The Early Church focused on the mandate of the Great commission as instructed by Christ but our present day churches have abandoned this mandate. The church should go back to the Acts of the apostles and do what the apostles did.

Missionary activities of the early church: A lesson for today's church.

The purpose of the early church was to carry out the mandate of the Great Commission as directed by our Lord Jesus Christ. The instruction to spread the gospel to all nations was given to the disciples in the books of Mathew, Mark, Luke, John and Acts of the Apostle. The .Holy Ghost came to inaugurate the church in the book of Acts chapter 2 and empowered the disciples to start the spread of the Gospel in Jerusalem and move to Judea, Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth.

Unfortunately, the disciples started in Jerusalem but could not take the Gospel beyond Jerusalem. I presume that the spirit of Babylon possessed them and they wanted to settle down in Jerusalem and build empire fashioned after Nimrod's tower of Babel. God then sent persecution to scatter them so that they can utilize the diverse tongues given to them on the day of Pentecost for outreach programs. Most of our churches are doing the same today by building empires at the expense of the mandate of "go ye"

"And Saul approved of their killing him. On that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria". (Acts 8:1NIV).

God allowed persecution to cause the disciples to obey the command of the Great Commission. The command is not optional, it is a must. Philip ran to Samaria and preached Christ crucified..Surprisingly, all the disciples were dispersed to preach the gospel while the apostles who received the mandate directly from Christ remained in Jerusalem. It is unfortunate that even today, "the big men of God" are reluctant to leave their comfort zones but the faceless, the nameless and the nobodies are veritable instruments in missionary work.

The church in Jerusalem was able to reach Judea, Samaria, Galilee, Joppa, Caesarea, Damascus, Phenice, Cyprus, Antioch, etc. with the gospel and love of Christ through the persecuted disciples who scattered abroad. The Antioch church which was planted by the Jerusalem church became more missional than the parent church. The church in Antioch was the most sensitive Biblical church as far as the mandate of the Great Commission was concerned.

"Now in the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul. While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off" (Acts 13:1-3 NIV)

The Gentile nations were evangelized by the Church in Antioch after Paul and Barnabas were separated by the Holy Ghost. It is important to note that the Holy Ghost was responsible for their separation and not man. The work of mission can only be done by the prompting and leading of the Holy Ghost and that was why Jesus told the disciples to wait until they were endued with power by the Holy Ghost. Unfortunately, many churches today have chased the Holy Ghost out from the church with clericalism and narcissism. We are too busy with programs that give us money and popularity that we are no longer interested in hearing when the Holy Ghost is speaking. This is the reason why missionaries are raised today only by few churches which are willing to hear from the Holy Ghost.

We need to borrow a leaf from the church in Antioch and become sensitive to the leading of the Holy Ghost. After Paul and Barnabas were separated, in their first missionary journey, they evangelized Seleucia, Cyprus, Salamis, Paphos, Perga in Pamphilia, Antioch in Pisidia, Iconium, Lystra and Derbe cities of Lyconia. Paul's missiological strategy was to take the route of cities where there were good populations of Jewish people. Paul and Barnabas deliberately opted to travel along the rugged Kestros Valley because of the hospitality of local Jewish communities.

Most present day churches have purposes which are completely different from the purpose of the early church. For us to get it right, we must redefine the purposes of our churches to suit the original Biblical purpose. In Nigeria, there are churches with purposes like "To raise shining stars", "To give life a value, "To raise queens and kings". "To make worshipers rich", "To set the captives free" etc. If purpose is not appropriately defined, abuse is inevitable. Ascribing a man-made purpose to a God-made church is responsible for most abuses in the Christian faith today. Christ has defined the purpose of His church, (Acts1:8 ) any contrary definition is a perversion orchestrated from the pit of Hell.

We should leverage the experience of the early church to harness and appropriate persecutions that are prevalent globally today for the purpose of fulfilling the mandate of The Great Commission. We have become too reluctant in our comfort zones and I sincerely suspect that God is allowing all these persecutions to push us out of our comfort zones in order for us to do the needful. As long as we continue to tarry in our Jerusalems, we should not expect anything less than what the early church experienced. The heathens are raging because they are gospel-starved, the only anti-dote to persecution is the preaching of the gospel.

When Paul was arrested by Christ, the church rested (Acts 9:31) Let us continue to advance the gospel until all persecutors are arrested if we desire both the universal and the local churches to operate in peace. A retrospective glance of how the church was modelled by the Holy Ghost in the book of Acts of the Apostle will give us ideas of how to mend our ways, redefine the purposes of our churches and pursue the original purpose of the church as conceptualized by Christ Himself.