The Story of One Church’s Journey

 * This is the second of three installments by our gracious friend, Phil Auxier, Pastor of Crestview Bible Church in Hutchinson, KS.

In part 2, here, we build on part 1.  Last time, you recall, we spoke of the demands that come from God’s Word and His heart.  For us, this meant that we couldn’t merely be content with the status quo…something had to change.  But, I can imagine many would be content at the place where we were. Like I said, we were supporting workers around the world, taking mission trips, and even putting money aside in case God called one of our own to the mission field, but we were still looking at one another thinking that there had to be more. This is where Sixteen:Fifteen stepped in.

You might envision partnering with Sixteen:Fifteen as being something where the “experts” come in and tell you what you need to be doing, but that wasn’t what our process was at all. In fact, the coaching process was very different than that. I would summarize our coaching process as simply being led to articulate what we were about in terms of God’s global mission. So, what does this process accomplish?  It accomplishes a purposeful direction.

 Purposeful directions are important in Scripture.  One of the many reasons Paul wrote the book of Romans was because he needed support as he was spreading the Gospel. Paul said,  “I make it my ambition to preach the Gospel, not where Christ has already been named…” (Romans 15:20)  Now consider how important unified purpose is in, maybe the most missionary minded book in the New Testament, Philippians where it says “let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel.” (Phil. 1:27)  The Gospel’s advance was something that required purposeful direction.

If you’re in the local church (or someone with a heart for the local church), we wrestle with difficult questions consistently.  You’re probably aware of stories about the good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to our life together.  But, God has set his love on people that express love for one another and live out mission at a very local level.  So, it would make sense, thinking about this from the Biblical perspective, that the churches of Thessalonica, Corinth and Philippi, might have varied expressions of what the mission looked like lived out.  That’s really what Sixteen:Fifteen is trying to uncover.

It’s about a local church wrestling with God’s heart and determining that God’s suited them to be about a certain kind of work.   In our case, we knew we had a love for international students, we had existing relationships among the Navajo nation and connections on the field in India that were crying out for a more focused connection.  All the coaching process did was help us see this, so that each and every person in our body would be more wholly engaged to the work in which we were vested already.

This short post began with the picture of a bullseye with an arrow hitting dead center.  That’s church missions coaching.  There’s a purposeful direction that God has for your church.  Are you hitting it?

Phil Auxier
http://cbch2go.blogspot.com
@cbch2go

If you missed Sixteen:Fifteen’s webinar where Phil Auxier presented “Moving From a Reactive to a Proactive Missions Vision” last month, you can access it HERE along with many other archived webinars that you may find helpful.

Phil Auxier serves as the senior pastor at Crestview Bible Church in Hutchinson, KS., an independent bible church that loves the Gospel and wants to do all they can to let that love infiltrate their life together and their mission to this world. Crestview Bible Church exists to glorify and enjoy God forever through Jesus Christ. Phil also facilitates some community leadership programs within the community.