Best of the week entry 5

Comes from David Platt writing about the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force. Setting aside the idea of needing a task force to encourage Christians to carry out the Great Commission, I liked what he had to say about changing the priorities of the church where he serves. From the post, Dr. David Platt: Why I Wholeheartedly Support the GCRTF Report … and More:

Now the Southern Baptist church I pastor is tempted to do everything except for what Jesus told us to do. Jesus never told us to construct church buildings, start programs, or organize Sunday School. He never told us to host conferences or events. Instead, he told us to get the gospel to all the nations. Therefore, as a church we have stopped construction on buildings, we are removing programs, and we are reorganizing our structure so that we can more intentionally focus his church on what he said is most important. Now not everything we do is directly for the unreached. For example, many of our families are selling their houses and moving into a low-income area in Birmingham to spread the gospel there. But inner-city Birmingham is not the end goal. We are going into different parts of Birmingham so that we can mobilize that many more people to take the gospel to 6,000 people groups who haven’t heard it. That is what Jesus has commanded us to do.

That is great stuff. It is encouraging when you see Christians stepping back from churchianity to ask hard questions about why we do what we do.

(HT: Dave Black)