Mere Missions

T he C hurch : E quip • 149

matter how small or poor that gathered Community is? Roland Allen said this in his book, The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church , “What is necessary is faith. What is needed is the kind of faith which uniting a man to Christ, sets him on fire. Such a man can believe that others finding Christ will be set on fire also. Such a man can see there is no need of money to fill a continent with the knowledge of Christ. Such a man can see that all that is required to consolidate and establish that expansion is the simple application of the simple organization of the Church. It is to men who know that faith, who see that vision, that I appeal. Let them judge what I have written.”

Content 2: “E” of an Apostolic Missions Platform: Equipping

It is no surprise then, that within the history of missions, the devil and his forces have sought

nothing more than to malign and destroy the Church. He has, and continues to be, relentless and ruthless in his efforts. He has been at it since the first day of the Church’s founding. He knows that any attempt of his, even though his hellish gates will not prevail (Matt. 16.18), could hinder and cease all efforts of the responsibility of the, “. . . apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so