Who’s ready to do something different?
A friend of mine was travelling last year and visited the SDA church near his hotel. He had never been to this town before. No one knew him.
He walked into the church on Sabbath morning and was there from Sabbath School all the way to main service.
The entire experiece was dry, monotonous, lacking in life and energy with songs sung half asleep and a sermon that had no intelligible point to it.
But that wasn't the worst of it.
Not one person spoke to him the entire morning.
No one said hello. Asked where he was from or invited him to eat.
He felt so crushed by the experiece that he decided to visit the local evangelical church the next Sunday.
As soon as he walked in he was warmly greeted, and not just by a greeters team but by every day church members.
They had never seen him before and wanted to meet him. It wasn't overwhelming or over the top. It was sincere and genuine interest.
They made sure he had a good seat. During the altar call another member came by and sat next to him and asked him if he would like to pray together.
They invited him to stay and eat and gave him a flyer with information about their mid week small groups so he could connect during the week and find a good support network.
After telling me this story, my friend (a committed SDA elder who has planted 3 churches himself) looked at me with despondency in his eyes and asked:
"What is wrong with us?"
We sat there in silence. Neither knowing what to say.
I don't know whats wrong. I honestly think its the wrong question - the kind that takes you down a pointless rabbit trail that ends nowhere.
My prefered question is this: Who’s ready to do something different for the kingdom?
Who’s ready to say 'no more'?
Who’s ready to move without permission, love without restriction, and serve without condition?
If you said "I am" to any of the above questions, then I want to encourage you. The future of our movement depends on a new generation of believers like you who value relationships over religion, people over programs, and togetherness over tradition.
Get moving! I'm in your corner rooting for you. And if you need help along the way, feel free to check out my website for training resources and content to empower you along the way.
Here's to an Adventism. Redesigned.
Pastor M
Pastor Marcos | Missional Church Planter
P.S. Are you ready to shatter the status quo and reach secular post-church generations in a way that truly resonates? The Mission Collective online school is the ultimate game-changer, offering a treasure trove of proven strategies, innovative approaches, and insider secrets to help you share the Gospel in a way that's both authentic and compelling. With 30+ workshops, relevant resource downloads, and weekly live sessions, you'll be equipped to break through the noise and connect with those who need it most. Join the movement and apply now to become part of a vibrant community of global believers who are passionate about mission and dedicated to making a real difference! Apply HERE.
Effective Missional Outreach Doesn't Work, Unless…
In the last 10 years of active ministry, I have noticed that we Adventists loooove a good old “model”.
A one-size-fits-all evangelism blueprint we can copy and paste without having to work too hard while still guaranteeing results.
I can already hear the advertisement:
"Discover the ultimate evangelism shortcut! Our New Model guarantees baptisms without requiring personal connections or time-consuming relationship-building. Simply follow our proven, step-by-step formula and watch your church grow - no friendships needed!"
Whoever designs this new model is guaranteed to get SDA rich! (Remember me when you make it big 😅)
Jokes asside, depending on what your particular task and context are, blueprints can be helpful.
But when it comes to mission in the secular, post-church age I need to be super clear:
There is no blueprint. No one-size-fits-all. No standardized model. No copy-paste system.
Yes, there are basic principles. (Which I share exclusively in my Monday Missional emails. Subscribe here to never miss out.)
But outside of those basic principles, there is no system you can mindlessly inject into your local context and expect wild results. And here is the main reason why:
Secularism is fragmented.
I know, I know — what on earth am I talking about with my fancy-schmancy words, right?
Let me put it this way: If you are a missionary in a Buddhist society, you will find there are a diversity of Buddhists.
However, you will also find a general “worldview” that unites all Buddhists. Same in Muslim countries, or really any religious society.
But in the secular post-modern west, there is no agreed upon worldview that people unite around. Everyone just kinds of makes up their own as they go along. So rather than a united perspective, secular countries have a fragmented one which means secular people are not the same from one house to the next, let alone one city to the next.
And without a united worldview to anchor in, we simply can’t develop a singular blueprint of mission to secular culture.
Unless…
When I was a soldier training to go to Iraq, a lot of the cadre used to say that whatever they taught us was likely to be outdated by the time we made it into the combat zone.
The reason was insurgents studied the tactics used by the Army and would develop counter-tactics specifically designed to frustrate our most well developed plans.
The only way to stay one step ahead of them was to develop a culture of “elasticity” where we anticipated their counter-tactics and counteracted them before they had a chance to implement them.
Sounds confusing, I know. But the bottom line is this: Our enemy was so smart, so ahead of the curve, so creative and innovative that unless we abandoned our love for strict military structure and embraced a flexible approach, we would lose lives.
So we switched tactics. Uniformity was out the window.
Strict plans were out the window.
Elasticity (flexible, adaptable tactics) was in.
And its the same in secular mission. While secular people differ from house to house and city to city there is at least one thing we can always count on being true no matter where we go and its this: they will be fragmented.
To put it in plain english:
“The only thing that makes secular people the same is that they are never the same”
And because of this, we can count on the fact that secular mission must look different everywhere we go. Once we embrace that simple paradigm shift, we can begin to develop new missional approaches that are flexible, adaptable, and contextual.
This, I believe, is one of the primordial keys to mission in our secular, post-church age: elasticity.
It’s time we threw away the unformity. The standardization of local church ministry. The blind allegiance to a manual. And the copy-paste model of evangelism.
In fact, its time we threw away our desire to find a blueprint altogether.
Instead, lets get back to kingdom basics: raw, on the ground relationships where we listen deeply, adapt accordingly, and connect contextually.
Pastor Marcos | Missional Church Planter
P.S. Are you ready to shatter the status quo and reach secular post-church generations in a way that truly resonates? The Mission Collective online school is the ultimate game-changer, offering a treasure trove of proven strategies, innovative approaches, and insider secrets to help you share the Gospel in a way that's both authentic and compelling. With 30+ workshops, relevant resource downloads, and weekly live sessions, you'll be equipped to break through the noise and connect with those who need it most. Join the movement and apply now to become part of a vibrant community of global believers who are passionate about mission and dedicated to making a real difference! Apply HERE.
The Top 3 Worst SDA Outreach Habits
The top 3 worst SDA outreach habits I have seen in my 10+ years of ministry:
1. Assuming What People Need: I once had a church member complain that they had tried giving a co-worker a book. The co-worker said they weren't interested and refused the book. The Adventist was upset that the co-worker didn't accept the book. After asking a few questions here is what I learned: The co-worker was a secular person who had no religious affiliations or background. The book the Adventist offered them was about the Waldensians. Now, I don't want to shame this dear member for giving outreach a go, but I think its obvious what went wrong in this whole scenario.
2. Explaining our Message in 19th Century Ways: I shared this story recently but heres a shorter version: I once sat in on a Bible study with an elder trying to explain to a secular seeker why the state of the dead was such an important topic. His reasoning? Because if we think people go to heaven when they die, Satan can deceive us by pretending to be our dead loved ones. The secular guy was lost, unamused, and unimpressed. This approach to the state of the dead might not be "wrong" but its outdated. And the truth is, we do this with almost all our doctrines. Sabbath vs Sunday? Dated. Investigative Judment as defending God's transparency? Dated. The Health Message as increasing longevity? Dated. We can preach the same message in modern ways that actually make sense to people in the 21st century, cause it ain't 1890 anymore.
3. Handing out Literature without Relationships: I get it, there isn't always time to build relationships and sometimes media is the best way to get the message out there. There is nothing wrong with that. But here's a quick story: A guy I knew was in rehab. Some local SDA ladies brought him a meal and with it, a bag with a whole stack of EGW books. He wasn't SDA so he called me to ask what that was all about. He said at first he felt really blessed by the food, but when he saw the bag with all the books he immediately felt like a project. Whats worse, the ladies never came back, never visited him again. It was as if, once they dumped the EGW library on him, their job was done. No relationship. No connection. Just drop and go evangelism. And it sucks.
The wild thing is each of these scenarios would have been 100% better if the Adventists did 1 thing differently. Not 10, not 5, just 1. No need for a degree, for special training, or for a unique set of skills. This 1 simple thing would have made all the difference and anyone can do it.
It's called listening. Thats all. Thats how you avoid being tone deaf. Thats how you avoid being disingenous. Thats how you avoid being agenda driven. You listen. And you listen with intention. To know, to learn, to understand, and to serve.
Had listening taken place in scenario 1, a book on the Waldensians would never have been offered to a secular co-worker. Instead, the Adventist would have gotten to know the person, built a relationship with them, and sought to serve them according to THEIR needs.
Had listening taken place in scenario 2, that secular seeker and elder would both have had a much more enjoyable, productive, and relevant Bible study rather than an attempted indoctrination session.
Had listening taken place in scenario 3, a lost soul in a rehab center would have encountered hope in genuine people rather than being repulsed by the phony kindness used as a guise to convert.
Listening. We're not very good at it as SDAs. We "have the truth" so we prefer to do all the talking. Well, we can keep talking all we want. Truth is, folk stopped listening a long time ago.
Its time we zipped our lips. Surrendered our pride. And learned to listen. This is the key to mission in our post-church age.
P.S. Adventists love a good conspiracy theory, so I decided to create my own secret society. 😅 Wanna join? Tap here.
Over 90,000 Baptisms? 😲
Have you heard the news? Over 90,000 people were recently baptised in Papua New Guniea during the PNG for Christ campaign.
THAT. IS. INCREDIBLE.
Since this took place, I have heard a few SDA’s ask — what will it take for that to happen here, in Australia?
And by extension, how can we see the same results in other secular western countries like Europe, Canada and America?
Here are my thoughts:
We must keep context in mind. Long before SDA’s showed up, 98% of PNG’s population already identified as Christian. To the contrary, Australia’s Christian population has dropped from 86% in 1971 to 44% in 2021. In the meantime, the number of people identifying as having “no religion” has grown from 7% in 1971 to 38% in 2021. In other western secular countries, the stats are much the same.
Context dictates method. PNG’s culture is deeply religious which means a traditional religious frame works in evangelizing its population. To the contrary, Australia has a deeply secular culture meaning a different frame must be used if we want to root the gospel here.
But what does this actually look like?
Here’s what it DOESN’T look like:
More church programs
More traditional prophecy or doctrinal seminars
More advertising campaigns
These approaches simply don’t work in secular, post-church environments for three reasons:
Secular people are by-and-large uninterested in religion no matter how its “packaged”
Millennials & Zed’s are the most “advertised to” generations of all time. They can smell a sales pitch from a mile away, especially a religious one.
Almost every outreach model our church fails to speak meaningfuly to the anxieties faced by emerging generations.
So, if what we are doing doesn’t work — whats it going to take?
I recorded a simple video to help answer that very question,
Pastor M