A church will cease to be a church if the word of Jesus is not preached. But a church will fail to become a church if the Word made flesh does not appear among us, and we touch Him, and see Him, and He us. And sometimes, that happens only when someone has the gall, the audacity, the desperation to break the roof open.
When the revival reached Chicago, a young shoe salesman approached the superintendent of the Plymouth Congregational Church and asked if he might teach Sunday School. The superintendent said, ‘I am sorry, young fellow. I have sixteen teachers, too many, but I will put you on the waiting list.’
The young man insisted, ‘I want to do something just now.’
‘Well, start a class.’
‘How do I start a class?’
‘Get some boys off the street, but don’t bring them here. Take them out into the country, and after a month, you will have control of them, so bring them in. They will be your class.’
He took them to a beach on Lake Michigan, where he taught them Bible verses and Bible games. Then he took them to the Plymouth Congregational Church. That young man’s name was D.L. Moody, and that was the beginning of a ministry that lasted forty years.
There should be no theology that does not relate to the mission of the church – either by being generated out of the church’s mission or by inspiring and shaping it. And there should be no mission of the church carried on without deep theological roots in the soil of the Bible. No theology without missional impact; no mission without theological foundations.