Plant 616 Forum October 2025

Plant 616 exists to connect, equip and catalyze for the mission of the church in the 616.

Join the conversation at the Plant 616 Forum!

Every second Wednesday we set the table for encouragement, learning and inspiration. If you long to see the Gospel spread, the church of the 616 re-energized, and the city-wide church to link arms for our common mission then we would love to have you join us to eat, pray, learn, and dream together. Our gatherings are filled with a diverse group of pastors, everday disicples, marketplace leaders, and non-profit leaders. You are invtied!

11:30-1:30 lunch included.

This months Forum is hosted by Buck Creek Community Church (3746 Byron Center Ave)

Join us as Michael T. Cooper (Ph.D. Trinity Evangelical Divinity School), friend to Plant 616 and our favorite Ephesiologist stretches our thinking on the Great Commission.

October Topic: Do Not Make Disciples: Moving from an Obligatory to Organic Understanding of “the Great Expectation”

The traditional rendering of Jesus’s final instruction in Matthew 28:19–20—“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations” has too often been interpreted through the lens of modern missionary paradigms that emphasize quantifiable results. The translation “make disciples" has reinforced a mechanistic and programmatic approach, placing an undue burden on churches and individuals to produce measurable outcomes. A more careful reading of the Greek text reveals a different emphasis. The word often translated as “go” in this passage actually means something closer to “as you are going.”

This linguistic precision reframes Jesus’s final instruction not as a command to manufacture disciples but as a call to participate in the Spirit’s transformative work. Such a shift from commission-giving to permission-giving invites a reorientation of missiology, ecclesiology, and spiritual formation. Rather than programs or metrics, discipleship is rooted in relationality, community, and Spirit-empowered witness, echoing the organic patterns of the early ekklēsia and liberating the church for authentic participation in God’s mission.

Michael T. Cooper (PhD, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) is Missiologist in Residence with East-West and directs theological education initiatives through Ephesiology Master Classes and Kairos University. He has more than thirty years of global ministry and teaching experience, with research focused on archaeology, missiology, movements, and the intersection of theology and culture. He is the author of Ephesiology: A Study of the Ephesian Movement (2020), First Christian Voices (2023), and Mind the Gap (2026).

Host or Publisher Plant 616