A small church of 50 people has a big and inspiring vision to grow into an influential church that is serving 5,000 people. When this vision is attained, this church will be providing amazing opportunities to its church members, pastors, and making a huge impact both locally and globally for the glory of God. Instead of pastors living on ramen-noodle salaries and sacrificing their families to serve God’s people, the church leaders envision many more pastors joining the staff and all of them being adequately provided for as they pour their hearts to serve God’s mission.
Because their mission requires growth of the church both in-depth and numbers, the church leaders make it a requirement that every pastor and every team member brought onboard must not only teach from the pulpit but must also be actively engaged in evangelizing and inviting people to fill the pews. In fact, they require a proven track record of previous effectiveness in getting dirty and doing what it takes to bring unbelievers to the church. They want every team member to be both an evangelist and a discipler.
A senior elder at the church used to say,
“Teaching is easy. It’s growing an audience that is hard. Lots of people can teach when someone else has gathered people for them. In this day and age, even videos of other preachers can be played for people to watch, for God’s sakes! That’s why satellite campuses are proliferating. Believers at these churches watch the main preacher, usually the founding pastor, on a TV screen. Many churches have online campuses and people can watch them on the internet. Anyone who wants to teach can start a YouTube channel and grow a following. Teaching is the easy part. Growing a following is the hard part.
Growing a University like ours together means as teachers, we share the burden of growing a following so that we can also share the privilege of teaching. Besides, when Jesus commands, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation” (Mark 16:1), the hard parting is going into all the world. The preaching is easy. When Jesus also says in Matthew 28, “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, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age”, there also, the hard part is the going. That’s the dangerous and perilous part. The teaching itself isn’t so difficult. It’s not even our wisdom that saves. The Holy Spirit is the one who must take our words and save people. Our words alone are useless.
A worthy teacher is one who doesn’t sit and wait for people to be brought to him/her to teach but who also labors to go into the world and gather an audience so that together with a team, they can teach. Their sacrifice to walk thousands of miles to reach the people who need their message is a tangible testament that they believe that the message saves. Their participation is seeking souls speaks volumes to testify of the importance of the message they preach. Those who labor in gathering know the value of a soul and are careful when they teach and mentor just like a mother who labors to carry a baby for 9 months and then labors to deliver that baby knows the pain of bearing a child and so is more tender and loving to that child. The mere act of laboring to win a soul makes one a better and more transformed teacher.”
SU’s mission is to go and teach people everywhere that God has called into ministry to OVC, missions, and biblical teaching. Like the leadership of the small church above, which has a big vision, SU has a huge vision of reaching thousands of people through the internet (in every corner of the world) to equip them for ministry. We expect our teachers to be part of both the going and the teaching.
The going means actively engage the world around you to help the school fulfill its mission of “taking high-quality OVC, Missions, and Bible education to everyone everywhere who needs it.” The teaching, obviously, involves creating content and teaching through our online learning management systems.
Our plan is not merely to “go” through our teachers. We plan to do everything other than sin to reach people who need the material that we have. We plan to go through paid and free opportunities to advertise. We plan to go through partnerships and every way possible. Disciplemaking for us means going and teaching the front line workers who will then, in turn, make many disciples for the lord. And going out to make disciples who make disciples is worth every effort.
Click here to read our teacher’s scorecard.
