Clergy/Leaders’ Mail-list No. 0-014

(From Christian Quotation of the Day)

The Gospel commission is the key to all problems of church history, large or small.

It is the key to the success or failure of the many organisations built up to form the channels of witness to the world. Churches, societies, individuals, … have concerned themselves with this or that theological problem. They have made worship central instead of the Gospel commission. They have concerned themselves with their relations with the State. They have concentrated on philanthropy and social service.

Wherever they have done this and have forgotten the purpose for which the Master has placed them in the world, wherever they have lost the Master’s vision of a perishing humanity, wherever they have become inattentive to the cry of spiritual anguish, the Spirit has passed them by, and when they have persisted He has extinguished the light of their witness. And the pages of church history are strewn with their wreckage.

They may have shouted their loyalty to Christ, they may even have suffered for Him. But if once they have forgotten that our Lord combined in a single phrase “for My sake and the Gospel’s”, devotion to Himself and loyalty to His commission, they have lost their influence and sunk into spiritual death.

B. F. C. Atkinson, Valiant in Fight [1937]

Related Articles:

• Review: The Faith of Leap: Embracing a Theology of Risk, Adventure & Courage, Michael Frost & Alan Hirsch, Baker, 2011
• Why do Ex-College students Leave Christianity?
• Effective Evangelism: 18 Obstacles
• WAS JESUS GOD?
• COUNTRY CLUB TO MISSION BASE: THE STRATEGIC ROLE OF THE PASTOR

This work, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.