The Great Commission Fulfilled?

On Monday, I got to hear Andy Stanley of NorthPoint Community Church speak at a conference about church ministry and leadership. He is an amazing communicator with insightful guidance into ministry. One of his controversial practices at NorthPoint is to take the church staff through leading business books. They have only read one or two spiritual books since the church was founded in the mid-90's.

A lot of people have criticized this approach by saying it is not spiritual or its too corporate minded. But Stanley shared a very powerful response:

"Coca-Cola has been in business for just over 100 years . . . and they have already fulfilled their great commission. The church has been around for 2,000 years and we have not."

"Maybe they just have more at stake than we do."

When he said that, the room was silent for five, ten seconds. It was a palpable silence - one you could feel.

In my missions class, I am learning that while many hundreds of thousands of missionaries have given up everything - including their lives - there are still thousands of unreached people groups around the world representing hundreds of millions of people who are lost. For eternity. Without hope.

And the church is just not as focused on its core mission as many corporations are. Those that worship the dollar have expanded their kingdom and we have not. And I would suggest that it is because we are often times focused on eating our own because they aren't "spiritual" enough, Biblical enough, or not enough like us.

And in the end, the world suffers. They have Coke but they cannot have the life to the fullest that Christ died to bring us.

So let's embrace principles that work to share the Greatest News with a hungry world. And stop criticizing those at the cross who are different.