Your church has a moral imperative.  A moral imperative is why something MUST exist.  Can you identify why your local church must exist?  The only thing more important than asking this question is the answer.  And what is the most biblical answer?  For that, the church must look to Jesus.

What was Jesus’ moral imperative?  He gives the answer by giving us a parable (found in Luke 15):

“Suppose you have 100 sheep and one of them wanders away and is lost.  What would you do? Or suppose that a woman has ten coins and one of them is lost? What do you suppose that woman will do?” The answer is obvious.  We would leave the 99 and go and look for the 1 lost sheep.  We would set aside our 9 coins and sweep the house and look for the 1 lost coin.

Maybe a modern example would help.  Suppose you got ten $100 bills for Christmas.  And then you lost one.  Will you say, “You know what?  I didn’t have this money to begin with so I am just going to cut my losses and forget about that lost $100 and make do with my $900?”  I don’t think you would.  I certainly wouldn’t.  I would look for that $100 bill as long as it took.  I may, once I have found it, throw a party because what was once lost, now is found.

Jesus is “seeking and saving that which is lost.”  Jesus was not doing 99 ministry.  Jesus’ moral imperative was not the found.

John gives us a description of Jesus’ commission to His disciples in John 20:21: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”   Jesus is sending us, JUST AS THE FATHER SENT HIM. Jesus’ commission was not concentrating on the found.  He sought the lost.  Yes, He spent the majority of His time with His disciples, but that was in the wider context of seeking the lost. Discipleship was not the mission, discipleship happened in the context of mission.

So why does your church and my church exist? Is it 99 ministry?  Or are we going after the lost?