Ice Cream

Years ago when I first started working in IT at Safeway, we had a wonderful surprise in the office: Turtles flavored ice cream! I’d never tasted anything like it. And they were giving it out for free!

That’s one way the vendors would get their message out, by winning over the staff one by one. Hoping they would not only buy it but also tell their friends. The strategy worked on me. I told lots of people.

Gaining at least 0.1% of the total market share for ice cream would be considered a success. That is, imagine a new product being bought 1 in every 1,000 ice cream purchases. Canadians spend over $2B in ice cream every year, so that would be $2,000,000 in sales!

That approach works if you’re selling desserts. But it doesn’t work if you expect to change a whole system.

Business

At the same time as we were getting free ice cream (memorable, because it never happened again) we were rolling out software to the Canadian stores that would significantly change the work culture.

Like the ice cream manufacturer, we couldn’t just develop the software. We had to get the people to use it. So we worked with the retail management and training departments in each of the divisions, ensuring they liked what was coming and were able to get everyone using it effectively.

Unlike the ice cream experience, we would only be considered a success if 100% of the stores came on board. It might be encouraging for our development team to see even a few stores enjoying the software we made, but from a business perspective that would be a total, utter failure.

Evangelism

While working on this project I was also witnessing to the people on my team. I shared how wonderful God’s love is, and the difference He’s made in my life.. Of the 140 people at the office, three received the free gift of Jesus as their Savior: over 2%!

Looking back, I clearly used the ice cream approach. I was like a salesperson talking people into following Jesus, hoping a small percentage would respond. Not working with the authority of the King to change the whole culture.

Why was that? Well what else could I do? It’s not like Jesus is in charge and can require 100% of the people to follow him, right? Or is he?

The Great Commission

Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations.” (Mt 28:18-19)

Jesus, who’s totally in charge of the whole world, told us to bring all the nations under his authority. Probably he expects us to do that: call whole societies into obedience. He’s definitely not advocating the ice cream approach. He had his followers telling everyone that he was the new King (Lord, Christ, Messiah). It’s a Greater Commission than we thought.

• …proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel (Acts 9:15)
• In the past, he let all nations go their own way (Acts 14:16)
• In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent (Acts 17:30)

In Acts, the message of the gospel sparked arrests (Acts 4), warnings (Acts 5), political opposition (Acts 13), stonings (Acts 14), riots (Acts 19), and accusations of treason: “They are saying there is another king—Jesus” (Acts 17:7). It wasn’t because the apostles were offering personal peace. It was because they were declaring regime change.

The Church

The ice cream vendor just gave out free product, hoping for a few people to like it. The business project needed everyone on board, so they set up local training teams to carry out the implementation. The apostles set up churches for that. That’s why Paul could later say, “There is no more place for me to work in these regions” (Romans 15:23)

The Greek word for church, ekklesia, doesn’t mean a religious gathering. The synagogue (syn: together, agogue: bring) was a place to preserve identity and survive exile. The ekklesia (ekk: out, lesia: called) was a governing body called out of regular society to act on behalf of the king.

If we’re going to disciple all the nations, then we probably need to be done with the “free ice cream” personal salvation message and call people into the Kingdom of God.