One of my favorite little tunes that I learned in Bible class as a kid is the Apostle’s Song. You know the one to help you remember the names of the apostles, right?

(To the tune of Jesus Loves Me)
Jesus called them one by one
Peter, Andrew, James and John
Next came Philip, Thomas too
Matthew and Bartholomew
James the one they called the less
Simon, also Thaddeus
The twelfth apostle Judas made
Jesus was by him betrayed
Yes, Jesus called them
Yes, Jesus called them
Yes, Jesus called them
And they all followed him

Now as an adult, I have a lot of new thoughts about that song and its implications on church life. Singing Oaks, like all healthy churches, reinvents its methods every so often to help keep itself on mission. We are a church that is all about seeking and saving the lost. That hasn’t changed. But the culture around us has changed rapidly, and our mission methods aren’t as fruitful as they once were.

As we participate in the Revive Mission going on in Denton and partner with other churches from different backgrounds, we have been pushed to think about our core mission and to ask ourselves some basic questions about our approach to helping people discover and work in the kingdom of God.

Jesus called them. He asked them to come and go with him. These are the people no one called to go on a mission, and these are definitely not the guys that the religious leaders were looking to start their renewal. But Jesus called them, and from the moment he met them they fit in with him. They belonged.

They then spent the next few years with him and it is obvious that although they had a small level of belief, it is clear from their actions that they didn’t fully find their faith in him until after his resurrection. It was finding this faith and fully believing that compelled them to function faithfully after he ascended.

As we seek to help people know Jesus, we should first expect to bring them in and show them they belong with us. We should love and let our love communicate for us. It is through that love that they will be compelled to believe and put on faith. And our constant prayer is that once people know that God loves them and that they belong here with us, that they will then begin to function faithfully for the kingdom. Their belonging drives their belief, and their belief will drive their behavior.