Offense Vs. Defense

Stop playing defense.

If we're going to let Jesus have His way in His church then we need to stop playing defense. We need to focus on playing offense.

Look carefully at what Jesus said about the nature of His church: "I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it" (Matthew 16:18).

Gates are defensive structures. They are built to protect their own. Jesus plainly said that He would build His church. This building would happen on the rock of people confessing that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.

As Jesus builds His church people will come out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of light (1 Pet 2:9-10). The gates of Hades will not be able to stop the advance of Christ's kingdom expansion.

Somewhere along the lines those who call themselves Christians reversed the purpose of the church. We stopped being gate crashers of the kingdom of darkness. We started building our own gates. We stopped playing offense. We began playing defense.

The Defensive Church

What are the marks of a defensive church? A defensive church:

Protects its own territory
Responds to attacks from without and within
Seeks comfort and offers ministry to those who are not "comfortable."

On the surface all of these activities seem good and right. It is certainly what we are used to. Are there not an abundance of passages in Scripture that we can point to that affirm all of these practices?

Jude 1:3 tells us to contend for the faith once for all handed down to the saints. Should we stand idly by as false teachers spread heresy in disobedience to Paul's instruction to Timothy in 1 Timothy 1:3? Should the church ignore the broken and hurting and tear James 1:27 out of their Bibles?

No. We shouldn't do that.

But we also shouldn't employ worldly strategies when Christ has given us His strategy.

The defensive posture fails. It doesn't fail because it's not aiming at many of the right things. It fails because it fails to aim at the cause. It only aims at the symptoms.

In the process it creates new symptoms that are deadly to the Body of Christ.

A defensive church protects its own territory and attempts to establish its own "mini-kingdom." Consequently, a defensive church is often unwilling to participate with other genuine Christians in advancing the kingdom of God and tearing down the gates of Hades.

Heaven forbid that some of "our people" may find a pastor they like more and sit in his pews instead of ours!

The defensive mindset convinces us we must protect our own. We become competitors with other "mini-kingdoms" as we seek to grow and protect our own territory. Often the gates of Hades remain unshaken while the gates of each local church expand and contract based on transfer growth from one congregation to another.

Instead of raiding the kingdom of darkness the defensive posture has turned us into raiders of other pastures to compete for the sheep already in the fold!

Jesus' strategy was radically different. Jesus designed His church to play offense.

The Offensive Church

Marks of the offensive church:

Seeks to take ground from the kingdom of darkness by expanding the kingdom of God
Initiates attacks against the kingdom of darkness
Ignores comfort and seeks to release captives as the major ministry
Then it seeks to equip those who have been released to further crash the gates of Hades.

Although the Bible uses aggressive terminology it must be stated clearly that Jesus' followers are not called to engage in physical violence of any kind. The "attacks" that are being discussed are spiritual in nature. The weapons of the biblical Christian are the proclamation of the gospel, love, prayer, and service -- all empowered by the Holy Spirit.

The offensive church seeks to bring the gospel to the world. The offensive church recognizes that only the gospel has the ability to genuinely transform a spiritually dead world and bring it back to life. The offensive church seeks unity and fellowship with other believers regardless of where they congregate on Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings.

Potlucks can't do that. Programs can't do it either.

An offensive church understands that we cannot dismember the body of Christ and compete with one another if we really want to crash the gates of Hades. We need each other.

Are you playing offense? Or are you still focused on defense?

Jesus did not call us to defend the gates of heaven but to crash the gates of hell. The best defense is a potent offense.

Comments

Prayer vs. Petition

Q: What's the difference between prayer and petition? Phil 4:6 for example. A: An excellent word study question! When attempting to study words from the text it is necessary to analyze the word being studied in the original language (in this case Greek) as attempting to look up the words in English will often produce erroneous results. For example, in English the word petition has within its range of meanings things that are certainly not within the scope of meanings for the Greek word (i.e. “a sheet that is signed to demonstrate agreement with some principle or desire for some social action to be taken” is part of the range of “petition” but not of the Greek deesis from which “petition” is translated). The word most commonly translated as “prayer” in our English Bibles is proseuche , which appears 36 times in the New Testament (NT) in one form or another (for the purposes of this study, we are only examining the usage of these words as nouns – the verbal forms will not be

Smoking Hookah

Q: This week a young Christian talked with me about the practice of smoking Hookah. They attend a church [which] is reaching out to the many Indian and Muslims in the surrounding areas. Their church also have several ministries that support missions in India and Arab countries. As they spoke with me they said that many of their Christian friends are smoking the Hookah. They said that they have been told that certain types of Hookah smoking involve no tobacco but are simply flavored water, other types of Hookah smoking do include tobacco but in a ‘more pure’ form than that of cigarettes that have additives. The Christians that they know of who partake in smoking Hookah do not feel that there is anything sinful in this practice and believe that it is just a part of certain cultures as a way to relax and socialize. Apparently during certain celebrations some of these culture groups get together as a family and include smoking the Hookah together as part of the festivities. These Chris

The Church Isn't A Business

I used to be a salesman. I sold a lot of different stuff. I worked retail. I did door-to-door. In all my various jobs my function was essentially the same. I was the link between company and customer. Successful companies know their customer demographics. Many sales meetings revolve around numbers. Persons are treated as statistics. The customer becomes a set of numbers, preferences, and habits. Really successful companies cater their goods and services to a target demographic. It's all about the consumer experience. I remember when I began in pastoral ministry. People assured me that my experience as a salesman would be beneficial. They said there was a lot of overlap between pastors and salespeople. That may be true in our experience. But is it true of what we read in Scripture? When I open my Bible and read about Christ's church I see a beautiful design that is very different from a business. Night and day different. When Jesus walked the earth He rebuked those who

The "Jesus Loves You" Problem

Q: I've encountered a lot of teaching and Christians who believe that saying, "Jesus loves you!" is a valid form of evangelism. Do you disagree with this? If so, why? It seems like a loving way to reach out and to encourage those who are not believers. A: What a great question! There are certainly a lot of materials and teachings that encourage Christians to use the phrase, "Jesus loves you" as an outreach and evangelistic tool. Much of this teaching that I've encountered emphasizes following the lead of the Holy Spirit. It claims that the Holy Spirit will often lead Christians to say this to non-believers to encourage them and try and lead them to a saving relationship with Jesus Christ. Fourth Year Ministries does not teach or endorse this as a valid evangelism strategy. That's not because we don't want it to be valid! Truth be told, we would love for this to be a good practice for Christians. It would certainly open some more doors for us. I

10 Things An Evangelist Is Not

You've probably heard the term Evangelist before. Most people have. The term most likely brings something to mind. Sometimes positive. Often negative. Does your idea match what other people think of when they hear the term evangelist? More importantly, do any of these ideas match what the Bible tells us an evangelist is ? The truth is that most of the popular ideas about what an evangelist is and does are based on the culture, not the Bible. This is a problem. The cultural idea of an evangelist is so popular that it is beginning to be used by companies. If you go to popular job sites and put the term evangelist into the search bar you will find many non-church jobs looking for evangelists. Many of these positions include the duties of spreading knowledge about a particular company, product, service, or idea. The Bible tells us that Jesus gave some Evangelists for His church. And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as

Fourth Year Ministries

Search This Blog