ATLANTA — The Rev. Glen McDonald challenged 42 workshop participants at the first ever Big Tent event here to become sacrificial in moving their congregations from “maintenance mode to missional mode.” 

He told people in a “Disciple-Making Church” workshop — part of the Evangelism Conference at Big Tent — “God has called us to go from maintenance mode to missional mode. We need to be congregations for the next 100 members, not the 100 who are already here.”

The pastor of the Zionsville (IN) Presbyterian Church told about asking a group of church members who would be willing to sacrifice their lives to save the life of a child or grandchild. All hands went up. He then asked, “Who would be willing to change the music in your worship service in order to appeal to your child or grandchild?” No hands went up.

“A sacrifice might be necessary,” he said, and challenged them to be willing to give up some things in order to move the church to a new way of being.

He also told Evangelism Conference participants that they might have to give up some of their valuable time to become mentors to help at least one person move forward in their faith.

“This area of mentoring needs to explode,” he said. “It takes time. We have to let go of certain things in order to be able to do this.

“Jesus asks for the sacrifice of your whole life,” McDonald said. “When church people tell others this and say, ‘This is incredibly hard, but the Spirit of Jesus is helping us. Will you walk with us for a while,’ they say ‘Yes.’ They want a faith that is authentic.”

McDonald also told participants that this is not a job that is ever done so it can be checked off. “Every day we are at a new place, and we go forward from there.”

Bill Lancaster is associate executive for Foothills Presbytery and a frequent contributor to Presbyterian News Service.