When is the church effective?

There is a lot of talk about the future of the Church with a capital C. Meaning the church on a national or global scale. 

Is it going to survive? Can it be relevant? Is it going completely online or remote? Are we only going to have small home churches? Can church leaders keep up? 

These are just a few of the questions facing the church from people both inside and outside the church body. The answers to these questions can be summed up in this statement.

“We don’t know, but God does”

How will the church look in 2000 years or in 20 years? I have no idea, but God does. 

And He left us commands as to what we should focus on. 

Today I put forth we should spend less time focusing on what the church will look like and more time on what has Christ commanded the Church to do. 

Put more focus into determining how we effectively minister to our communities, to our body of believers, to the lost around us and the shape of the church will come about naturally. Questions like “How do I effectively minister to the poor in my community?” or “How can I make a difference in the lives of those around me” when asked from a standpoint of exploring how to do those things in relevant and effective ways will lead us to our destination. 

So what makes the church effective? What has Christ commanded his people to do to minister to each other and to the rest of the world?

It’s difficult, to sum up, all the actions Christ has called us through His word, to partake of on a regular basis. Jesus does a great job of summing up the mosaic law in Matthew 22:37-40. But the idea of a successful, growing church that stays true to the calling a Christ? How do we sum that up? We do this by looking at the commands Christ gives his people and then measure if we are doing His work or…not.

The Great Commission

Matthew 28:16-20

¹⁶ Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. ¹⁷ When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. ¹⁸ Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹ Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

The cornerstone of what our church The Crossing and our other campus First Christian Church Ministries is founded on is in these verses.

We even came up with a nifty saying to summarize them.

WIN – TRAIN – SEND

Win the lost to Christ, Train them in what He has said, Send them into the rest of the world to repeat this process by making other disciples. Everything we do is based upon and measured by this passage. Every service, every ministry, every project we do is geared to doing these things. This is the reason we minister to our communities and how well we succeed in these areas determines how healthy and effective we are as a church. Not how fancy we are, not how we dress, not how cool or big our building is but are we completing to the best of our ability the great commission God gave us. Everything else is extra, we love our campus, but it is just a tool to better minister to the people around us. We don’t care how you dress, how you talk, how you live you are welcome when you walk through our doors and in our family. You will be loved. You will also be taught life-changing truths about the creator of the world that will fundamentally impact your take on life and who you are as a person. 

There is another factor to consider though and that is who is doing the work? If it’s just the pastors then they are failing to equip the body of the church to do ministry. The church body as a whole, not just the leaders, should be active in enacting this mission. This is done in so many different ways, for example here at the crossing we work with two local mission groups, serve a local elementary school, minister to the local housing communities, partake in feeding the community for free on a regular basis, and so much more. We have small groups, bible studies, and 1-2-1 discipleship times. We meet together on Sundays and have another Service on Thursday evenings that is a live stream only service. 



All that is made possible by our faithful members and attenders! People who show up to volunteer, put in time planning and organizing, and give financially. All three of those people groups work together (Many times overlapping) to make ministry happen. Without our people, we would not be able to exist.

The last thing I would like to say is there is more ministry to be done and to do that ministry, we need your help! 

If you measure a Church body’s success by seeing if they are Winning the lost, Training the won, and Sending believers to the world. The way to measure whether you are being effective in your personal walk with Christ is to assess whether you are engaging in those activities at your church. We NEED people to get involved with greeting others on Sunday, we NEED people to serve in the kid’s area, we NEED people to invite friends to church on Sundays. These are just a few of our needs, there are dozens in total but we are hundreds strong. 

If you are wondering where to start here are the best places.

Weekly Attendance

Regular Scripture Reading & Prayer

Regular Tithing 

Talk with Dom about areas that need Volunteers

One area we don’t talk about often, at least not as much as we should is Membership. Membership keeps you informed better, allows you to be eligible to teach, and eventually eligible for deaconship or eldership. 

Consider starting your journey at one of these listed actions and then moving forward to include all of them. If you have already started then move to the next one on the list. If you have not taken the first step, accepting Jesus as your Lord and Savior, then we would love to talk with you and show you how to move forward and join the family. 

Yours in love, Josh Tufte