Our name is the Christian AND Missionary Alliance. The ‘and’ indicates that it is in our DNA to be moving somewhere.
Our name is the Christian AND Missionary Alliance. The ‘and’ indicates that it is in our DNA to be moving somewhere.
Dr. Brian Stiller said this at an address at Alliance Assembly.
The motto of our church, as seen each week on the wall of the sanctuary, is really the motto of the Alliance from the beginning, expressed as ‘deeper life and missions.’ This combination is the genius that has driven our movement and still does today.
DEEPER. The challenge for the Christian is to walk the holy road all the rest of our life – saying yes to God and no to sin. Many Christians try to do this based on their own self discipline and it makes for a repeated ‘fall down – get up again’ kind of Christianity. We believe that to go deeper with God is only accomplished to any degree by the inner presence and reign of the Holy Spirit of Jesus. We are not masters of a system but disciples of a Person – Jesus Christ. As Jeremiah prophesied: “This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time’ declares the Lord. I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts…” (Jeremiah 31:33). To only grow deep is like a lake that has no outlet. We stagnate. The temptation is to be proud that we’re so humble. I hate being around these kinds of Christians.
Instead, we invite the Holy Spirit to have full access to our life and to enthrone Jesus in its every aspect. We look for His guidance through the Scriptures, which are living and relevant, and we obey what He says to us. This is a daily walk – ‘Holy Spirit what do you have for me today?’ Life becomes an adventure as we experience His guidance!
WIDER. To be outreach oriented is a noble task – to see people come to salvation is life changing for them. But it’s important to disciple people so they can go deep – that was Jesus’ challenge to us in the Great Commission. For example, many of the house church pastors in the San Quintin valley where we partner with One Life One Chance are not trained in any way – all they know is the salvation challenge. So we have sponsored a pastors training weekend there for a few years to help train the pastors in going deeper and so they can lead their people to do the same.
We believe the world needs to be given a chance for trust in Christ, and how will they know unless we go to them? Jesus said: “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations and then the end will come” Matt. 24:14. So we go all over the world (including our own back yard) with the message. We go wider. Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper – who is part of an Alliance church, said: “We’re the most multilingual organization in the country.”
So – are you a ‘deeper’ Christian? It’s time to go wider!
Are you a ‘wider’ Christian? It’s time to go deeper!
Get on board with who we are as a movement!
Pastor Leon Throness
Have a listen to my latest podcast “Favoured but forgotten” on the life of Joseph – here.
