“I will build my ekklesia and gates of Hades shall not prevail…” Matt 16:18
Jesus spoke about being “salt and light” in the sermon on the mount, and told His disciples that he would build His “ecclesia” - the Greek word we often translate as “church.” That word had no religious connotation to it at the time. It was well understood as referring to a citizen assembly that met together to solve community problems. It was closer in meaning to what we today might call a city council with real political authority.
Jesus wants His followers to meet intentionally for shaping the affairs of their cities but with an approach based on a Biblical worldview. Later He commanded His followers to go into all the world and “make disciples of all nations.” The spreading of citizen assemblies that understand God’s principles of public policy, is His way to bring national transformation. But if the church is only a place for religious activities, it undermines the intent of Christ’s Great Commission.
Please do not misunderstand. I served as a pastor for over 35 years and loved it. To help the lost come to faith, and for believers to grow in their Christian walk, was a wonderful calling. To be able to focus on the study and teaching of God’s word, was a great privilege. To seek and promote revival, and grow and plant churches was of vital importance. Yet, all these things alone are not enough to overcome evil in the world.
Many Christian books explain the importance of prayer, evangelism, and planting churches. To bring full transformation and reformation to a nation, the hearts of the people must indeed be transformed. Personal repentance and conversion are where all godly change begins. But after God changes the hearts of men, what then? When God transforms men, their families, businesses, schools, churches, neighborhoods, towns, cities, states, and nations should see the effects of that change. But this does not always happen today. We need only to look at so-called revivals where culture is left unaltered despite many people turning to Christ. The Apostle Paul wrote, “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (2 Cor 3:17). This is true for both men and nations. True revival and awakening must necessarily impact all areas of culture and their institutions.
For successful outcomes though, a strategy must be in place to see true transformation in every area of society.
The Mission of the Church
In the Great Commission found at the end of the Gospels, Jesus clearly defines the church’s purpose: “go . . .and make disciples of all the nations” (Matthew 28:19). In the historic church that first transformed pagan Europe into a Christian culture, they understood this mission. Places of worship, churches, cathedrals were not built for several centuries. Instead their primary focus was on building people. These people would become ambassadors of another kingdom sent by the church to every sphere of national life (i.e. the 7 mountains in each locality).
Too often today, the measurement of pastoral success is numerical growth, and the constant construction of new buildings in which to house growing congregations. A mega-church is the ultimate attainment. Accomplishment is measured by the amount of activities and events that fill up church calendars even though these rarely relate to transforming culture. These measurements of success in the modern church are non-existent in the New Testament. Jesus himself and all the Apostles would have been criticized as failures by this criteria. No one built a church building and membership in their fellowship was small.
When Jesus gave the mission to go “make disciples of all the nations, he gave the disciples his criteria for measuring success. In the parallel passage of the Great Commission found in Mark 16, we can see that Jesus added “signs” that would follow this mission in which he detailed a way to measure progress of evangelism and discipling nations:
1. “cast out demons”
2. “speak with new tongues”
3. “take up serpents”
4. “drink anything deadly”
5. “lay hands on the sick”
Many times we read this in a personal manner, but Christ clearly references “nations” (Mt 28) here, indicating that these signs should be equally applied not only to individuals but to the larger mission as well.
[For those paid subscribers, below is a summary of Christ’s 5-Sign strategy for National Transformation.]
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