Theology of the Church, Mentor's Guide, MG03

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T H E O L O G Y O F T H E C H U R C H

Our objective for this second segment of The Church as Witness is to enable you to see that: • The mandate from Jesus for his Church to be his witness is summarized in the Great Commission. • This Commission can be easily outlined according to three critical elements, which constitute the mission of the Church in the world today. • The first element is that the Church gives witness as she goes: the Church of Jesus Christ is called to evangelize the lost. • The second element is that Church gives witness through baptism: the Church is called to baptize new believers in Christ, that is, to incorporate them as members into the Church. • The third element is that the Church gives witness through its teaching: the Church of Jesus Christ teaches its members to observe all the things Christ commanded, and so grow to maturity in him.

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I. The First Element of the Great Commission Is Jesus’s Command to Go. We as the Church Give Witness to Jesus by Going into the World. We Give Witness as We Respond to the Call to Evangelize.

Video Segment 2 Outline

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A. The call to witness is a call to share the Good News, a call to evangelize, to go into the entire world and preach the Gospel.

1. The tense of the Greek verb in Jesus’ commission gives the sense of ‘to be continuously going.’ According to Jesus, the Church is ‘to be going into the world;’ evangelism is the business of the Church.

2. We are to go into all the world and preach the Good News to every person, Mark 16.15-16.