It Can Be Simple.

Yo.

Lately I've been thinking a bit about what it means for an organization or group or ministry to be 'parachurch' and how the parachurch should be working hand-in-hand with the Church.

I tend to meet two kinds of people: those who love parachurch organizations, have seen their greatest moments while part of them, and have seen God do amazing things through them and so they want to invest all of their time into it, often at the expense of being actively involved in a local church; and those who have seen parachurch groups lose sight of their partnership with the local church and as such these persons have decided to be involved solely in local churches to the extent of being wary of such organizations and keeping others from involvement.

And I don't have an answer per se as to how a parachurch group should work, or how the church should work. I do need to read up a bit more on this. However, from what I know and from the times I've spent as part of a seminary course on the book of Acts (the early church and Paul's work), I know that they should be working hand-in-hand. Often Paul's small missionary team is called a parachurch group. The way I've seen parachurch defined is that it is not the church in that it is focused to a specific task or peoples, but made up of people from the Church, and when done best seeks to support the mission of the Church in whatever means of evangelism, discipleship, or training. A campus ministry, a bible study group, a seminary; each fits into this category.

The question of how the two can work together is at the front of my mind since I've been so stuck between the two groups of people and have kind of flip-flopped between primarily being involved in parachurch or church 'activities' and trying to unify the two groups of people, but not really knowing how to do it.

I had recently talked to a friend of mine who is a staff member with Power to Change (P2C), a campus ministry in Canada and around the world under different names. I asked her, and asked specifically about how she sees it since I knew that she, herself, had not been so actively involved in both while in university. The way she answered was golden, and makes me love God, her, the church, and parachurch all the more. I will now attempt to paraphrase. The way she sees it P2C exists solely to help Christian students grow in evangelism and bringing the gospel to other students while in university. While doing that, to be encouraging active participation in the local church and preparing them to be so for the rest of their lives. The way she sees it P2C (or any parachurch for that matter) should not be trying to do 'church' things which would compete, such as deeper bible studies, sermons, worship services, generic fellowship, life discipleship, etc., but to do what it is called to do; in P2C's case, evangelism training, evangelism, and prayer for the gospel to reach ears that will hear, and nothing more. There isn't time in the life of a full-time student for 20 hours of overlapping content from both parachurch and church, in such cases a student will choose one or the other. To do so all of P2C's stuff would be concise and to the point allowing the students to best be a part of their churches and live as part of the family of God.

When things go like that, she tells me that students are actively involved in sharing their faith, are meaningfully involved in local churches, local churches suggest people to participate in the parachurch ministries while in school, it isn't a burden on anyone, and people are coming to know Jesus! So good.

I also asked then how new believers would be discipled. She replied that they would probably have a short 5 week or so basic lessons on the gospel and our life in Jesus, but in everything to direct them to a local church. I also asked about the desire for community in the parachurch groups. She said community around the mission is great, but that the real deep communities would be in the churches and as such, the students can have fellowship and stuff, it just wouldn't be a P2C event. If they wanted to have worship before a prayer meeting, great! That's a prayer meeting. haha

My desire is to see that day in Ottawa. To see the local churches and parachurch ministries on campus to work together, not against each other. And I think we've been seeing it go in that direction this year. Discipleship groups, acting more as 'action groups' where they learn how to share their faith and then go and afterwards they can do other stuff on their time. Weekly meetings focused around sharing Jesus with others, not on throwing a church service. Students involved at their churches, going on missions, living life together, and in everything lifting up Jesus.

So good.

I want to pray for that and I want to be a catalyst on both sides (church and P2C) to help communicate and work together for the sake of the gospel and good news of Christ going to all. May students be encouraged to share their faith, may they be encouraged to live their life in the body of believers, the church, may they seek after His kingdom and righteousness in everything, may God be glorified through His Church. Amen!

But what do we university students really need more from our church? I think discipleship is the thing. I'll talk more about this tomorrow.

Ttyl.

D.Fa