Ten Plumb Lines

In his book, Gaining by Losing, J. D. Greear suggests ten “plumb lines” to use to see if your church is living up to its missional identity. A simple plumb line is a string with a weight tied to the bottom. When you hold it, gravity causes the string to form a straight vertical line. Is your house or wall crooked? The plumb line will tell.

1. Swimming in the Gospel

The first plumb line that Greear mentions raises the question of whether your church views mission as something that they jump into from their church (and thus as something they get out of after they are done) or is mission the pool in which the church is constantly swimming. Preach a sermon on witnessing to others and perhaps your congregation will witness that week. Then, when you preach on something different next week, they will spend the next week doing that. Greear wants mission to be what our churches are doing all the time.

2. Everyone is called.

The second plumb line that Greear mentions is the question of whether everyone in the church feels called to mission. For two millennia, the church has been structured to think of calling as something that only relates to a few select individuals who become priests. Is everyone in your church actively engaged in sharing their faith with the world?

3. Both Missional and Attractional

Is the week just as important for your church as the weekend? There’s nothing wrong with trying to attract people to come to your church on the weekend. But is your church just as actively engaged in mission during the week? With fewer people coming to church to be discipled, we have to be actively involved in discipleship out there, in the workplace and the world.

4. Creating an Army

“A church is not a group of people gathered around a leader, but a leadership factory.” Does your church challenge its people to be leaders? Is your church empowering people to be leaders. Is your church identifying and training new leaders in the church and then sending them out into the world to spread the gospel?

5. Making Visible the Invisible

Sometimes, we talk about the “invisible” church, meaning that the existence of the true church is not exactly the same as the people who gather on Sunday to worship. But what about in the world? Are the people in your church making the love of God visible wherever they go in the world? Are the people in your church a demonstration of the gospel wherever they go?

6. Discipleship is the point.

Making disciples is the point. We can get ready. We can get informed about it. But do we do it? Are the people in your church making disciples? That’s the question. That’s the plumb line. Success is disciples who reproduce.

7. Every pastor is the missions pastor.

Is global missions the goal of every ministry? Greear suggests a church doesn’t need to separate out a missions pastor because every pastor should be a missions pastor. A mission ethos should pervade the church.

8. Racial reconciliation will result.

A truly missional church will reach everyone. It is in the true nature of the church to cross boundaries that are hard to cross, and this is one of them. It will require intentionality, but the fruit of the gospel that will result is worth it. We live multicultural lives of discipleship not merely have multicultural events so that everyone can be saved.

9. Risk is required.

We will not reach the world without risk. The kingdom of God advances through risk-taking. We can never ask too much of God. We have a certain Savior as we risk everything for the sake of the gospel.

10. Never give up.

“Repetition of the vision… is crucial to effecting change,” Greear says. He suggests that when you are sick of sharing the vision, your leaders are probably just really hearing it. Then, when they are sick of hearing it, then everyone else has probably heard it for the first time. The mission never stops, and neither should we.