Co-Mission exists because our huge, diverse city desperately needs the good news of Jesus. We are all about reaching London with the gospel by planting churches for Christ.

At the heart of our network there’s a burning zeal to make Jesus known. We can’t persevere without this motivation. The task of bringing the gospel to London is simply too difficult and, at times, too discouraging without an underlying fervency to motivate us. We are, above all, a people with a driving passion for Christ’s glory and people’s salvation.

Paul himself knew the importance of fervency for church and ministry. This is why he wrote in Romans 12:11: ‘Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervour, serving the Lord.’

The word ‘zeal’ in this verse has a sense in the original of ‘boiling’. To have zeal is thus to fizzle and froth. It is to have uncontainable and overflowing passion and drive. However, strikingly, Paul tells us here not simply to be zealous, but not to lack zeal. Literally, he says to not be ‘lazy’ in our fervency. In other words, he doesn’t want us to have a laid-back, slothful passion. We need to be wary of an inactive spiritual conviction, where we know the right things and sense that we should act upon that, but actually do little. The same word for ‘lazy’ is used in the book of Proverbs to describe the ‘sluggard’:

‘I went past the field of a sluggard,

    past the vineyard of someone who has no sense; 

thorns had come up everywhere,

    the ground was covered with weeds,

    and the stone wall was in ruins.’ 

(Prov 24:30–31)

Proverbs gives us a sad picture, not of workers labouring in God’s harvest, but of sluggards neglecting the harvest. They are people without drive, energy or motivation. As a result, they gather only weeds and ruins.

By way of contrast, Paul calls us to a passion that bubbles over with a love for Christ and people. He won’t let us be, but prods and pokes us. He calls us to be zealously zealous and fervently fervent. He wants us to ‘boil in spirit’ for Christ. This raises our aspirations for our walk with Christ. It’s easy to take the foot off the pedal and ease into a comfortable Christianity. But let’s not be content to stay in the foothills; rather, let’s be prepared to move on up. Let’s make progress and live passionate lives for the one who has loved us so much.

Spiritual fervency will transform our lives and churches. It will drive us out in love, service and ministry. Of course, there are many good works that the Lord would have us do, and there are many ways we can serve him. However, the proclamation of the gospel of Christ has got to be right at the heart of Spirit-filled zeal. After all, this is what God the Father is zealous for: the honouring of his Son, Jesus, in the gospel. He loves his Son and makes his delight public (Luke 3:22). He wants us to do the same. Spirit-filled fervency will drive us to reach London and make our wonderful Saviour known.

Fervency is a kind of spiritual power, helping us overcome obstacles that we would not otherwise dare tackle. For example, we often don’t feel very gifted when it comes to sharing the gospel. We may not feel bold with our colleagues and friends. We may not have a natural skill in evangelism. (To be honest, I don’t think I do.) But shall we then all just back off from making Christ known? Well, no Christian can do that! Moreover, Spirit-filled zeal helps us in our struggle, because if we’re fervent, then we will care less about our gifting than the need to honour Christ. Zeal will drive us to live as if we almost were gifted evangelists – for the sake of the people around us. If that sounds strange, there’s scriptural warrant for this in 2 Timothy 4:5, where Paul tells Timothy to ‘do the work of an evangelist’. The work must be done whether or not we have the gifting. We have the gospel, and we know that this gospel is to be proclaimed in London. Passion for Jesus makes us live to make him known, regardless of gifting.

But what does it look like to live ‘like an evangelist’? For a start it means having a restless desire to see people born again. Secondly, it means wanting to spend a big proportion of our time with unbelievers, learning to understand them, wanting to persuade them, doing them good and being great friends. Thirdly, it means not being content just to see people gathered in church, but regularly thinking of all the people who aren’t there. Fourthly, it means a prayer life filled with requests for the salvation of unbelieving friends and family. Just think of who might be won if we could all do such godly living! In fact, London will be reached, in the main, by such unflashy, non-gifted evangelists (Acts 11:19–21).

Now, none of this is meant to be a counsel of perfection. Of course we as individuals, and our churches, all fall short of this. We leak zeal and our passion can be at a very low ebb. We know that we shy away regularly from what needs to be done. None of us are what we would like to be. We’re not heroes, and we don’t have this vision licked. Moreover, even as we talk about reaching London, some will find themselves in the middle of deep personal battles, struggles and sadnesses. it can be hard to think about reaching a city when just getting out of bed is hard enough.

So, then, is this vision of reaching London really possible? Can we be a zealously zealous people? Well, there is indeed hope. The pattern of Scripture, and church history, tells us that ordinary, underachieving, frail sinners who are saved by grace regularly get to do extraordinary things by the power of God (1 Cor 1:28–29). We look back at our historical heroes and think they walked six feet above ground, but they faced much weakness too. Their zeal leaked like us, and they also struggled to get out of bed just like us. God’s grace is abundantly enough for our shortcomings (2 Cor 9:8), his power is infinitely enough for our weakness (2 Tim 1:7) and his gospel cannot be chained (2 Tim 2:9).