Churches & the Ends of the Earth
Is your church having an impact beyond your city? In 1900, Nobel Peace Prize winner John R. Mott wrote a booklet called: ‘The evangelization of the world in this generation’. It was a bold call to action – could Jesus’ mission to reach every tribe and tongue be completed by the people living on the earth at that time?
Mott’s generation has come and gone, and now the baton has been passed to us. It’s the tension that every local church should feel. We have our ‘Jerusalem’ that we focus on, but we need to keep an eye on ‘Judea, Samaria and the ends of the Earth.’ (Acts 1:8)
In my own church’s new members’ meeting, we tackle this head-on. As a local church, we get to reach our ‘Jerusalem’,we say, but through partnership with our global church family, Advance, we get to help reach ‘Judea, Samaria and the ends of the Earth.’
The New Testament Pattern
Partnership multiples impact. Have you ever considered what the best model for churches to partner together to do this is? Personally, it’s something I don’t want to leave to chance to get right. If Jesus has given us an approach in Scripture, then I want to back it – because I know there will be wisdom in doing that.
When I read the New Testament, I see churches planted and elders (in the plural) set in place by travelling teams of Ephesian 4 ministers (Eph. 4:11-13). In the Book of Acts, we see that Paul goes on mission, launches churches and then travels back to care for them.
Once the number of churches he looked after became too large, Paul sent delegates in his place, such as Titus,appointing elders on Crete (Titus 1:5), Timothy going to Corinth (1 Cor. 4:17) and Epaphroditus to the Philippians (Phil 2:25-30). Even when Paul wasn’t with those churches, we read that he was thinking about them and praying for them(2 Cor. 11:28, 1 Thes. 2:17, Phil. 1:3-11). Paul carried these churches in his heart and used his team to convey that care and concern to them when he couldn’t.
We see Paul’s heart for local churches in Acts 20. The mission calls Paul onwards, but such is his fatherly concern for the elders he has set in place in Ephesus that he asks them to journey 50 miles to the port at Miletus so he could say a tearful farewell to them and give them some final instructions. We see a similar parental heart with John when he writes to the churches he looked after in Asia Minor, referring to the believers as ‘my little children’ (1 John 2:1).
This is the apostolic model. Over time, this model evolved into something more static and pastoral. By the late second to early third century, most cities had churches led by elders that were then overseen by a city-wide overseer or bishop. It was these bishops who gathered to form the first councils: Nicea(325 AD), Constantinople (381 AD), Ephesus (431 AD), Chalcedon (451 AD), etc. The church was organised and busy fighting heresy, but it lost its early momentum.
The Apostolic Model Today
Picture churches led by plural eldership teams, maintaining local authority, yet influenced by experienced leaders who carry the heart for the broader mission. These leaders don’t dominate – they aren’t interested in wading into local church issues. Instead, they serve, equipping the church and encouraging it to stay missional. Local churches respond by getting caught up in this mission, releasing leaders and resources. Could the approach we see in Acts be meant as a blueprint for churches today?
Discrete, independent churches that voluntarily choose to be interdependent for the sake of mission.
You might think that this is simply a description of how many church networks operate. And I understand that because there are a lot of those around with genuine desires to see churches planted and strengthened and the mission of God continued.
But there’s a big difference. While these networks offer peer-level support, they typically lack the kind of fathering dynamic seen in Paul’s ministry—a relational authority rooted in mission, not structure. Many networks might describe themselves as offering a ‘brothering’ or fraternal connection. But the apostolic model goes beyond this.
While the apostolic model has these brothering relationships,it has, in addition, fathering relationships too. I understand that this sort of language can get into really dangerous territory really quickly. But just because something can go wrong it shouldn’t mean we avoid it together. The solution to misuse is not ‘no use’ but correct use (1 Thess. 2:11). And when I look at New Testament leaders like Paul and John, I am not referring to their unique role as Scripture writers, I am referring to their trans-local, Ephesians 4 role of caring for churches beyond their own. If the ascended Christ gave gifts to ‘build’ his body (Eph. 4:12), shouldn’t we, as local churches, make use of them?
Eldership teams can still be the final authority of governance in their local church but also receive fatherly input for the sake of mission. In my 20s, I grew up in this type of movement, which birthed the movement I am part of now.One of these leaders of this earlier movement wrote a book on what this should look like titling it simply: ‘Fathering Leaders, Motivating Mission.’
The Need for Fathering
When I talk to young planters, this is what they are desperate for – fathering. In its absence, this void is filled by coaching or mentorship. Or failing that, finding older leaders in church networks who can give a form of informal fathering-style input. While I know this helps, this isn’t the apostolic model we see in Acts. The danger is that mentorship or coachingwithout catching people up in a bigger missional urge can become more therapeutic rather than spurring the missiononward. To use the title of the book, leaders need fathering,but they also need motivation towards mission.
When our church faced a leadership transition, we invited a fathering leader from within our movement, Advance—someone with four decades of ministry experience, who had planted multiple times. He brought a sense of stability but alsokept the community on the bigger vision. Genuine apostolic leaders will always do that—it’s how God’s wired them.
It's people with big, let’s-do-this visions that have kept our church looking outward. In 2021, we planted out into a neighbouring suburb. In 2024, we sent a young family to the coast to start a church in the city of George. And in 2025, we sent a young family to plant north of us in a suburb called Edenvale.
If I am honest, if I had just become a pastor of a church that wasn’t part of this kind of movement, I am not sure our church would have taken some of those risks or borne some of those costs. But it had been helpfully imparted to us that we exist for something bigger than ourselves, that we have a part to play in the Great Commission that starts in Jerusalem, but finishes at the ends of the earth.
Why Apostolic Partnership Still Matters
Our church needs to be part of something bigger. I need to be part of something bigger. And for me, it needs to be more than a brother-to-brother connection. We need experienced fathers in the faith, who have been there, done it and made the mistakes along the way to mentor us, assist us - and exhort usto look beyond our city.
That’s the goal of the apostolic movement or apostolic family of churches. It has its flaws, like anything else. But since I came across this at university, I haven’t looked back. It’s the model I hoped for. It’s what I see in Scripture. And when it’sworking well, it feels like we are back in the days of the early New Testament church - churches multiplied, leaders released, and the gospel advancing to the ends of the Earth.
In that kind of environment, rallying cries like Mott’s don’t feel idealistic. They feel necessary.
The evangelisation of the world in this generation? Let’s do it!
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