Scattered Servants

Unleashing the Church to Bring Life to the City

Alan Scott

• Publisher: David C Cook
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780830775866
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

Alan Scott, a leader in the Vineyard Movement, draws upon his years of experience to share inspiring stories of cities transformed by scattered servants. He shares practical ways for church leaders to move beyond the building walls and take the kingdom to those who need it most. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, Scott argues that every believer, not just the leaders, can fill their city, workplace, and family with the beauty and power of Christ. When believers become scattered servants, the Holy Spirit will equip them to advance the kingdom and change lives through their hearts and hands.

Chapter 1

The Spirit Rests Upon the Servants

As Danny shared his frustration, I knew it would be a recurring conversation. He loved his church, he loved the relevancy of the teaching, and he loved the accessible environment. But he missed a sense of potency in his own life. Sunday morning gatherings helped him understand his life, but they didn’t empower him to bring life to others. Danny wanted more. He wanted to see God’s kingdom advance through his heart and hands. He wanted to lead people to faith in the office, not just invite them to church.

A similar conversation happened with Kim, and I knew it too would be a recurring theme. She loved her church. She loved the freedom, the sense of intimacy during worship, and the vision of empowered community. Sunday morning gatherings provided great environments for expression and equipping. But she couldn’t imagine bringing her friends and family. She desperately wanted to see salvation—people coming to Jesus. Lots of them.

Danny and Kim both wondered, What if?

What if believers didn’t have to choose between churches that emphasized “seeker sensitive” or “supernaturally empowered”?

What if gathered environments were marked by God’s presence and scattered servants were empowered by His Spirit?

What if it was normal for people to come to faith in the building?

What if it was normal for miracles to happen beyond the building?

What if our services attracted the lost and empowered the found?

Whenever those “what-if” questions surface in conversation with leaders, I usually begin my response with the same sentence (paraphrasing pastor Erwin McManus): “It’s not difficult to reach the community. It’s just really hard to change the church.” Our cities are longing for life. But to reach them, we have to reposition our churches.

It’s not hard to have people come to faith in our services. But the call is to go.

It’s not especially hard to grow a church. Yet church growth should not be the highest goal.

It’s not hard to make disciples. But the call is to make disciples who change cities.

It’s not difficult to raise up impressive structures. But the call is to raise sons and daughters who will serve the King of Kings.

It’s not especially challenging to create irresistible gathered environments. But the call is to release unstoppable, impassioned scattered servants.

Let me introduce you to a scattered servant named Ben. He was visiting a family in our church when he noticed a group of young men drinking beer. He sensed the Holy Spirit prompt him to talk to them. Locking eyes with the guy who appeared to be the leader of this bunch, Ben declared, “You are drinking because you split from your girlfriend two days ago. Is that correct?”

The man’s eyes widened suddenly, and he nodded in assent.

“Jesus sent me with a message for you,” Ben said. “He told me that you are just like me. You gave up rugby a few months ago due to an ACL injury, and you have been grieving because you can’t play anymore.” Then Ben lifted his trouser leg to reveal the surgical scar from his own ACL damage.

By now the young man and his friends were in shock.

“You are also like me,” Ben continued, “because your dad is a minister and my dad is a minister. Is that right?”

The man nodded, his mouth hanging open.

“I would like to pray with you,” Ben said. And he did.

I’ll tell you about another scattered servant named Nick. He was out shopping with his wife when he sensed God prompt him to approach two young women. Unsure how to start a conversation, Nick waited for God to reveal Himself. Then he said to one of the women, “I think you have a tattoo on your arm.” The lady laughed. After all, it’s not uncommon for people to have tattoos on their arms, and Nick’s pronouncement hardly represented spectacular insight.

Undaunted, Nick continued: “Your tattoo is a name. It’s the name of your daughter. You lost her.” Unable to retain her composure any longer, the woman began weeping and soon poured out her story of loss. After talking with Nick for a long while, she opened her life to Christ.

Now, imagine a church with everyone leading the community into life through the empowering of the Holy Spirit. A church with everyone reaching the “unreachable.” A church with everyone risking to do the “impossible.” A church with everyone giving everything to help people say yes to God.

Although I have the privilege of leading this kind of church, it hasn’t always been that way. It took a long time to learn that God is doing more beyond the church than He is in church.

God’s Work beyond Church Walls

In the spring of 2006, a tourist from the South of Ireland came to our church in Coleraine, on the northern coast. The woman told our prayer team that, while giving birth, she had been given an epidural injection for pain relief. Usually a safe procedure, in this case it had left the young mother paralyzed below the waist.

Moved with compassion, the team prayed earnestly and confidently. Still, there seemed to be no substantial change. They told her that healing can occur in three ways: sometimes people are healed instantaneously, other times they are healed gradually over a long period of time, and occasionally they are healed soon after they leave a service or prayer meeting.

A few days later, as this woman traveled back to her home in Southern Ireland, she felt a sensation in her legs. She urgently told her husband, who was driving their car, “Pull over! Something’s happening!” A few moments later, the woman got out of the car and started walking. And then running. Her paralysis had been healed. She was free to run toward a different future than she had imagined could be possible.

News of this woman’s miraculous transformation reached us when friends of hers came to Coleraine to be prayed for by the team. It seemed her story was creating a stir in her town. Later that spring as I reflected on her story, I began to feel strangely uncomfortable.

What if her story was God’s way of enlarging our church’s vision and heart for the South of Ireland? What if God was waiting to do more in her town? What if we took a team to her town and simply showed up? What if there was a movement hidden inside a moment? What if God’s initial invitation to go after the lost extended beyond our borders and our area? And yet what if we went there and nothing happened? Or worse yet, what if the Catholic community perceived us as being typical Protestants trying to convert them?

There were so many questions swirling in our minds. But we sensed the Lord’s leading. We had to go. So on one unforgettable day—June 17, 2006—we set out.

Within ten minutes of erecting a banner that read “HEALING,” we were praying for people. About an hour later, a woman who suffered with diabetes causing partial blindness asked if we would pray for her. We had never seen anyone healed of blindness, but as we prayed and her family watched, her sight was restored.

Suddenly, it seemed that everyone wanted prayer. The woman just healed brought her eight-year-old son, whose leg was misshapen. As a result, the boy walked with a pronounced limp. One member of our team prayed, and immediately the leg was healed. Moments later, the boy’s uncle arrived complaining of a burning sensation in his lungs that made breathing difficult. He was clearly in pain. We invited him to take a seat while the team prayed. Someone commanded the pain to go and the lungs to open. He experienced instant healing.

We found ourselves in the center of the city and in the middle of a move of God.

After many more healings, the woman whose sight was restored asked if we would go to her mother’s home. A few of our team members went. They described the scene as similar to the story of the healing of the paralytic in the New Testament (Luke 5). The people there had contacted their extended family, with so many arriving that there was barely any room in the house. Our team prayed for one little boy bent over due to severe scoliosis. As they prayed, his spine straightened. Faith in God’s power permeated the room, and many other people were healed of various conditions and ailments.

As wonderful as the healings were, what gripped my heart most were the words of the mother. She was a Catholic woman, the matriarch of her family. She told us that at seven o’clock that morning (the exact time we left our town to journey toward hers), she knelt at her bedside and asked God to send someone to help her family that day. God heard her cry, and in His great mercy healed her two grandsons, her son, her two daughters, and several other family members.

We were privileged to participate in God’s restorative power that day. The long journey home gave me time to reflect, and one thought dominated my mind: What would have happened to that family had we not shown up? What if we had stayed home in our comfortable, familiar environments? I already knew the answer.

From Gathered Environments to Scattered Servants

It’s hard to reach a city when we stay in the building and when our ministry models revolve around expanding our services. Gathered environments grow churches; scattered servants reach cities. When I use the term scattered servants, I mean a move...