The Vision of LBC

by Pastor Patrick Cho

This past Sunday at our Vision Quest, we had a chance to examine more closely the Vision Statement of LBC. This is the “V” of our MVP Statement, which stands for Mission, Vision, and Passion. As our members know, the Vision of LBC is to plant churches. Church planting has been a goal at Lighthouse since we first began in 1998.

Although Acts 1:8 does not specifically mention church planting, it does lay out the outline for the remainder of the book of Acts (in which numerous churches were planted!) and the scope of the Great Commission itself. Christ’s commission is given in Matthew 28:19-20 where Jesus commanded His followers to make disciples of all the nations. This entailed bringing them to an understanding of the gospel and to a point of saving faith (i.e. baptizing them), and teaching them so that they could grow in spiritual maturity (i.e. “teaching them all that I have commanded”).

According to Acts 1:8, Jesus intended this discipleship ministry to extend to the ends of the earth. As you read through Acts, you see the disciples spreading the word of the gospel in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.  As others who have written significantly on the subject of missions have pointed out (John Piper and Dave Doran come to mind), these three areas represent a natural progression from local to cross-cultural missions:

  1. Jerusalem – The central city of those who were initially given the Great Commission. This would be analogous to the city of San Diego for us.
  2. Judea and Samaria – The region in which Israel was located which shared a common language and cultural history.  This does not mean however, that there were not significant points of disagreement among people in this region. (John 4:9, 20) This would be something like North America for us today (which by-and-large shares a common language and culture).
  3. The Ends of the Earth – Exactly what it sounds like; this is taking the Gospel to the Gentiles, which is the central theme in the ministry of Paul. (Rom 11:13; 1 Tim 2:7)  This involved people, cultures, and languages that were utterly foreign to first-century Jews.  To us today, this would be going somewhere with a different race, culture, and/or language.

You also come to find that the primary vehicle that God uses to fulfill the Great Commission is the church. The Apostles establish churches in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth, and they do not see their work completed until elders are appointed in every church (Acts 14:23; cf. Titus 1:5). This is why at Lighthouse we teach that doing missions God’s way means being committed to church planting.  And it also takes some of the mystery out of missions, especially for those who have never gone on a missions trip before.  As Pastor John was fond of saying, “missions is just doing church somewhere else.”

This past July, we were able to send a team to San Jose to begin a Lighthouse church plant in Northern California. This certainly does not mean that we are done with church planting! Perhaps someday soon, Lord-willing, we will be able to announce the beginnings of a new work elsewhere. We do not want to simply check off our church planting box now that the ministry is established in San Jose. Our hope is to plant many more churches in obedience to the Great Commission.