march 2023 featured Article
Introducing Dr. Jeff Kephart
Dr. Jeff Kephart has served as the director of the East Central Region since 2013. As a regional director, he also serves as a member of the Ministry Leadership Council. Prior to his current appointment, Jeff ministered 25+ years at various Missionary Churches in Ohio. He has also served on the denominational Constitution Committee and the MCIF board of directors as well as a term as denominational secretary. Jeff earned a B.A. in Christian Education from Messiah College and M.Div. and D.Min. degrees from Ashland Theological Seminary. He and Donna have been married for 39 years and have three adult children.
directionally challenged
We all know someone who struggles to maintain a consistent sense of direction. All too often, these “directionally challenged” persons discover that where they confidently think they are going has little connection with where they actually arrive. That discovery is followed by considerable time (and sometimes gas money) spent getting back on track toward the desired destination.
Churches can also struggle with directional challenges. Consider the common understanding that the main direction of ministry focus and effort is “inward”— that the primary goal is convincing people to come to our church services and programs so they might engage the truth proclaimed there.
The applied force of such ministry endeavors is centripetal, seeking to draw people out of the world and into our gatherings. To that end, millions of dollars and countless hours are invested across thousands of churches each Sunday in the hope that a few more persons will come join us, while we do all possible to keep those already with us from wandering away.
If recent studies of American church trends are accurate, inward-focused efforts are seeing diminishing returns as churches struggle to maintain attendance. Meanwhile, unchurched people increasingly report they have no interest in coming to our organized gatherings, regardless of what we do to entice them.
A check of our spiritual GPS, the Bible, reveals that the primary direction and focus of our ministry efforts should be outward rather than inward. God’s heart is that our ministry efforts be centrifugal: equipping disciples to spread outward to engage people with the truth and love of God where they live, work, and play.
For instance, in Luke 15:4 Jesus tells us, “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?” Jesus doesn’t suggest we assemble at the edge of the fold and shout invitations in hopes that the lost sheep will hear and return, or that we improve the sheepfold to make it more appealing in an effort to woo wanderers. Instead, He highlights the need to go out to search for the lost.
Further, consider Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 9:37-38: “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into His harvest field.” As any farmer knows, the harvest is not gathered by standing at the door of the barn and inviting the grain to come into our dry, safe storage facility; we must first go out into the harvest field.
Jesus’ familiar words from Matthew 5:13-14 tell us, “You are the salt of the earth … You are the light of the world.” If God’s people are salt and light for a broken world, then certainly the church functions as a salt shaker more than a “salt collector” and a brightly beaming searchlight more than a “light storage facility.”
In Acts 1:8, Jesus tells his gathered followers, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Notice the centrifugal circles of expanding geographic impact as Jesus gives His parting statement.
In the next several chapters, we see the church birthed in Jerusalem, growing in Jerusalem, serving in Jerusalem, and making great impact in Jerusalem. Still, in Acts 8:1, we read: “On that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria.” It is as if we might hear Jesus saying, “I love you, but I said to move out!”
God’s heart is that all would be brought into His family, and that can only happen as our ministry and disciple-making efforts focus on facilitating outward relational engagement. We must flow out with the love, truth, and power of God before we can experience the gathering of the ever-growing harvest around us.
May God equip us — those the King has adopted as His blessed children — to be deployed as His sent ones, ambassadors going into the world to represent Him so that those “out there” might meet Him and share that blessing!