The Thankful Church Planter

 

Hello my brother; hello my sister, my name is Dean Davis, and this is a word of encouragement for village church planters.

If you have been listening to these podcasts for a while, you know that I share brief messages that I hope will encourage you as you work to plant multiplying churches in villages that have no churches. Usually my messages are based on lessons from the New Village Church Planting Program used in 23 countries across Africa. 

But for the next few months, I will base my messages on the letter that the Apostle Paul sent to the church in Colossae.  Paul was a follower of Jesus who had persecuted the church.  But Jesus called him to stop persecuting the believers and to instead serve Jesus as a chosen instrument to take the Good News to the Gentiles. Gentiles are people who do not practice the Jewish faith. If you are not a Jew, you are a Gentile. The risen Jesus called Paul to share the Gospel with Gentiles and to plant churches among them.

To take the Gospel to the Gentiles, Paul became a church planter. He started and multiplied churches from Cyprus to what is now Turkey and Greece and perhaps as far away as Spain.  That’s right, Paul was a church planter just as you are a church planter.  He serves as an excellent example for all of us who are church planters. In fact, Paul said, in 1 Corinthians 11:1, “Follow me as I follow Christ.”  So Paul is a great example for church planters all over the world.

 It’s very interesting that Paul’s letter to the Colossians was written to a church that Paul did not directly plant himself.  It is written to a church that some of Paul’s disciples planted.

So Paul was a church planter and he was a disciple maker.  He multiplied disciples so he had spiritual children and spiritual grandchildren and spiritual great grandchildren.

As a spiritual grandfather, it is not surprising that after his salutation, his first words in his letter to the Colossian church were “We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you.”  Paul was thankful for his spiritual grandchildren in Colossae. He was thankful that they had put their trust in Christ. Paul thanked God that they were filled with love for God and that they were filled with hope. Paul was glad that the Gospel of Christ had been preached in Colossae and that the Gospel was making lives better in a place that he himself had never visited.

This exuberant thankfulness is remarkable because Paul wrote the letter to the Colossians from prison, a place of great suffering and hardship.

You are a church planter. You have seen the Gospel change people’s lives, even if the change you would like to see in them is not yet complete.  You have seen God work in your life and you have experienced his power to transform the lives of others.  So here is my first word of encouragement for you based on Paul’s letter to the Colossians: Get in the habit of thanking God for his work in the lives of your disciples. Don’t just thank him occasionally.  Do what Paul did, always thank Him!  As you do, you too will be filled with strength to face the challenges and hardships that come your way.

Be encouraged, God is with you.  He used Paul as a great church planter, and he will use you as well.

This has been a word of encouragement for Village Church Planters.

If you have found this message to be helpful, please forward it to fellow church planters and disciple makers who may need encouragement.  Feel free to share it on What’s App, Facebook, and other platforms you use to connect with others.

Be encouraged, God is with us! EC-01

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