Over at simplychurch.com, Jeff Gilbertson asks “What do missionaries do?”. He lists a number of activities which people mention when asked this question, but concludes that what they really should be doing is planting churches. I attended one of Neil Cole’s Greenhouse sessions last week (as did Mike Bischoff, who wrote a good summary (in German)). One of the things which I noticed – for the first time, as far as I can remember – is that the Great Commission does not even mention churches. Our job is to make disciples, and churches are the natural consequence of that. Now, we may spend quite some time making sure churches function well as support systems for the members, but our aim must be that those members grow in their faith.
Have I consumed too much Neil Cole recently?