Empowered365 Network | MPowered Christian Ministries

President & Lead Pastor
Brian S. HolmesThere are many approaches to foreign missions, evangelism, and church planting. I celebrate that many people care and are trying to make a difference in many ways. However, there are many challenges to older models that are not addressing systemic problems. In this article, we will consider these, and how the Empowered365 Network aims to be a part of the solution.

The sheer cost of raising the funds necessary to send people into foreign mission fields to evangelize, build new churches, stay long term to teach, etc. is extremely inefficient. There are other problems including language/cultural barriers between the missionaries and those they reach, and the tendency for new church plant's to have long term financial and theological dependence on the original missionary or sending church for ongoing leadership and support.  We must begin our mission efforts with a discipleship and leadership development plan upfront so we're able to help reached communities be able to be independently governed by and continue to disciple and evangelize their own people.

And keep in mind that these concerns occur after we've already solved several other problems first. First, the regular practice of raising up people willing to become missionaries to unreached people groups, and raising up people willing to financially and emotionally support such missionaries. A very small percentage of the amount of global Christian giving goes towards global foreign missions, and only a fraction of this goes towards unreached people groups.

We must first shift our local focus to helping all Christians become better disciples who are living missional lives. And then we need to raise up and empower those disciples to become leaders, many of whom will help lead evangelistic and disciple-making efforts into unreached people group mission fields. Our Network can help to raise up people locally as well as to educate and empower indigenous English-speakers with internet access, right where they are.

As an evangelist or (basic) home church-type planter brings the gospel to new communities, they begin by discipling one person. Those two grow into a huddle (3-5 people), a small discipleship group (6-10 people), a microchurch or home church (<25), a small church (25-200), a medium-sized church (200-400), a large church (400-800), a very large church (800-2,000), a megachurch (over 2,000), or a megachurch with multisite campuses.

They could grow their huddle to any size church, or they could simply grow into any size group and then split up into smaller groups and continue to bring in new recruits. We've designed our network to meet people where they are and provide the resources most helpful to them.

• Levels 1, 2 and 3 begin the educational, transformational process in individuals.
• Level 4 empowers disciples to make disciples, grow as a leader, create their own communities or otherwise fulfill their Kingdom calling, with additional training, resources, face-to-face time, and personalized support.
• Level 5 provides churches, nonprofits, or other forms of discipleship communities additional features to empower all members of the community to continue to progress in their disciple-making, Kingdom-advancing journeys.
  
  

As disciple communities increase in size they must continually reach the unreached, evangelize the lost, and continue to create and empower additional disciple-making communities. If they don't, the church will either stop growing and/or it will stop making disciples that make disciples.

We see this with many of the larger churches, Christian TV networks, and world's evangelical revivals. They continue to preach to already-reached peoples, and often are also doing this with an "attractional" growth mindset. Creating large churches, Christian conferences, Christian "revival" events, etc. all geared towards attracting people to "come and see."

Engrained in this approach is the tendency to develop sensational, sign-and-wonder focused, prosperity gospel, word faith, overly emotional, and seeker-sensitive worship and messaging that will attract larger crowds, entertain, tickle ears, and grow larger. However, discipleship, real gospel evangelism, biblical theology and spiritual maturity are gravely neglected. And participants believing that simply inviting others to join such things is the primary thing they think they should be doing as a "Christian witness." This won't lead to transformed disciples that make disciples and advance the kingdom of God in their communities.

Members may participate in this now-modified mission of what it means to be the church, by serving on Sundays, and still attending Bible studies and small groups. However, the responsibility for leading and pastoring the majority, sharing the gospel, or making disciples is abdicated to the pastor or small staff. And they're also often simultaneously over-focused on preparing for and executing Sunday services, and overwhelmed by the volume of people any one person is responsible for discipling.

As a result, evangelism to the lost, and the kind of discipleship that leads to well-educated disciples with transformed lives becoming disciple-makers and leaders, comes to a grinding halt. The average church-goer struggles in their own personal growth; struggles with demonic bondage, sin, and brokenness, struggles to ever live out a life of intimacy with God and purpose, and finds contentment in the idols of this world.

Because Sunday services and "revivals" are now the primary vehicles used to share the gospel to save unbelievers, churches are now also full of believers still needing spiritual milk rather than solid food. Gatherings are modified to be more engaging and enjoyable to unsaved and spiritually immature people. Discipleship is relegated to a less-important week day activity, and training to equip the average church goer to make disciples is often unheard of.

Another consequence of all this is that pastors and church staff must give constant attention to help, encourage, and motivate church goers. The challenges of managing lukewarm, immature churches cause pastoral frustration, burnout, escapism into moral failure, quitting the pastorate, etc. The unhealthy church leadership and inevitable church hurt caused to members only perpetuates the cycle of destruction to Jesus's Bride.

Would schools ever think that one teacher should teach hundreds of students? Do we not think that even ONE teacher per 50 students will STILL lead to the neglect of the development of individual students' needs? Yes, and this is for students who get their teacher for 35 hours a week, a thorough curriculum, regular testing, and the ability to ask questions and get one-on-one access to let their teacher know they need help.

Yet, many churches have none of this! And the church is tasked with much more than just giving information to learn and pass a test. The church is tasked with helping people have entire life transformation. 

The solution is to never lose the focus on the great commission in the first place. To never make the mistake of believing that our mission was ever to build big, extravagant buildings or massive outdoor concerts with lots of people, willing to be in them for whatever reason—whether motivated by a desire to just get healed or wealthy, entertained, or even there for the right motives—in the first place.

And I'm not against large churches or evangelistic crusades. I'm against treating this is the "main thing." The litmus test for whether or not we're getting somewhere in the great commission. It's not. Discipleship can happen in a coffee shop, a living room, on the job, in a park, in a small church, or in a megachurch campus.

The primary path forward shouldn't be the attractional model. At the very least, it shouldn't END there. What matters is whether or not we're making disciples that make disciples. It is better to have one radical disciple making another radical disciple than to have 100 lukewarm believers sitting in a building for an hour a week. We must change the systems and processes so that we have the time and energy to really know what's going on in the spiritual development of people's lives.

We need to change our gatherings so that those not being led by the Holy Spirit don't even want to stay there, only muddying the water. Either they're encountering God, getting transformed, and becoming a disciple, or our commitment to this goal repels those who aren't truly interested so they eventually leave.

Jesus modeled this with the 12, the 70, the 120, and then the apostles did with the 3,000. Our network and membership platform is how we're shifting the refocus back to personalized discipleship. Where it happens at the small group and one-on-one levels. Where people are known intimately and progress is measured by actual transformation. Even the labels of the levels of our membership reinforce this paradigm shift. We want all believers to grow as a disciple, then become a leader that makes disciples out of others. 

Our platform allows us to address all of these needs and provides an affordable way to provide biblical education and training remotely. Our community and coaching features provide a way for disciples, leaders, and church communities to be supported.

See you on the inside,

Pastor Brian Holmes

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