Taking Ownership of the Great Commission - Prioritizing Missions in the Church by Aaron Menikoff & Harshit Singh Review and Reflection

How will they preach unless they are sent?

In Romans chapter 10, the Apostle Paul asks a series of rhetorical questions regarding how people get saved. People are justified by believing, but how can someone believe if they’ve never heard? And how can someone hear if there isn’t a preacher? And how can someone preach unless they are sent? 

Prioritizing Missions in the Local Church by Aaron Menikoff & Harshit Singh is a book about how your church (whether it is big, small, rich or poor) can participate in the global mission of making disciples of Jesus by helping to establish churches. Their heart is to see local churches take ownership of the Great commission and not see the work of sending as belonging primarily to parachurch organizations. 

This is a unique book because the two authors are operating in completely different contexts - one from Atlanta, Georgia, and the other from Lucknow, India. But as it relates to prioritizing missions in the church, the two have more in common than they lack.

I think what Menikoff & Singh do best is clarifying what leaders in local churches can do to make their churches missions-centered. They have a number of helpful plumb lines, like: “A faithful, ordinary church is God’s plan A for reaching the nations for Christ.”

Pastor, you might not take every single piece of advice that Menikoff & Singh offer in this book, but you will surely benefit from considering how your local church can embrace her role in the global mission of making disciples. 

Whether it is to begin reforming your church so it is governed by Scripture (and worthy of being reproduced somewhere else), or whether you are ready to lock arms with a fraternity of like-minded churches, there’s something for you in this book.