The Great Confusion

Anyone who has spent time around a Christian church is most likely aware of something called The Great Commission.  This directive comes directly from the words of Jesus in Matthew 28:19-20, in which he tells his followers to "go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,  and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you."  Pretty straightforward you would think.  Go tell everyone.  So why is it we struggle with all 3 of those words.  We don't really want to GO.  We have a hard time discerning what we are supposed to TELL them about our faith.  And quite often we wonder...did Jesus really mean EVERYONE?  Only an institution like the church could turn The Great Commission into The Great Confusion...


I used to be a youth pastor, and when you serve the church in that role the task of telling everyone about Jesus takes on a very narrow meaning.  You GO to schools, ballgames, concerts and other places where the students can be found.  You TELL students about the love of God and about your ministry- and then hope your words and their friends will help them show up at church so the conversation can continue.  It seems so obvious that your task is to tell EVERYONE you can.  You stay awake at nights thinking of new ways to engage a larger audience with the gospel.  It's a huge part of why you do what you do.

This is what a pile of  Waycross 7th grade
cheerleaders looked like in 2006...

But the church does not always see it that way.  Oh, they talk a good game, but the fact is they are often threatened by outreach and evangelism.  I was called on the carpet more than once in my career and told that I was spending too much time with students who were not church members.  This seldom came from the staff; it usually came from the parents of students who were church members.  I'll share an example of what I mean from my final stop, Trinity UMC of Waycross, GA.  Our student ministry was rather small when I arrived in 2006, so I began to GO and TELL every chance I got.  As the 2006-07 school year began, I was everywhere, sharing about our church and my Savior.  We had a couple of middle school cheerleaders who were a part of group, and they got excited about inviting friends to our ministry.  Within a few weeks, we were overrun with middle school cheerleaders, most of them 7th graders.  At various points in time over a dozen of them attended our youth group.  I was thrilled at this new growth.  The two sets of parents who went to the senior pastor and complained were not.  When new high school guys began to come be part of our ministry because I let them use our youth house for their rock band to practice, parents complained again- because their kids weren't getting all of my attention.  My pastors supported me, but the conflict remained.  And this was not my first such experience.  I have been told a number of times over the years that, "your first priority is to students whose families are church members.  After all, they pay your salary."  And there it is...


The Great Confusion takes Jesus' command to share his love with the world and makes it all about me.  If we really reach new people, they might sit in my pew.  They might draw attention away from me.  They might take my seat on the Church Council.  Their children might be more talented than mine, and little Bobby and Sissy may not get to sing lead vocals with the youth Praise Team anymore!  We reduce The Great Commission to writing checks for overseas missions and calling it a day, when in fact some of the biggest mission fields are located in our own back yards.  They're called schools.  And right now there are thousands - THOUSANDS! - of Christ-loving youth workers who want to reach those schools with the gospel, only to find that one of their roadblocks is their own church- because church members continue to make the institution "all about me."  Real youth ministry is not about scheduling events at times that are convenient for church members, or about keeping the riff-raff away from "our good kids."  It's about reaching the lost.  It's about loving them in name of Jesus.  It's about equipping "our kids" to care for those who are hurting and are lost.  So c'mon, church!  It's time to get with the program.  GO.  TELL.  EVERYONE.  Let there be no confusion about our mission...


Because of Jesus,