Armies mobilise their troops and heavy weapons as they prepare for war. Businesses mobilise their workforces and resources to tackle the challenges of the market place. At the recent federal election political parties mobilised their volunteers to man polling booths and hand out how to vote cards. Charities mobilise volunteers and their members as they ready themselves for their annual giving campaigns. Trade unions mobilise their members to take part in rallies and demonstrations.
Churches serious about the Great Commission – the ongoing mission of Jesus – mobilise for the harvest, too.
A failure to mobilise means missing important opportunities, being on the backfoot and forever playing catch up. Failure to mobilise means standing still, not moving, not responding, perhaps even not caring. To mobilise, according to an online dictionary, has several shades of meaning, but at the core of each is the importance of preparing and organising for movement towards an important objective. To mobilise, for example, is to organise and encourage a group of people, a team, or community, to take collective action in pursuit of a particular objective. Another example, of mobilising is to make something or someone movable or capable of movement, such as a physiotherapist might mobilise a patient's limb after surgery. So, mobilisation is about getting something organised and moving effectively towards a goal – it is a very intentional, focused thing.
The opposite of mobilisation is described by the word homeostasis. Homeostasis is a biological term. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica homeostasis is any self-regulating process by which biological systems tend to maintain stability while adjusting to conditions that are optimal for survival. Now, that’s not a bad thing, in terms of biology, that is. But in a social-cultural sense homeostasis can refer to that default tendency for people and communities to resist healthy change and quickly return to the comfortable normal (or “abnormal”) that they’re used to, or prefer. Homeostasis is always looking for comfort and easiness – it wants to stay the same - it is lacking in movement and action, especially in an undesirable or uninteresting way.
Mobilisation is always looking to move forward, to deploy, engage, fight, improve and achieve objectives. It is an urgent word.
The Great Commission which Jesus gave the Church was about mobilisation …
Matthew 28:18-19 (NIV)
Then Jesus came to them [the disciples] 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, …”
There’s nothing static about the Great Commission. For two thousand years it has been Christ’s call to mobilise for mission and to deploy and engage. Yet the Church today can often give the appearance of a community in homeostasis – it prefers the comfortable easiness of no change. There was a moment in Jesus’ ministry when he made some quite shocking statements. He was responding to would-be followers who had blurted out (maybe without a lot of forethought) their desire to follow Him.
Matthew 8:19-22 (NIV)
Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, "Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go." 20 Jesus replied, "Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." 21 Another disciple said to him, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." 22 But Jesus told him, "Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead."
At first glance these seem like deliberately offensive retorts from Jesus. Of course, they are not. Yes, He was being blunt, but He was making the point that the mobilisation of any of His followers was not going to be a life of comfort – and it would cost the follower, not just in time and resources, but in the probable non-approval of a homeostatic culture.
This Vision Sunday just gone was a very important day in the life of ReChurch Inc. Apart from the unanimous approval of the annual budget by the members, was the call to mobilise now for mission – to organise, deploy and engage at the pointy end, which is evangelism. This will involve the investment of “seed for sowing” money which we all committed to give in the new budget. But this is just one ingredient in Operation Mobilisation. By far the most critical factor in Operation Mobilisation is YOU! That is, everyone doing something to ensure mobilisation effectively succeeds.
Operation Mobilisation has commenced at ReChurch! The first stage in our evangelistic push is “E-Squads” – special evangelistic teams focusing on a specific part of the harvest field. And so we are, right now, in the process of setting up four of these E-Squads (there are more to come once these are fully mobilised).
E-Squad #1 will focus on Street Outreach – there are all manner of “external” opportunities here, from prayer walks, to handing out tracts, to even a food and coffee van deployed strategically in “community spaces”.
E-Squad #2 will focus on Outreach Services (Sundays and special event days), “fishing pool” and social events which connect with the community in “our space”.
E-Squad #3 will focus on Zoom and “Virtual” Outreach initiatives which could connect with isolated people in nursing homes and so on – so many opportunities here. We’ll explore how we can livestream services and other initiatives in the online environment.
E-Squad #4 will focus on Alpha programs – there is a range of these. Alpha has a proven track record with over one million Australians now having participated.
This is the beginning of Operation Mobilisation. Not everyone will be involved in an E-Squad, perhaps. We will still need plenty of people to be involved in the healing and discipleship areas, and support ministries, too. But, one thing is for sure, everyone will be encouraged to contribute in some way – even if it is interceding in prayer for some aspect of our mission, or making sandwiches for the outreach van. Everyone can do something.
The Church has not been called to homeostasis where all is nice and easy and comfortable. No. Jesus is calling the Church to mobilise to do one thing – make disciples. The first step in doing so is to meet people right where they are, and tell them the Good News, that there is exciting new life in Christ.
Mark 16:20 (NLT)
“And the disciples went everywhere and proclaimed the Good News, and the Lord worked through them, confirming what they said by many miraculous signs.”
The harvest is here, and we are as ready as we need to be. Sign up for an E-Squad online or at the church – if not an E-Squad, then talk to me and ask how you can help in other ways. We need you!
Luke 10:2 (NIV)
Jesus told them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”
Join us for the harvest.
Ps Milton