Thesis
Drawing from Acts 11 and 13 and the example of the church at Antioch, Pastor Simon Medcroft argues that every local church — regardless of size or location — is called to three non-negotiable priorities: reaching out to unbelievers with the gospel through ordinary, everyday Christians; building up the congregation spiritually through consistent, faithful Bible teaching; and sending on both financial resources and gifted people to plant churches and meet needs elsewhere. These priorities, rooted in God's timeless purposes, are what it means for the church to function as a lifeboat rather than a cruise liner.
Key points
- 1
The church's mission, as seen in the Antioch church, is to reach, build, and send.
- 2
Ordinary, everyday believers — not just professional ministers — are called to reach out and speak about Jesus, even at personal cost.
- 3
The hand of the Lord is with every Christian who seeks to reach out and point people to Jesus, regardless of visible results.
- 4
The church builds up its people through faithful Bible teaching, which is God's ordained method of spiritual growth and transformation.
- 5
Grasping the grace of God — His generosity in sending His Son to die for us — is what frees the church to be sacrificially generous with money toward those in need.
- 6
The church is called to send its best people outward to start new churches, trusting that God's expansive purposes will not leave the sending church harmed.
- 7
God's consistent voice throughout Acts is a sending voice — calling His people to go, and the church is to see itself as a sending organization, not a grasping one.
Outline
Introduction: The Wrong End of the Stick
Pastor Simon opens with a humorous story about a family mistaking an elevator for a transformation machine, using it to illustrate how easily we can get confused about the true mission of the church. He surveys common but incomplete answers before stating the sermon's big idea: reach, build, send.
Priority 1 — Reach
From Acts 11:19–21, Simon shows how scattered, suffering believers reached Antioch and courageously spoke of Jesus to Jews and Gentiles alike. He illustrates with a personal story from his first night at university to argue that all ordinary Christians — not just professional communicators — are called to reach out.
Priority 2 — Build
From Acts 11:22–26, Simon traces how Barnabas and Saul spent a full year teaching the church in Antioch, and how that teaching produced believers so distinctively Christ-like they were called 'Christians.' He challenges the congregation to ask whether their non-Christian neighbors would describe them as followers of Jesus.
Priority 3 — Send (Money)
From Acts 11:27–30, Simon shows the Antioch church sending financial relief to believers in need hundreds of miles away, grounding their generosity in a grasp of God's grace. He thanks Rock Point for supporting Mission Exodus church planting in the UK and reports concrete fruit from that giving.
Priority 3 — Send (People)
From Acts 13:1–3, Simon shows the Spirit calling the church to send its two best leaders — Barnabas and Saul — to plant new churches. He acknowledges the painful cost of sending people and money, but argues that God's purposes can be trusted and that the gospel always flourishes when the church gives generously.
Conclusion: Lifeboat, Not Cruise Liner
Simon contrasts three images of the church — cruise liner, battleship, and lifeboat — arguing that Scripture calls the church to be a lifeboat: uncomfortable, outward-focused, and sacrificial. He closes with a cinematic vision of voices multiplying from Paul's house arrest all the way to Rock Point, and calls every listener to join God's mission to reach, build, and send.
Memorable moments
The mission of the church is to reach, build, and send
the hand of the lord will always be with any Christian as they seek to reach out and point people to Jesus
teaching is God's ordained method of spiritual growth
It is as we grasp the immense grace that we have been shown that we will begin to want to show that generosity to others too
if we see ourselves as sending organizations rather than grasping organizations, then we'll find ourselves caught up in God's exciting, ever expanding work in this world, and it will find it an immense privilege
the question I wanna leave you with is will you join those voices as they reach, build, send
Application
Pastor Simon's call is straightforward and personal: every believer — not just pastors or polished communicators — is part of the church's mission. That means plucking up the courage to speak about Jesus to the people already in your life, even when it feels awkward or costly. It means showing up regularly to sit under God's Word and letting the Spirit use it to make you more visibly like Jesus, so that your neighbors could actually describe you as a follower of Christ. And it means holding your money and your community loosely enough to give both away — to people you may never meet, to church plants in spiritually famished places — trusting that God's ways, though costly, can always be trusted. The church is a lifeboat, not a cruise liner, and there are still people in the water.
