About five months ago I began a new adventure, presenting church vitality training online with “clusters” of pastors and church leaders. At this point there are four Go Clusters engaged with thirty-four pastors and leaders participating.
The curriculum is titled G.O.1.X. The G.O. comes from the Great Commission and the central strategic tool is called the Great Commission Matrix. In fact, that’s where the name for this blog comes from – gcmatrix.
The Great Commission speaks of making disciples of all nations. Many passages of Scripture speak of this global evangelization. John 3 tells us that God so loved the world that He gave His only Son. Matthew 24 speaks of the Gospel being proclaimed throughout the whole world. Revelation 7 tells of a multitude too numerous to count, from every nation, from all tribes, peoples and languages.
We know that all of this will take place because God said so, but what is our role? A pastor in one of the Go Clusters reported that he finds the concept of global evangelism a bit overwhelming for his congregation. The task is so big that it can be discouraging. After all, what can one person do?
This pastor has taken an interesting approach that I find compelling. In fact, I haven’t stopped talking about it since I heard it. He challenged and encouraged his folks with the following instruction:
Do for one what you wish you could do for all.
So simple and so powerful. His congregation is really running with this. Maybe I can’t reach the world, but I can reach one – right? What if we all did that?
