When our Lord Jesus Christ said "You will be witnesses to me in Jerusalem (your city), in Judea (your province), in Samaria (other remote cities) and to the ends of the earth (unreached people)" was making a mission statement for the group of people He led. It is interesting to note that while in the secular world Jesus is increasingly recognized as an example of exemplary leadership, this recognition is not given in all of our churches.
This is clearly seen in that we recognize Jesus as the author of our Salvation and Lord of our lives in many aspects, but when as leaders we must transmit to the churches that He has given us what is the mission He has entrusted to us, we have adopted other priorities. , we have included our own wishes and what is more serious, we have put aside the mission statement that so simple Jesus has transmitted to us.
This does not have to be a reason for us to serruchemos the veins since we are neither the first team that is disorientated about what is truly its purpose or the first ship that loses its way on the high seas, but would have to serve us to think because many times we feel and experience that we do not reach the potential that God expects of us as his team here on earth and could help us to straighten our boat and place it for the port that Jesus told us in Acts 1.8 According to Bennis and Nanus they suggest: « If there is a spark of genius in the function of leadership, this is found in the transcendent capacity (given by God) to put together a clearly articulated vision of the future (The Mission) that is both simple, easy to understand, achievable and motivating. »(1) This is what Jesus did in Acts 1.8, he outlined the mission of the Church in such a way that the gospel extends from the point where each church is located to what is last of the earth. The vision that He left us clearly defines our future as Church in several aspects: 1) In our community: Our testimony (being witnesses) must be clear and growing in our place. (Our Jerusalem). Meetings outside the building (homes) are the right tool to approach each neighbor, reach the lost for Christ and preserve the results through personal discipleship and the care of "each other" in small groups. 2) In the villages around us: Our testimony will naturally reach people outside our environment, in areas where there is no Christian church. Witnessing (being witnesses) will continually take us (sometimes intentionally or otherwise) to reach people outside of our neighborhood. (This is because we do not always know where the person we are witnessing lives and other times because our relationships or contacts are outside the neighborhood of our church) This is within the natural plan of Jesus to extend his Work.
Perhaps what we need is to recognize that this is a means by which God allows his work to penetrate other communities, to assume our responsibility to preserve those results outside of our neighborhood, to invest leaders who move to initiate meetings in those communities. form base groups of 20 or 30 adults and plant local churches. We call this Plantar churches in a natural way through growth .. We will be at this point achieving what Jesus expected from us when he said «In Judea and Samaria). 3) To the end of the earth: Some churches (20% to 40% of the total, the denomination depends) are giving the example that Jesus' command to "Go to the end of the earth" is not only possible but also it is the path that each church can follow to make its obedient contribution to the Mission at this stage. Vision, obedience and determination are needed to reach this stage. Each pastor or leader is responsible for not cutting back on the Mission that Jesus left us. The argument that this stage is our responsibility only when we have completed the previous ones is a deception by Satan to keep the largest percentage of the churches with their eyes on their own navel.
The church of Jesus Christ is prepared to work on: a) The growth of the local church. b) Plant new churches. c) Send Missionaries to the ends of the earth. Simultaneously, if it were not so, Jesus would not have told us the words in which we are meditating. I believe that none of us believes that Jesus commanded us to do something that was beyond our means.
