it. Is everyone with me so far? And in fact, I've been as I write that if you close your eyes during that time, couldn't you just see Don Carson talking at that moment? Doesn't it Doesn't it sound like Don Carson? Anyway, there you go. There was my attempt at being Don Carson. Let me start with assumptions. Uh in fact, let me see if I can manage this at the same time. Here are my assumptions. Church gatherings are for believers. Now, Ray has uh spent um considerable time

[2:36]
reflecting on that with us. So, I I want to just lay that out and keep reminding us of that. The second uh well, actually going back church, the complication though is the language of church gets tricky as we talk. And so, I'm going to try and uh talk about church gatherings and church community. Church community being the bigger group, the community of faith that do church gatherings. I hope that makes some sense for you. The evangelism is preaching the gospel.

[3:08]
Uh when we talk mission, we're not just talking any act of love. We're talking preaching the message of the gospel that people hear and respond to. Um I'm not convinced of the regulative principle and I think some of you are and that may be an issue that you just need to be aware of as we work together. I think the Bible shapes all that we do, um but not quite in the way that some would reflect on that in the nature of church life. Just I think it's something to be aware of as we discuss back and forth together. And here's my excuse.

[3:40]
It's actually very hard to work from principles to practice. W- And my excuse is bear with me. It It we talk about the need to be principle driven and theologically driven, but it's it's actually not an easy activity to go simply to go from raw principle to practice and not be shaped and colored by all kinds of other things. So, I just want to offer that uh w- what what we'll be doing together, I I'm trying to do that, but my excuse is

[4:11]
you need to help me in it. It's not always actually that easy as easy as we often think. So, think hard as we go through this together. And here are the keys. Live and breathe the word as the power of God. The leader makes all the difference. The senior leadership makes all the difference, the senior minister particularly. The need You have to add heat. You need to create and work an ecosystem and you need to face realities. Now, what my the plan I have for you is to dig into all of that. And I'm going to start with number five. I'm

[4:42]
actually going to work from the bottom up, which kind of makes you wonder why didn't I have number five number one and work our way down? Because having number one number one is actually helpful, even though I'm going to start with number five. Does that make sense? Now, I'm sounding like Don Carson or not, right? There you go. We're going to work with number five first and come out our way up as we go through. The first one is this, faced realities. And I want us to do this to kind of clear the ground. W- We all want to hold to certain ideals. We all want to uphold

[5:14]
things that are precious and important. But, the fact is we live in the real world and we have to make things work in the real world. And this makes a huge difference when you actually run a church. You've got to face realities. And this I think has six points, maybe seven. I don't know how we've gone as we go through. Let me start with facing realities. First reality you need to face as the

[5:46]
leader of a church, the senior leadership team of a church, uh it it's not as simple as just mature them. If you want to get a church on mission, it's not as simple as just preach and pray and it will happen. Call this the maturity myth, if you like. Uh it's a reality. The ideal is right. It's right that if uh our our aim and purpose is to grow and deepen and mature people in the faith and the word is the key for that. We'll

[6:16]
come back to that in a moment. And actually, that's not just an ideal, it's basic Christian ministry that we're to be about maturing the people of God to do everything we can to present people mature in Christ is basic Christian ministry. But, the reality is if that's all you do, preach and pray to see people matured, you'll be waiting a long time to see a church produce much evangelistic fruit. You'll be waiting a long time. Why?

[6:49]
Because Christian life is complex. This side of glory, it's complex. Some people will be out there talking to their friends, fired up, and they need babes in Christ. They're not mature at all. They're not deep in the word. They just They just can't help but talk to their friends. But other people who are deep in the word, who've been part of growing as Christians for decades, don't talk to their friends at all. Now, why is that? Well, you might say it's because their maturity is deficient.

[7:19]
Perhaps. But here's the deal. As leaders, we have to face the reality pursuing basic Christian Christian ministry. This is This is one of those challenges where we face reality without losing the ideal, without denying the ideal and pursuing the ideal. But we have to face the reality and work with what we've got. People are on a journey in their maturity. All kinds of different things happen with giftings and non-giftings and confidence and emotional issues. You just have to face these realities as a church. Work with

[7:50]
what you've got. If your mission strategy is grounded in getting everyone evangelizing, if your mission strategy is grounded there, you won't see much mission fruit. You'll be an underperforming church. Because of the second reality, there are two outcomes that are often separate in reality. The two outcomes that are often separate in reality is everyone on mission and conversion growth. Y- You might want to join those two

[8:21]
things in some ideal world where we'll get conversion growth by having everyone on mission, but in reality, those two things are often separate. Which is to say, you can have a church where everyone's on mission, but not much conversion growth happening. Or conversely, you can have a church where not everyone's on mission, but lots of conversion growth happening. In reality, those two things are often separated. And noting that as a leader is deeply

[8:52]
important. Revival, of course, illustrates this. There can be occasions in history where God pours out his spirit spirit in miraculous ways where it's not as if everyone's suddenly gossiping the gospel and it's an amazing movement of missioning. It's rather just a great inbringing of God by his spirit to hear the gospel preached. Or the raising up of in the kind of crusades we've had in the past, occasions where much gospel fruit has occurred without everyone being a gospel mission person.

[9:25]
And of course, in our day, the reality is we're seeing much fruit from course evangelism, which is not driven so much by people out there evangelizing as it is by invitations in to come and hear someone else. You've got the reality that these two things are often separated. And bearing that in mind as you shape and organize your church life is important. A training course isn't the answer. We do a lot of training in our church and hearing Ray talk about it as well. The

[9:56]
um it There's place an important role for training in church, but don't imagine that if you just put on the training course, everyone will be trained in evangelism, it'll all happen. It's naive. I um, worked for a wonderful man for many years, who's now gone to glory, but he was a very fine evangelist in a church that was hitting runs evangelistically. It was a fantastic ministry to be involved in. And uh, he would he would go to a conference on evangelism and hear about the latest training course. He'd come back into our church and he'd set up the training program. We'd go hard at it for 4 months

[10:28]
and then he would have lost interest and moved on to something else and we'd still be trying to do it and it'd fade and disappear. And what happened after 6 months? Nothing. It just washed through. Training, if it's going to work, needs to happen regularly. It needs to be repeated. It needs to be part of something larger. And be aware, too, that your preaching is a training. Lots of things are training in all kinds of ways without them being training. Training is not the answer. Let me give you the next one. Resources

[11:00]
are limited. I'll come back to this one in a moment, but one of the uh, one of the realities we need to face is that and when you're planting a church, you'll feel this very keenly, that as you're planting with 30, 40 people, you you know you can't do everything. You know, it's the ukulele thing sounds interesting. I don't know that it'll work quite here, but you know what I mean? It sounds interesting. I'm not sure you want to pursue that strategy in the first year or so of life. So there's, you know, there's some things you just can't do. Uh, resources are limited. You've got to face that as a

[11:31]
reality when you're particularly when you're planting. But get this. I I don't know if you realize this, but in a church like ours, we scratch desperately to find resource. Resources are three things: people, time and money. And we are always short of those three things. Now, I know it freaks people out. They kind of go, "You've got so but like no, because we're doing we're trying to go so deep with people. We're kind of trying to go so broad with people. We're desperate for resources that we can't find. Resources are limited, which means the reality here is

[12:02]
you can't pursue every ministry strategy. You've got to choose carefully which ones. And which ones you choose to do will actually shape whether you are effective in mission or not. This is the reality. Next one. There are no silver bullets. Um, one of the things that often gets thought about is if we get phone calls like, "If you just put on the Christian and Explain course, if you just did the learn nine words, if you just did the um, then it will all

[12:33]
happen." No, it won't. Well, there's one exception to that. If you just bought the Life Course from Every Church, that will work. That's the that's the silver bullet. But um, but no, there's no there's no one evangelistic course that's going to make it all happen for you. The reality is if you don't put that into a context of a healthy system, it just doesn't work or it runs for a moment and then fades and disappears. Follow-up takes a whole lot longer these days. I was before Chapo left us, um, we

[13:06]
had a time he come came and hung out with us for a little while. It was fantastic there, but he was reflecting on follow-up back in the day. He said, "Follow-up for us used to be um, hand someone an address of the local church and say, 'See you later.'" That was follow-up. These days, 6 weeks of follow-up is inadequate. We have a 10-week follow-up program. It's in that context people are actually often converted having thought they were. People are so far back today with so many pieces missing,

[13:37]
it takes a great deal of This is a reality that we need to bear in mind. Let me give you another one. They're not too busy at church. This little bit of rant. I hear often the kind of notion that if if we just freed up our people from doing church meetings and ministries, then we'd get more evangelism happening. No. If you just freed up people from all the meetings at church, what would they spend their time doing? Netflix, watching TV. Or in our case, they'd be down the beach

[14:08]
more often, you know? Now, maybe with friends, but when they're surfing, they don't care. The friend's a competitor, he's not a friend. And so it's kind of, you know, it it doesn't work like that. Um, don't buy into that. Let me give you the, you know, I think it's like the senior minister can't run it all. Now, this is a reality we need to face. Senior ministers if they if you think of yourself as the one that makes mission all happen, it will happen for a period of time and fade. If you think that the answer to church

[14:39]
life is the senior minister doing the evangelism and being an evangelist and getting out and evangelizing, it it just won't flow through adequately. I I I you need to be doing it. Senior leadership, you need to be involved in mission. I I've always been involved in local with sporting clubs to try and um, keep in touch with the real world and uh, also take my kids to be able to be with them. There's a whole bunch of kills a lot of birds with one stone and uh, gives Cathy time without me, which is a huge blessing for me as well as her

[15:10]
because it benefits me when I come back. I don't know that that was going badly, wasn't it? But you know, it's it was love it's lovely to actually spend time with real people outside of the church world. I I sit I play water polo. I sit with these blokes. I've been with them for 15 years and I sit with this bloke and it's fat he's this man. I sit with him and I say, "You know, Porky, how was it how was your weekend? What did you do?" And he talks about his weekend. And then he turns to me and he says, "What did you do on the weekend?" And I say, "Well." And he goes, "Be quick. I'm not that interested."

[15:42]
And I I just think to myself, "This is so good." Do you know what I mean? Like cuz people in church are polite to me. But uh, anyway, he actually does like me. That's uh, that's the way he expresses his love. But um, but if you make the senior the senior minister needs to be engaged in mission, needs to be active in these things, but if you make you the key to it all, it will run out of steam. Here are some realities that we need to face. But let me come back to the keys and now take you through the more positive picture of it all. Um, live breathe the word is power, the leader makes all the difference. You need to add heat, create

[16:13]
and work on it. Let's face Let's come back to four. So we step back up and uh, to do this in working through point four, what I want to do is introduce you to the idea of ecosystem. You may have heard the language before. It's an you know what it is in a in a natural environment where every piece of nature kind of plays in together and influences the other bit. Ecosystem, everything's interconnected, every part. Well, church the church community, get this, the church community, not the church gathering simply, but the church community is an ecosystem.

[16:45]
It's an ecosystem. And that ecosystem has huge power when you're intentional about it. And let me build this up piece by piece. Uh, ju- introducing you to the to the Pentagon. Here we go. The The Pentagon represents the community of faith, the people of God, the church community. That's not the church gathering. The church gathering is a smaller circle within the Pentagon. The church gathering is what the church

[17:16]
community does. Make sense? Let me give you the first piece. In fact, I should say, too, what I'm going to show you is not a staffing diagram. It's not an organizational chart. It's a conceptual map that I'm going to use to make various points that I think are important for us to help us engage with the idea of an ecosystem. The first piece is that the ecosystem is grounded,

[17:46]
founded in the word. And you'll notice the line is bigger and separated out. There's something different about the place the word brings into the ecosystem of a church life. The The word is the fuel, the engine, the fountain of every other dimension of church life. Behind the techniques, strategies and programs needs to be the word. Deeply and profoundly. Needs to be part It needs to You know, one of my aims here for church from the very beginning has been to

[18:17]
cultivate a culture where the word of God was the heartbeat of our lives together. So that first and foremost, we seek to hear from God, respond to God, but hear from God, love God's word. And my hope has always been in this church that if you scratch anyone in our church, they'll bleed not just Bible, but blood soaked in the Bible. Did I get that right? Blood You get the picture. And I want actually people to actually bleed Bible as as

[18:47]
they just live and move amongst us. And uh, I give you permission to test it lunch time if you want from some of our congregation. Go on, scratch them and see what happens. But my my hope is always that that would just ooze out from us. And it's happening. We love it. People here we we did we did some, you know, we always work through the scriptures a book of the Bible each term as many of you do. One term, uh, I don't know, 15 years ago, 14 years ago, we start decided to do a series from

[19:18]
um, an American book for various reasons. It wasn't a book of the Bible. And after about 4 years of church life, we had a huge rebellion. People were outraged that we would think of not doing a book of the Bible. And and and for me that was just that was glorious. That this culture had shifted in such a way that it was so wonderfully concerned about the Bible. This for us has been a massive passion. Uh, it's the foundational piece. It's the key. We pursue We when we started Now, let me talk to church planters.

[19:49]
When we did core group ministry, when you run a core group uh, as you're starting a church, a launch team, you've got lots of planning to do. Who's going to do what? How we're going to manage ourselves? How we're going to organize? What will be the structure? You know, we had all of that stage as well. But, whenever we got together as a core group, the main thing we did, even in core group phase, was just open the scriptures and read and ruminate. We just spent solid time in the word, seeking to

[20:21]
disciple each other in our growth in the knowledge of God. That was the The DNA was built there at the core group phase. We didn't wait till later to bring it in. It was who we were. In established churches, it's the key to our lives as well. And here, just I'm going to become preacher just for a moment. Brothers and sisters, you've got to learn how to bring the word of God to bear in people's lives. You've got to let the word of God sing amongst you. You've got to find ways that your preaching becomes captivating for people

[20:55]
as you open the scriptures for them. You know, we've been using some language around this place for a while now called poetry and plumbing. And it's akin a little bit to trellis and vine, which is much more wonderful. Trellis and vine is better language, of course, but poetry and plumbing is It's been helpful for us to think in terms of the plumbing, of course, is the structures and systems of church. The The poetry, though, is not just the people. The poetry is is the is the the the song of the word of God that that speaks through the plumbing.

[21:28]
That sings to people prophetically and calls people to a different life. And here's the deal. Um you can have all the plumbing you like in church. But if you have no poetry, there's no movement. Or if there is, it's not worth having. It's critical that you preach up a storm and that you get caught up in the storm yourself.

[21:58]
The word of God is a treasure. It's the voice of living God. Preach it knowing that you're handling the very words of God himself. What a privilege and to cultivate amongst your people the sense that week by week we get together and hear the living God speak. What a treasure. And as you bring that poetry to bear, you get the heat and the engine in church life. If you don't have plumbing, you'll hit a ceiling.

[22:29]
But when you have both, now, this isn't to say that the key is preaching evangelistically every week. Or at least it isn't It isn't preaching evangelistically in the sense that you preach invitationally every week to become a Christian, though you might. It's rather recognizing that in a sense, whenever you open the scriptures, God is speaking to his world to call people to repentance and faith. Now, that's gospeling people, isn't it?

[23:01]
It's gospeling believers and unbelievers. There's a sense in which every week should be evangelistic. It should be a presentation of the lordship of Christ and a call to repentance and faith. And our intention is here every week that we build mission heat. Every week we seek to We seek to bring people into the word of God that they might see God for who he is and see his heart

[23:31]
and become like Christ and so be desperately urgent to get out and reach the world with the gospel. Isn't that the heart of God who sent his son to seek and save the lost? There are very few passages that say go out and evangelize, but every passage in the context of the larger arc of the Bible is calling humanity to know its God and be like him

[24:03]
who left the 99 to find the one who rejoiced at the return of the lost prodigal son. To be like him is what our churches are to become like if you're in the word of God. And here's a sense in which one sense in which my point three or four, whatever it was, the leader makes all the difference to the mission heat of the church in a number of ways. Brothers and sisters, you have the opportunity week in week out to either just explain the

[24:34]
details of the text in sermons, Bible studies, wherever you are. You have the choice to either just explain the details, the syntax, the grammar, or faithfully explain the details of the text, you need to do that, to lift people up into the heavens that they might see their God and be transformed and changed. It's critical that you lead in this. Now, go left. As you deepen the word, you'll know God,

[25:05]
hearts will be changed, transformed minds, changed lives, people come alive. But there's more to be done. We want to be shaped by the word to be God-would attentive. To be God-would attentive. To be God-would attentive is to be a person who's brought to repentance and faith, faith in God. To know your God, to be in relationship with the God, but also to come and now adore him, to give thanksgiving praise,

[25:36]
and to be prayerful. Romans 1, of course, talks about the great sin of humanity, the the great sins of humanity is that although God was made known to us, we neither gave we neither gave thanks to him or honored him as God. And so surely it's evident, isn't it, that the spirit of God, as Mikey was talking about earlier, if the spirit of God comes alive in a person through conversion, our first instinct will be repentance,

[26:06]
faith, and adoration. Thanksgiving. Praise. It matters that this happens for the sake of pleasing God, but it matters that this happens for the sake of building the church. Building the church gathering. Building the church community. Reaching the world. Building mission heat. As a community grows in their God-would attentiveness, as they respond towards God

[26:38]
in adoration, praise, thanksgiving from the heart, it touches lives profoundly. This is a crucial piece in shaping a church to be on mission. It'll It'll It'll work in all kinds of ways. It means people will be prayerful. It means we'll have communities that actually pray. It means they'll be different, which is itself compelling.

[27:10]
People who actually alive to God in real relationship with the living God are different. One of the great drivers for mission is changed lives. To have a church where lives are being changed, where their identity is reshaped, that's compelling. It's attractive. It's beautiful. Much of our evangelistic energy comes from that. And when you stick that group of people together in a gathering, wow. When they come together to adore

[27:42]
their God and give thanks to their God and praise their God and mean it, healthy church gatherings are wonderful things. They're encouraging and stirring. And it creates Here's a significant piece, I think, in mission drive, mission energy. You need to create in a church community the want of evangelism, not the ought of evangelism. They're quite different things. The ought of evangelism, I'll do it because I should,

[28:14]
gets some fruit. The want of evangelism is infectious. It's powerful. When a group of people are gathered together as the people whose lives have been transformed by the living God, when they see God at work in their community, amongst people in their lives, when they see a person converted and their lights turned on, when they see marriages brought back together, when they see holiness beginning to transform their lives, when they see their wallet converted, they want to have their friends to come and be part of this.

[28:46]
We've We've had very Often it's We've never had I'm using lots of We rarely have to tell people go and do it. They They go away going, "I want my friend to experience what I've experienced. I want them to see this." Now, reflect for a moment on your own church experience. Do your people want to bring their friends to church? Or is it for them a case of social suicide?

[29:17]
They know they ought to do it and they try to, but they don't really push hard because they kind of don't want them to say yes. Because if they do come with them the next week, it'll be cringey, embarrassing, they'll be worried about what's said, how it would look and feel, and after it's over, they resolve never to do it again. Now, I'm not talking about church needing to have this some out-of-body experience, an astonishing thing, but rather for church gatherings to be something real.

[29:49]
Where people who really believe what they're saying say it. Who pray not perfunctory, not token, not trite, but prayers that display a heart that's in that's not just reading, but it's actually speaking to the living God on behalf of all of us. Add to this uh another dimension. We'll go a little bit faster now. The the corporate dimension where um not only do you gather together for it, but you gather and you love one another. You care. There's connection. There's

[30:21]
community happens. Not just when you gather simply on a weekend, but at other occasions and so on. The community of people who gather are a community in all kinds of ways gathering and caring and supporting each other. When that's happening in a healthy way in a church, it's compelling. It's beautiful. It's attractive. And in this, what we're talking about here are relationships that aren't simply a means to an end. This is profoundly different. This is not This is not community gathering as one step on a pathway.

[30:54]
This is actually church for the sake of church. This is This is being gathered together by the great work of God through the gospel to be his people gathered together. And to enjoy that. And to love it with each other. Where you hear God speak and you praise and sing and you love one another. You get this happening in church and it does a number of things. It creates thick relationships that are enlivening, that bring health to people where they have therefore an

[31:24]
overflow. Do you remember Paul in 2 Corinthians 1? You know, out from the comfort we've received, we comfort others. Once you get thick loving relationships, there's a there's a spiritual emotional health that gets created and out of that comfort, there's an ability to comfort others and give to others. But it also fuels a desire to want others to come in and experience this as well. And it means that any new person who comes in gets captured by the community. They get welcomed and loved. I uh I think I first saw this uh with

[31:56]
Brian Telfer. Some of you knew Brian Telfer. Uh he was a senior minister in uh Sydney in a church in Sydney and um taught me a great deal. He was a passionate evangelist. He used to work with Chappo and they had a great friendship and so on. It was beautiful to see them in action. But he had a church on mission. And it oozed out of him. He only had four sermons in all the years I was there. Didn't matter what part of the Bible he preached from, he'd always end up in the four sermons. One was preach the gospel to the nations. The other was repent believe the gospel. The other one was evangelize your friends. And the

[32:26]
other one was you're saved by grace. That was it. That was all Every sermon was one of those four. And I'd go home and Cathy said, "That was number three today." And But this is a thing it didn't matter because he he oozed love for people. And he he demonstrated the power of loving community. I don't know that he was even aware of it actually. He did hospitality as just an overflow. His house was beautiful. It was There was flowers everywhere. It

[32:58]
always smelled of cooking soup and bread and um he he welcomed you. There was a great warmth as you came in. Um and he did all of that at church as well at the building. So I mean he was an extraordinary character who would put all the flowers in all the vases and do the lawns and then he'd go in and when church arrived, he'd play the keyboards and then he'd get up and lead the service and then he'd preach and then he'd farewell everyone. And I mean he was that kind of guy, but you just felt this you wanted to be there.

[33:31]
Now most of us aren't like that. We're introverts. We're bookish. We're drawn to tasks. We don't do hospitality. We don't ooze it. So brothers and sisters, you've got to find people who are like that. You've got to find people who are like that. And let them free. Let me go to the next one. Glad service. When you build a church that actually has people sacrificially serving, laboring in the Lord, recognizing that the labor in the Lord is not just any work that they do, but a particular work

[34:03]
for the cause of growing the church. You see 1 Corinthians 9, 1 Corinthians 15, 1 Corinthians 16, that language is used and it's clearly a narrower exercise than just doing any work. When they're engaged in formal ministries, it is a powerful thing that actually enables the church to grow when all the different parts are working together. And uh our challenge as churches is that we are seriously underperforming. We've got 10% of the people doing 90% of the work. We have a sleeping giant.

[34:34]
If we can mobilize them and get the service ministries happening, it's powerful. It's powerful. And the key for us here is learning how to raise the temperature in church so that people want to serve. Raise the temperature so that people think, "How else will I live my life? What else will I do?" And secondly, work out a plan for church so that if 20 more people actually volunteered for ministry, you'd know what to do with them.

[35:05]
I often wonder uh it's been a challenge for me over the years. If someone gave me if someone gave me $200,000, would I know what to do with it? Would you know what to do with it? Have you got such a vision for what church could be that you are hungry for more resource? That creates a want and a drive and an energy. Now, with all of this happening, when you add in mission, when you add in someone who particularly thinks talks mission and mobilizes for mission and helps the church be on mission to gain

[35:36]
converts, those two things who actually sees as their outcome targets getting people on mission, everyone on mission, and seeing converts made, two different things often, but both happening, when you've got someone who actually pursues that, what you've got is something that lands into a tinderbox ready to explode. And as the mission success is then shared back into the church community,

[36:06]
the life is of the church community is further heated up. Now, there it is. But what I want to say to you is the big point of all of that is you want to get a church on mission, don't buy any of the myths. There's no silver bullet. It's not just one thing. But if you get every part of church working, it's an ecosystem that fires itself up. It becomes powerful.

[36:37]
Each part adding its particular piece to the whole. It's as each part works together, the church grows and becomes effective at seeing people saved through all kinds of different pathways. Ray drew attention to the different pathways that you get in church. It produces heat and it produces effect. It empowers people to go out. And it attracts people to come in. Now let me I'm going to finish now. I think I'm Let me I'm just going to offer a couple of synthesizing questions. I

[37:08]
questions I hope that actually helps synthesize something of what we're talking about here is that um Think with me for a moment. Here's Here's a question. Which Which system in church is the discipleship system? Don't say anything. Which part of church is the discipleship structure of church? Now, what's the answer? All of it.

[37:39]
Every part of the church community operating as a body. It's all of it. Let me give you the next one. Which system of church is the mission system? All of it. Don't imagine that if you just put on a mission pastor, that that will that's the mission piece. No. That piece only works because the whole piece is working. All the bits are working.

[38:11]
You know, there are a bunch of myths here. Um one day you might get to the stage where you employ a mission pastor. Does that mean the church's finances reflect mission priority sufficiently? That is to say, how much money is your church spending on mission? Well, we've got a mission pastor and he's 1/5 of the thing and so we're only spending 1/5 on mission. No. Well, yes, maybe. It might be the case because every other part's not actually helping build

[38:41]
mission. But if you actually understand the ecosystem correctly, every dollar spent on the whole thing should be helping mission fund and work and grow. You know, we uh we run newcomers nights in this place or well membership classes. Membership classes. And uh we've been doing them a long time now and uh they're four week we call it EV startup. And uh one night a week for four weeks. We do a lot of the things that you'd expect at a at a

[39:12]
newcomers welcome membership class. We introduce people to where the toilets are and you know, who are the pastors around this place and we give them some background on church and so on. We do all the things you'd expect to have. But here's the key to it. We aim for it to be an introduction to the life of being part of EV to give them a taste of what it would be to be part of EV. And here it is. We do four weeks of seeking to change

[39:43]
their life in the word. It's actually eight sermons packaged into 4 weeks. All designed to radicalize them. To completely turn their lives upside down. Now, why would you do that in a membership class? Because you want to come into our church and know what our church is about? Here's what it's about. Here's what we are. Here's what we can't not do. Change lives. Meet God in his word. You know, um

[40:13]
you can't Well, I don't think we can know all of this and not finally ask the question Let me find that. How do you get all of that happening? How do you get all of that happening? It's not as simple about as just learning how to evangelize. It's much more profound. One person can't make that work. We've got to learn together how to actually build teams. How to build teams. It's not just talking staff,

[40:44]
but how to build teams that actually exercise the giftings of the body together to produce the full measure and mature Christ amongst us. That's the big purpose. Let me finish.