Lazarus is dead.
These were the words of Jesus about a beloved friend, someone cherished in His heart. Later, the shortest and one of the most memorable verses describes Jesus’ emotion—He wept. Those words and His tears displayed His heartache. Those words also described the plan of God to reveal His glory. What would Jesus say if He were to comment on the Church in the West? How would Jesus define us? Are there tears in His eyes about the state of the Church in the Western world? Data suggests not only are Jesus’ eyes filled with tears, but those tears are rolling down His cheeks. Jesus weeps for us.
According to Statistics Canada, in 1981, the first year of the Millennial generation, over 90 percent of Canadians identified as Christian. Fast forward a decade, and the number had dropped to 83 percent. At the turn of the Millennium, in 2001, the number dropped again to roughly three-quarters of Canadians, or 77 percent, identifying with Christ. Finally, in 2011, the last census data available for religious belief in Canada showed two out of three Canadians, or 67.3 percent, called themselves Christian.
Alternatively, ‘No Religious Affiliation’ grew from 7.4 percent in 1981 to 23.9 in 2011. If trends continue, when the next census data comes out, it is nearly certain that Christian affiliation will drop to 55-58 percent of Canadians.
Jesus described the Church, the movement of His disciples, in Matthew 5:14 as the light of the world. In Canada, it seems, the light is dwindling. The same is true in the United States and almost every Westernized country in the world. It seems the Church in the West has lost its saltiness and is now being trampled underfoot—the very warning Jesus gave to us.
In some ways, it seems like the Church is dead.
But our God is a God of resurrection. Only Jesus can make dead things live. And Jesus loves the Church.
To deal with the implosion of the church in Canada, The Alliance Canada returned to its roots. A.B. Simpson, founder of the C&MA, boldly proclaimed the Church was missing out on her birthright—that everyday Christians could experience profound, rich, soul-filling intimacy with Jesus Christ and could live what Simpson called the Christ-life. This type of life was marked by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, victory over sin, joy in the soul, and fire in the heart to reach the nations with the good news of the Gospel.
So, the Alliance pressed into a deeper life. We ran conferences. We recovered ancient biblical practices such as confession of sin, listening prayer, faith for healing, prayers for the filling of the Spirit, and a renewed commitment to the freedom of Christ through deliverance ministries. It was incredible. Stories of life-change in the church started to multiply. Significant healings occurred. Captives were set free. Scores of people described new intimacy with Christ, a sense of being full of the presence of Jesus through the Spirit, and a deeper understanding of being loved by the Father. But a problem was slowly bubbling up underneath this renewal movement.
David Hearn, then president of the Alliance in Canada, was leading the charge on spiritual renewal among the denomination. As part of his pursuit of the deeper life, Hearn completed a doctoral project studying the effects of spiritual renewal on pastoral leaders and its impact on their congregations. The results were fantastic—spiritual renewal increased character, increased a sense of being loved by God, and increased intimacy with Jesus. Significantly. The fruit was delightful! Except there was a fly in the ointment. The one surprising find of Hearn’s work was that mission hardly moved. It barely budged. Renewal and mission seemed to be disconnected.
The same pattern showed up in the church I lead. We had seen dozens of women and men participate in spiritual renewal and deeper life conferences. I saw dozens of healings, people dramatically changed at the character level, and saw many set free from demonic strongholds. It was real. It was beautiful.
The transformation of these lives strengthened the church. Giving went up. Worship became more intense. Prayer increased. And yet, the church didn’t grow. At least not rapidly. And not with scores of people coming to faith in Christ. This story was true for our church and many other churches that had committed themselves to spiritual renewal. The church became more beautiful but more focused on the personal transformation of Christians rather than Jesus’ Great Commission.
Spiritual narcissism had begun to infect the church.
The word narcissist comes from the story of Narcissus. I am not a Greek mythology buff, but the story and its principles are easy enough to grasp. The myth tells us Narcissus, the son of a river god and a nymph, was born exceptionally beautiful. It was foretold he would live a long life, provided he did not recognize himself. However, one day, tragedy fell upon Narcissus—he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the waters of a spring and fell in love with his image. The legend tells how Narcissus, out of love for his own beauty, died by delighting in his own image. His self-focus led to his demise and death.
The lack of mission springing from spiritual renewal was a shock to virtually every leader in the Alliance who participated in this movement. We assumed more of Jesus would lead to more mission. Spiritual experience would lead to more social concern and evangelism. But it did not. At least not in a way that would see the Gospel break forth in Canada and see millions of Canadians re-united to Jesus Christ, the lover of their soul, the freer of captives, and the creator of every single person on Earth.
Like A.B. Simpson, we believed it is impossible to be filled with the power and presence of the risen Christ and not share the Gospel. And yet, it was happening right before our eyes.
This was a disaster. Spiritual renewal without mission is spiritual infidelity. It is a betrayal of Christ. It receives His gifts and blessings and ignores His purposes.
Some theories arose about the lack of mission. Some people said, “renewal never really happened,” or a more cynical version declared “it was all hype.” But a handful of conversations quickly dismiss this theory. The testimony of Bible-believing, Jesus-loving Christians will testify to the reality of spiritual renewal today, and Jesus is still filling, healing, and changing Christians dramatically. And doing so with dramatic power.
Another theory arose, “maybe we were less healthy than we imagined.” This may be correct. It is impossible to overestimate how much help we need from Jesus. We need more than we can imagine. However, a quick scan of the gospels and Acts reveals the ability of Jesus to empower tremendously broken people to reshape history.
One other theory emerged. One haunting statement. A sentence sending shivers up and down the spine of every Christian leader, paid or unpaid. It was one question that would direct the course of my life.
What if we aren’t making disciples as Jesus did?
What if, even in the pursuit of spiritual renewal, or the deeper life, we had missed a central aspect of what Jesus had called us to do? Pursuing spiritual renewal is undoubtedly part of discipleship or the more updated term disciple-making. It is valid, legitimate, and helpful. But it was not producing the same types of disciples Jesus did.
And then an idea struck like a lightning bolt.
When Jesus made disciples, He used a clear pattern. He would train His disciples for mission and release spiritual empowerment to them, and then Kingdom fruit followed. Like pedals on a bicycle, Jesus would train for mission and give spiritual empowerment to His disciples. It was an iterative, repeating process throughout the New Testament. And I had missed it for most of my life. Maybe you have too. Let’s take a quick look at a handful of Scriptures establishing the pattern of Jesus for disciple-making.
In Mark 3:13-15, Jesus ascends a mountain and calls His twelve disciples. Mark notes Jesus wanted them, and their appointment to the group known as ‘the twelve’ began with the calling to be with Jesus. This is a great reminder to all of us who are called by Jesus—He wants you. He wants me. When Jesus calls us to participate in His mission, He also wants to be with us because He loves us. Because He likes us. Mission alienated from a healthy Christian identity will always be distorted. It will turn into religious works aiming to produce spiritual worth. Healthy mission is motivated by the loving presence of Jesus Christ. We are also told in this Mark text how Jesus sent out these disciples to preach and to have authority over demons. In Mark 3, it is clear that Jesus is choosing people to participate in His mission with spiritual power and authority—the authority to drive out demons and to proclaim the Kingdom of Christ.
Over the following few chapters, we see Jesus explain the parables of what the Kingdom of God is like to ‘the twelve’ and demonstrate His Kingdom power and Lordship. Jesus, with His disciples, calms a furious storm, sets a heavily demonized man free, raises a dead girl, heals the woman with the issue of blood, and demonstrates to the twelve what Kingdom life is really like. In these chapters, Jesus trains the disciples for mission.
In Mark 6, Jesus sends the disciples out on mission. Mark notes how as Jesus sent the twelve, He gave them authority over impure spirits—Jesus empowers the disciples to live on mission. They experience spiritual power they did not have previously. And the twelve experienced Kingdom fruitfulness. Captives were freed, the Gospel was preached, and many were healed. Training led to empowerment, led to mission, led to fruit.
We see this same pattern with the Church in Luke to Acts. The disciples were selected, trained, empowered, and sent out. Then, after the resurrection, in Luke 24, Jesus told them they would need even more empowerment—a deeper renewal—to carry out the mission’s next stage. In Acts 2, the Holy Spirit came with power and might upon the disciples, and they saw staggering conversions. A sea of Jews and converts to Judaism heard the Gospel, repented of sin, and were baptized into the church!
Oddly, though, in the midst of mission, the Church hit the roadblock of persecution, and in Acts 4, the followers sought even more renewal. And once more, they were filled afresh with the Holy Spirit. God’s pattern for disciple-making is a dynamic dance between missional training, spiritual renewal, and Kingdom fruit. This was a revolutionary discovery for our church, and my leadership journey and I wanted to put it to the test.
As part of my doctoral work, I created a research project to test the theory of how, if we equipped Christians for mission and had them experience Holy Spirit empowerment, we would see long-lasting fruit. In February 2021, I emailed many Alliance lead pastors in Alberta and recruited five churches to participate in the project. The churches involved were of all types: big, small, urban, rural, and suburban. Overall, 36 participants joined the research project.
In April, we kicked off a four-month project which included four mission-training modules and a renewal conference in the middle of the program (Soul Care Equipping Conference, to be precise). At the beginning of the project, we used a Missional Behaviour Survey instrument to test the social concern, incarnational evangelism, proclamation evangelism, missional prayer, and boldness of each member of the group. The results were tepid. Across the churches, some women and men were moderately missional. Some less so. The mission and renewal experiment concluded at the end of June 2021.
And then we waited. And we waited some more. We waited ten weeks to contact any participant in the group about the research project. We wanted every ounce of enthusiasm bias to be removed from the project. Everyone knows after a conference or workshop, there is almost an enthusiasm high. Attend a prayer conference, and you promise to pray two hours a day. Attend a renewal conference, and you’re ready to see the whole world filled with the Holy Spirit. Attend a missions conference, and you’re tempted to sell all you have and go to the far reaches of the globe.
Enthusiasm is beautiful.
But it does not make for good data.
We sent out a follow-up survey in September to see if anything had changed. Had the application of Jesus’s model of mission training and spiritual renewal for disciple-making worked? The results came back, and they were staggering.
Missional behaviour had increased by nearly fifteen percent. People felt twenty percent bolder in sharing their faith. Social concern, and care for the poor and marginalized, had grown significantly. Incarnational and proclamation evangelism had come together in harmony. People were prayer-walking their neighbourhoods, inviting people to explore faith, praying for the lost, sharing their finances to expand the Gospel, and were living intentionally to build bridges to Christ. And people met Christ.
One of the best findings was a question asking, “In the past two years, I have led someone to faith in Christ.” That score improved by more than 25 percent.
Coming out of the project, a few recommendations emerged for every Christian, which leaders to everyday church members should pay attention to.
There is More to Jesus than Meets the Eye
The first thing we learned from Baby Boomers to Gen Z was this: Jesus is better than we think. There is more fullness, freedom, joy, and fun in Christ than we ever thought possible. Desiring and pursuing the presence of Christ through the Holy Spirit is the great birthright of the Christian. God still moves. Jesus still speaks. The Holy Spirit still heals, saves, and guides.
Are we listening?
Are we pursuing the presence of Jesus Christ? Are we distracted from Jesus or delighted by Him? As we follow Jesus through spiritual renewal, using spiritual disciplines, confessing and repenting of sin, and asking for a renewed filling of the Holy Spirit, we will experience good news for our lives. And good news for the world. That has to be shared.
This good news becomes a living testimony to the work of Christ in our lives. It gives us something to share. It prepares us to follow Peter’s admonishment to be ready to share the reason for our hope in Christ. It trains us to be good news people.
Who and How?
The Holy Spirit is a missionary. The greatest one who ever lived. And the Holy Spirit speaks to us. The Holy Spirit primarily speaks through Scripture. Often, He will nudge us in our thoughts, feelings, dreams, and conversations with others.
Sometimes, He will use words of knowledge and insight or even prophetic words to get us moving.
But He speaks. He always speaks.
Our God is a communicating God. If you read the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, God is always speaking to human beings in real-time. And God speaks to help people get saved. Acts 8 demonstrates this clearly—the Holy Spirit tells Philip to talk to an Ethiopian eunuch. In ancient times this would be equivalent to a high-ranking political official, like a Secretary of State. The text gives us no clue as to what this sounded like. We do not know if the Spirit spoke to Philip in his thoughts, through a whisper, a loud voice, or even through a vision. But we do know this—the Spirit spoke to Philip to get him to share the Gospel.
One of the most helpful tools our participants used was developed from this text. It is simply the question of Who and How?
This concept is comically easy. Every morning, we asked participants, and we’d ask you, to simply pause before the God of the universe and ask these two questions:
1) Who do you want me to point towards your Kingdom?
2) How do you want me to do it?
And then obey.
One caution before you commit to praying this prayer. God is God. If He answers this prayer through the Holy Spirit, it is not advice. The sovereign Lord of the universe does not give advice. He gives commands. He is patient, kind, and loving. But He does not give advice.
This simple tool sent dozens of women and men out on mission and saw significant Kingdom fruit. Some people didn’t hear God perfectly, some didn’t hear anything for the first few weeks, some thought they heard God, but the command didn’t make sense—someone was missing from work on the day they thought they were to nudge them towards the Kingdom, etc.
And yet, Jesus moved. And people entered the Kingdom. And the good news was preached, presented, and put on display.
Who and How? And obey. It’s that simple.
Same Time, Same Place, With Grace
Jesus had a mission field. He knew it with great clarity. Somehow, the Son of Man knew He was called to reach the Jewish people. He also knew He was not called to primarily reach the Gentiles. Jesus certainly blessed those outside His mission field, but He was laser-focused on fulfilling the call of His Father to His Jewish mission field.
Do you know who your mission field is?
Do you know who God wants you to influence towards Christ? If you don’t, sit in prayer and ask the Lord to reveal it to you. Fast and pray until you hear who Jesus wants you to influence towards Christ. Get others to fast and pray with you until you know. Do not miss out on the most incredible opportunity in your life—to set up the meeting between a friend, co-worker, family member, or even an enemy and Jesus Christ. Sometimes, God will give you a specific location, people group, or personality type to reach.
Leading someone to Christ is an irreplaceable gift. It is a sacred trust from the Lord of the universe. Do not miss out.
Once you’ve received revelation about who you can reach, some practical steps are needed. Suppose Jesus tells you to reach the bartenders of your local pub; how do you go about it? You can’t spend all day at the pub unless you’re retired…and even then, we probably wouldn’t recommend it.
But what would happen if you committed to being at your local pub every Thursday from 7-10 pm. Every week. Without fail. Prayed up, looking for Kingdom opportunities, listening to the Holy Spirit and trusting the Father had a Kingdom assignment for you? What if you did this and brought another to do it with you?
People would meet Christ.
Scripture tells us the eyes of the Lord are looking for someone to show His strength through. God is looking for someone to carry His grace and put it on display, for His glory. Let’s partner with Him in His mission.
Your mission field strategy should be Spirit-led, prayer-informed, and Scripture-based. And it will require you to create a routine with the same time, the same place, and marked by God’s grace.
In my own life, it looks like this: I consider myself to be the pastor of my local gym. You can find me at the gym every Monday through Friday from 9-10:30 am. Without fail. The number of spiritual conversations, conversions, and friendships I’ve made is hard to count.
Joining with Jesus on mission and knowing my mission field has been one of the great delights of my life.
Wrap Up
There is no one and nothing as fulfilling as Jesus Christ. Pursuit of His presence, empowerment, and the filling of the Spirit is the most worthwhile aim we can have.
When we experience His renewing presence, we must go out on mission. Anything less than a missional response is spiritual infidelity. It is spiritual narcissism. And it is killing the Church.
We can partner in mission with Jesus through the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. What a tremendous gift. The Holy Spirit can guide us daily on mission as we ask who and how we might nudge others towards Christ. He will assign us a mission field where our lives will bear much fruit.
If we, the Church, the Bride of Christ, return to the Lord and answer His missionary call in Canada and the rest of the Western world, the tears may fade from Jesus’ eyes. The Church will be resurrected in our time, and we will speed the day we see Jesus face-to-face. Let us answer the call of Christ. Let us spread the Gospel with our words and in our deeds. And let us do so in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Let us marry mission and renewal together once more for the glory of Christ. Amen.
This is an excerpt from the book, On Mission Volume 5. Download your free copy today.