The greatest commandment ever €¦ forgotten

Shawn Lovejoy, founder of churchplanters.com is distressed by the state of some pioneering pastors and the churches they are planting.

“The church planting world, the church planting movement on the surface looks like a successful movement but I want to tell you, being up close and personal with it, that there is a dark side of the force,” he said at the Radicalis Conference taking place at Saddleback Church, California, the church of Rick Warren.

Citing a study conducted by Exponential, which surveyed over 2,000 church plants, he stated that eight out of 10 pastors who were currently out in the field planting churches felt the following primary emotions: drivenness, discouragement, disillusionment, and discontentment.

Pastors admitted to struggling spiritually, relationally and emotionally.

Lovejoy's been wondering where it's gone wrong with the churches and the pastors?

“Here’s the conclusion I’ve come to: I simply believe that … in our desire to be successful in our church planting ministries, we’ve actually forgotten how God defines success.

“In our long list of ministry tasks full of agendas, we’ve forgotten the most important task.

“I really believe that it’s pastors who have neglected, forgotten and forsaken the most important commandment. It’s called the Great Commandment. I do not believe we think it’s all that great. If we did, it would be the great pursuit of our lives and our ministries.”

Looking to the Scriptures, Lovejoy pinpointed the problem in Matthew 22. Tested by the Pharisees, who hoped to trick Jesus, they asked him, “Teacher, what is the greatest commandment in the law?”

Jesus replied, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments.”

In regards to the second greatest commandment, Lovejoy described how Jesus knew that everybody had overlooked this command before even though it was found in the Old Testament, in Leviticus 19.

“It’s always been God’s heart. When you get this right, you’ll have everything else right. If you get this wrong, everything else will be wrong in your life.”

Jesus, Lovejoy reminded his audience, was speaking to the religious leaders of the day – people who knew the law backwards and forwards; people who were brilliant expositors of Scripture, but poor lovers of people.

“The truth is, most pastors I know are the modern day Pharisees,” Lovejoy confessed. “We are brilliant pastors. We’re good with people, or so we think we are. We are brilliant leaders and preachers. [But] a lot of us are poor lovers of people.”

Pastors can defend themselves by speaking of the numbers of people coming through the church doors but they're still deceiving themselves.

“The Bible says our hearts are deceitfully wicked. I have found in my life oftentimes that what I think I’m doing for God, I’m doing for Shawn Lovejoy – I’m doing it for me," he said.

That wouldn't be the case if church leaders really lived out the Great Commandment and loved people.

“What is happening would not be happening if we really believed the Great Commandment was that great. If we really believed love was the measure of success,” he said.

“Somewhere along the way … we substituted our love for people for the love of growth and crowds. We’ve measured success like everybody else in the world does: get it big, be famous. That’s why our sense of significance, even our self-worth, is tied to numbers.”

Speaking of the radical sacrifice required of true love, Lovejoy asked, “If you go back to the Old Testament sacrificial system, what was the one requirement for sacrifice?

“Something had to die.”

Jesus came as the eternal sacrifice, the eternal Lamb of God, and he sacrificed himself for us so we could be made right with God by placing our faith in him. Then God speaks through apostle Paul in Romans 12 and tells believers that they are supposed to be living sacrifices.

“What’s required for you and I to be a living sacrifice? Something’s got to die.”

Pointing out what needs to die for pastors specifically, Lovejoy stated, “Our agenda, our definition of success, our desire to succeed according to the way the world measures it.”

And it is an everyday death – being a living sacrifice is not just a one-time thing, he explained. Jesus said to take up your cross daily. Confessing of his own unwillingness to sacrifice every day, Lovejoy admitted that radical sacrifice requires a radical death – like Christ's.

Any model of church that is not rooted in Christ’s love is not a biblical model. Any model without Jesus is a non-biblical model.

“The sooner we begin to realise we’ve got to stop chasing models and start chasing Jesus, the better off we’re all going to be.”

So was the church planter telling pastors and leaders to stop trying to grow churches?

“No. Jesus said ‘go’ didn’t he? I’m not saying we should stop going, I’m not saying we should stop pursuing the Great Commission. I am saying clearly, we must stop pursuing the Great Commission at the expense of the Great Commandment."

The fruit of learning to sacrifice himself has for Lovejoy been love, freedom, significance, fulfilment and success.

“I’m re-embracing, being re-energised by loving his Great Commandment.”