The evidence around us today points to the unwelcome fact that the message of the gospel can degenerate in just a few generations. It seems almost impossible for the missionary zeal of any congregation to rise above that of its priest. If this is correct, then most congregations will be operating at 50% of the missionary zeal of their priest – and this is only when they are doing very well, and where there is good teaching, good fellowship and good prayer meetings. A few from that congregation, a very few indeed, may rise up to 70% or 80% in their zeal towards that of the priest. Suppose that from this congregation there is recruited someone who goes for training for the priesthood. If this man is operating at 50% when he goes to the seminary, and if the seminary is very orthodox and non-evangelical or liberal, then he is panel-beaten and sprayed down to 25%, and in that state he is ordained and sent to another congregation. Since he is now operating at 25%, his congregation will be at 11.5%. As time goes by, a member of that congregation may be selected and sent for training, operating at the same 11.5% and comes out from the seminary operating at 5.75% It is only a matter of time, as the downward spiral takes its toll, that the work of mission and evangelism in his church will die. This is the end result of discontinuity!
The mission of the church, however, cannot, will not, and will never be discontinued. We may choose to neglect it and be careless about the whole mission of God, and indeed in a given generation with a particular group of people the baton could be dropped and the mission discontinued in that place and at that time. God.s mission, however, will move elsewhere and continue.
There is so much to be done in the church and world today. In the same way in which Jesus spoke concerning the harvest in Israel, “The harvest is plenty, but the labourers are few” (Matthew 9:37), so is he speaking in our time and in our context.