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I’ve written before that churches should be training and sending. It’s the heart of the church’s mission (Ephesians 4.11, 12). But a story from a new friend, Jerry, highlights another lesson: sending IS training. 

Regarding “Are you ready?” I met the Lord at a little church in California during the Jesus Movement in 1972. One week later a leader took me down to the beach to do some witnessing. He told me to go one way on the strand and he would go the other way. I told him that I didn’t have any answers. He said to just write the questions down and tell them you will get back to them with answers. That may not be a method endorsed today, but within 4 or 5 weekends of doing this, I had answers to all the basic questions.

I wrote in the “Are you ready?” blog he’s referring to, “I find that most people in most churches will be ‘ready’ after they’ve had ‘one more course.’ By contrast, Jerry’s leader and Jesus himself trained BY sending:

Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” And he called to him his twelve disciples… These twelve Jesus sent out. (Matthew 9.37 – 10.5)