Not too long ago I spoke in a congregation where the senior pastor, following my message, had a special time of prayer for my wife, LaVina, and me. He knew something of the scope of HGM's calling. He knew that God has given us the vision of training 600 new missionaries to go to the unreached peoples of the world. I so much appreciated his and the peoples' fervent prayer for us and this ministry. Then he said something quite interesting. He said, "If you never send another missionary or never train another missionary to go, you and your organization will have served a valuable service to the Church by just calling us back to the truth of what the Church is to be about: the Great Commandment and the Great Commission."

Well, I appreciated this commendation, and indeed that is what we are doing in our public preaching, Heart of God Seminars, Perspectives classes, Revival Fire Seminars, and through our publications, etc. But . . . we know God has raised us up to do more than sound notes of truth. He has called us to especially call the Church out of its apostasy to return to being apostolic. When God brought these words to me some weeks ago, frankly it kind of shocked me. I had never thought about how the two words had similar roots in the Greek. That started me on a search. I discovered that apostasy means defection, to revolt, to abandon or fall away from what was once believed. I must be honest and say that this is where much of the Church in North America is today. To be apostolic is to be committed to sending out missionaries, persons commissioned to preach the Gospel of Jesus to those who have not heard it. In fact, many churches are sending out fewer now than in former years, though their membership numbers have increased. Some have nearly abandoned missions, opting for a commitment to only "bloom where they are planted." This shouldn't be, especially when there are still 10,000 people groups who have no effective Gospel witness in their midst. This shouldn't be when we have received marching orders from the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He has not taken the "Go" out of the Gospel.

What is wrong? We are apostate! We have abandoned and fallen away from the commands of Jesus. When a church gives 10% of its income to missions, we applaud and give them a certificate. Somehow I don't think God is applauding. As long as we are content with tokenism in the Church, Jesus' Great Commission won't get done and the lost won't know of Jesus. This is especially important when we see today openings for the Gospel like we have not seen in my lifetime. God's Holy Spirit is moving across the face of the world, and entire peoples are coming to Christ in waves. His Kingdom is marching on while much of the Church in North America has become content with tokenism instead of radical obedience to Christ with fervent love.

Another connection I discovered as I studied the Greek roots of these two words is that when you omit a letter or letters from a word, in English grammar we note this with an apostrophe. The Lord showed me that His Church today is filled with so many apostrophes that it is hard to tell the meaning of the message. It is possible to omit what must never be cut out and substitute in its place things that do not have kingdom value. Do we have a Great Omission instead of the Great Commission?

I believe with all my heart that today God is calling His Church back to being apostolic. I believe that He is calling us to forsake a lot of good things for the central issues that must never change. He has commissioned His Church to go into all the world. Is He calling you to go? Is He calling your church to become truly apostolic? Here at HGM we're called to help you and your church. God has raised us up for this purpose of teaching the centrality of the Great Commission and training a new host of missionaries to go into the harvest field. Indeed it is white unto harvest, but the laborers are still few. On this we can't be neutral. We will either be apostate, full of apostrophes or truly apostolic. You must choose where you will be.