What is Sending Capacity? | World Christian Leadership
The Great Commission is more than a simple command to evangelize or deploy missionary units.
If participation in the Great Commission and sending exist as an integral function of the Church, then it should be easy to determine whether a Church exhibits organizational health. However, the Great Commission is more than a simple command to evangelize or deploy missionary units. The Bible does not show every Church sending a missionary or prioritizing evangelistic strategies. What do we do with churches when the average age of their members is between 50 and 60?[1] How can we boil organizational health down to sending physical missionaries if only 33% of millennials belong to the Church, much less show the spiritual growth, maturity, and initiative to be sent?[2] Because organizational health is not a binary assessment, churches should not be assessed for their sending integrity simply by the number of missionaries sent.
The Great Commission is an invitation to join in God's ongoing work of redemption. As Acts 17:26-28 illustrates, God's sovereign hand is seen throughout history, moving people into strategic positions so that they may come to know Him. It cannot be assumed that everyone will be sent as missionaries, no one will be sent, or there will be an even distribution of missionaries. To understand the organizational health of a church's integrity, sending capacity should be used as a metric, not simple quantitative numbers of missionaries sent.
The sending capacity of the Church is an expression of God's heart for the nations and His desire to see every people group come to Christ's knowledge. It is where the Church executes the awareness, attitude, and actions to obey the Great Commission. Even if a local church never sends a missionary, it can still exhibit a healthy sending capacity through the disciplines presented by Lencioni.
Attitude
Sending capacity fosters the attitude that every Christian will be involved in the Great Commission. They take ownership of it, not leaving it to the missionaries or particular groups of Christians. Instead, they grasp that because they serve as ambassadors of the Gospel, they take personal responsibility for it.
In 9 Marks of a Healthy Church, Pastor Mark Dever explains that a healthy biblical understanding and practice of missions characterizes a healthy church.[3] He even changed the section from his original edition, simply from evangelism, to include a biblical understanding and practice of missions, highlighting the sending and supporting of missionaries as evidence of organizational health. While the word "missions" is not in the Bible, taking the Gospel to unreached people is an essential outpouring of the Christian faith. Yet, it acts as an essential function of the Church to be involved.
Kevin DeYoung, a Presbyterian pastor, explains that if every Christian is going to be obedient to the Great Commission, they must be involved in missions.[4] He makes the distinction that not every Christian is a missionary, but the Great Commission obligation applies to all Christians. If the Christian is biblically informed and validated, the fundamental understanding means God demands our committed participation as his people at his invitation and command in his mission within his history of his world for the redemption of his creation. The Church exists to partner with God as he establishes his kingdom to bear on the peoples and places of the earth.
Let the Nations Be Glad addresses the specific nature of missionary work while emphasizing the joy of proclaiming God's glory among the nations.[5] John Piper argues that the call to missions requires a distinct focus on cross-cultural engagement. In his work, there is an underlying assumption that all Christians are called to be "mission-minded" without fully addressing how specific individuals are set apart for cross-cultural missions. He reiterates that, just as all Christians are called to worship God, all Christians are to be involved in God's global mission.
Charles Spurgeon believed all Christians have the responsibility to share the Gospel.[6] The propagation of the Gospel stands as a duty for all believers to extend the knowledge of Christ. He noted, "If we have the ability, we should." While some may disagree, Spurgeon asserted that every Christian serves as a missionary or imposter, emphasizing the necessary participation in Gospel expansion. Similarly, in Will Mancini's Future Church, he argues that it needs a missional reorientation to embrace the importance of evangelism while focusing more on methodology.[7] Missional thinkers view each person as an everyday missionary, living sent where they live, work, and play. This framework places Christians amid Great Commission involvement.
Awareness
Sending capacity creates an awareness that the Great Commission is the responsibility of all believers to make disciples of all nations. As discussed earlier, more Christians do not grasp the concerns of the Great Commission. Leaders cultivating a sending capacity create awareness to help the greater Church understand the Great Commission and their role in sending.
William Higginbotham aimed to equip a select group of believers at Judson Baptist Church in Walker, Louisiana for missions involvement.[8] He acknowledged that church leadership committed to developing missions involvement can transform their perception. However, some churches focus more on empire-building than kingdom-building, seeking self-centered growth instead of fulfilling the Great Commission. This may be due to an awareness problem. Christians may not understand their role in the Great Commission because they do not know, see, hear, or care about their part or the gravity of the world's lostness. Higginbotham learned that "as believers who are uninvolved in missions get a taste of what missions is about, they develop an excitement for missions." He facilitated simple practices to help believers envision their participation and provide a replicable strategy to help many churches obey Christ's mandate to impact lostness.
Organizational health multiplies intelligence. As the Church builds sending capacity, it multiplies Great Commission intelligence throughout the entire Church. It involves kids, children, young adults, seniors, men, and women in the responsibility and helps them tap into the Gospel wisdom and intelligence. Sending capacity spreads awareness to help the entire Church understand its part in maintaining the integrity of Great Commission involvement.
Action
Sending capacity motivates the Church to act in ways that support and obey the Great Commission. Churches implement initiatives such as to pray, give, and go. This strategy seeks to involve the entire Church in the Great Commission by offering more pathways to support the work. Organizations such as the Upstream Collective work to mobilize churches to become sending churches and cultivate awareness and attitudes that lead to Great Commission action. They help Christians act on contributing factors for the Great Commission. Sending capacity engages the Church to learn, pray, give, go, send, mobilize, and welcome internationals. It rounds out the habits Christians can engage in with the Great Commission.
John Keith Grubbs sought to develop a strategic plan to balance missions involvement at Midway Baptist Church in Midway, Mississippi, and give the congregation multiple pathways for involvement.[9] He acknowledged that while their financial giving was high, their sending capacity was low. They sent only one annual mission team to build buildings and conduct children's ministry. Church-wide missions involvement was almost nonexistent. Grubbs highlights that, while the Church strongly gave to outside agencies, it reduced their personal ability to send their people. His research led the Church to implement a plan for a balanced missions effort. This strategy involved studying the missions assignment of Jesus' first followers, improving preaching skills, and creating a well-rounded, biblically balanced approach.
Sending capacity should be defined as the Church's willingness to mobilize its members to advance the Great Commission and put action into place to send its members, even if they are not sent. It focuses more on the planting and watering of a Great Commission mindset than seeing the results come to fruition in a particular timeframe. Because it is not a company where a boss can demand an employee transfer to another branch, sending capacity refers to the willingness, pathways, and active steps being taken by the church leadership to help mobilize its members.
The IMB states that one of its ministries is to "assist churches in sending and supporting Southern Baptist missionaries and volunteers by enlisting, equipping, and enabling them to fulfill their calling."[10] The Upstream Collective defines a sending church as "a local community of Christ-followers who have made a covenant together to be prayerful, deliberate, and proactive in developing, commissioning, and sending their members both locally and globally, often in partnership with other churches or agencies, and continuing to encourage, support, and advocate for them while making disciples cross-culturally."[11] Sending churches to understand the role and take action to motivate and mobilize the entire Church to participate in it.
[1] “Church Members Are Getting Much Older (the Real Stat and What It Means),” Church Answers, accessed November 5, 2024, https://churchanswers.com/podcasts/rainer-on-leadership/church-members-are-getting-much-older-the-real-stat-and-what-it-means/#:~:text=Is%20the%20median%20age%20of,What%20are%20the%20implications?
[2] Jones.
[3] Mark Dever and H. B. Charles, Nine Marks Of A Healthy Church (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021), 253.
[4] Kevin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert, What Is The Mission Of The Church?: Making Sense Of Social Justice, Shalom, And The Great Commission(Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2011), 29.
[5] Piper, 261.
[6] C.H. Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students: A Selection from Addresses Delivered to the Students of the Pastors’ College, Metropolitan Tabernacle (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1977).
[7] Will Mancini and Cory Hartman, Future Church: Seven Laws Of Real Church Growth (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group, 2020), 90.
[8] William Higginbotham, "Equipping a Selected Group of Believers at Judson Baptist Church in Walker, Louisiana to Be Involved in Missions According to an Acts 1:8 Strategy" (DMin diss., New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, 2006), 59–60.
[9] John Keith Grubbs, "Developing a Strategic Plan For Balanced Missions Involvement at Midway Baptist Church in Midway, Mississippi" (DMin diss., New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, 2003).
[10] “Organization Manual,” SBC.Net, accessed November 5, 2024, https://www.sbc.net/about/what-we-do/legal-documentation/organization-manual/.
[11] Bradley Bell, The Sending Church Defined (Knoxville, TN: Upstream Collective, 2015), 1.