spiritual fathers

Os Guinness quotes a Japanese businessman who said, "Whenever I meet a Buddhist leader, I meet a holy man. Whenever I meet a Christian leader, I meet a manager."

Today's message was from 1 Co 4.14-21 ...

What fathers do for those they father ...

• Lead to Christ (as opposed to simply point)
• Take responsibility for growth (as opposed to simply guide)
• Live worthy of imitation, i.e., exemplary in holiness & repentance (1 Tim 3.1ff)
• Provide discipline (v. 21); an authoritative love to enforce (reinforce) the standard, order, stability, ...

preaching

John Bright in The Kingdom of God:

The gospel according to Mark begins the story of Jesus' ministry with these significant words: "Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe in the gospel" (1:14-15). Mark thus makes it plain that the burden of Jesus' preaching was to announce the Kingdom of God; that was the central thing with which he was concerned. A reading of the teachings of Jesus as they are found in the gospels only serves to bear this statement out. Everywhere the Kingdom of God was on his lips, and it is always a matter of desperate importance.

Preaching - it is foundational. My only addition to the excellent words of Timothy George (below) is to remember not only was Jesus sent to proclaim the Kingdom of God (as George mentions in Lk 4.43-44a) but that's also what He spoke of during His 40 days here after the resurrection (Acts 1.3).

At the heart of the Christian faith is a Savior who was a preacher. “And Jesus came preaching” (Mark 1:14). This stands in contrast to the gods of Olympus or the deities of the Roman pantheon whose interaction with mortals, when it happened at all, was transient, ephemeral, detached, like a circle touching a tangent. Zeus thundered, but he did not preach. Nor did the dying and rising savior gods of the mystery religions. There were ablutions and incantations and the babbling utterances of the Sibylline Oracles but nothing that could rightly be called a sermon.

But when the divine Logos was made flesh (egeneto sarx, John 1:14), he embraced the full range of human pathos and human discourse: Jesus wept, and Jesus preached. Jesus declared that the very purpose of his mission on earth was to preach: “‘I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.’ And he kept on preaching. . . .” (Luke 4:43-44a).

The old liberal construal of this text was to say that Jesus came preaching the kingdom and what we got was the church. But that way of putting it is to deny the coinherence of the kingdom and the King, a title ascribed to Jesus Christ at several places in the New Testament (see John 12:15, 18:37; 1 Tim. 6:13-16; Rev. 17:14, 19:16).

In the Gospels, Jesus not only proclaimed the kingdom—he was the bearer and the inaugurator of it. This was seen both in what he said—his claim of a unique filial relationship with the heavenly Father (Matt. 11:25-30; John 10:30, 14:11)—and in what he did. He despoiled the reign of Satan through the exorcising of demons, he offered forgiveness to sinners and celebrated the eschatological banquet with them, and he asserted divine moral authority in many ways including the striking “but I say unto you” sayings of the Sermon on the Mount. Thus from the beginning, the content of early Christian preaching was neither a new philosophical worldview nor a code of ethics to improve human behavior, but rather Jesus Christ himself: Jesus remembered in his words and deeds, Jesus crucified, buried, and risen from the dead, and Jesus yet to come again in glory—all of which is included in that earliest of Christian confessions, “Jesus is Lord!”

Next to Jesus, the two greatest exemplars of preaching in the New Testament are John the Baptist and St. Paul. John the Baptist is a liminal prophet who stands at the threshold of the two testaments. In the imagination of the church, John is the one who is always pointing toward Jesus Christ: “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).

This is how Matthias Grünewald presented John in his famous painting of the Isenheim Altarpiece (a copy of which hung above the desk of Karl Barth in his study in Basel). John is standing on one side of the cross with an open book in one hand while he points with the long, bony finger of his other hand at the torturous visage of Jesus on the cross. Of course, we know that John the Baptist had long been dead by the time of Jesus’s crucifixion, beheaded by Herod Antipas. But in the sanctified imagination of Grünewald, he is called back from the dead to make one last appearance in salvation history with the same message he had once delivered during his life on earth. It was a message of negation.

Now this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?”

He confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, “I am not the Christ.”

And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?”

He said, “I am not.”

“Are you the Prophet?”

And he answered, “No.” (John 1:19-21)

In Grünewald’s painting, in faded red letters in the background, are these words from John 3:30, “He must become greater; I must become less.” From first to last, John the Baptist has a referential ministry and thus serves as a controlling model for Christian proclamation in the early church.

Though Paul became an apostle through his encounter with the risen Christ, we might well reach into the future and drag him back to stand with John the Baptist under the cross, for his own preaching is no less Christologically ordered than that of John. To the Corinthians he wrote, “For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord” (2 Cor. 5:5). Although we know Paul primarily from his letters in the New Testament, he was not called to be a letter writer but rather a preacher of the Gospel, especially to the Gentiles.

I recall Krister Stendahl, one of my former New Testament professors, saying to us that the apostle Paul would have been quite surprised to discover that a few postcards he had dashed off during his missionary travels had made it into the New Testament! Well, Romans is hardly a postcard, and we should not forget that the reading aloud of Paul’s letters in the early Christian communities was itself a form of preaching. But Stendahl’s point still stands: Paul was not a litterateur. He was a preacher who proclaimed the Gospel of Jesus Christ with what the New Testament calls parrhesia, unusual boldness, fearlessness. Paul knew that God had chosen to use the “folly” of preaching to save those who believed, and so, as he wrote to the Corinthians, he was determined “to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2).

With Paul’s words ringing in their ears, early Christian proclaimers fanned out across the Roman Empire to engage in what Ephrem the Syrian called “the sweet preaching of the cross.” In doing so, preachers of the early church were not merely expressing their personal opinions or providing entertainment to their listeners. No, they were in the vanguard of the militia Christi, the army of Jesus that sheds no blood. Their preaching propelled redemptive history forward toward the consummation of all things. This is certainly how Matthew 24:14 has been understood, from the age of the apostles right through the dawn of the modern ecumenical movement: “And this Gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”

The promise still stands and the task yet remains, for God ever renews his church through new forms of preaching—the martyrs, the monks, the mendicants, the missionaries, the reformers, the awakeners, the pastors and the teachers. Where such proclamation is faithful to the living and written Word of God and enlivened by the Spirit, it is an effective means of grace and a sure sign of the true church.

thinking missionally

Great bit of wisdom by Robby McAlpine on thinking missionally

These book covers are representative of dozens, hundreds — nay, perhaps multitudes — of books that all basically point to the same thing: Christians need to engage our culture.

For example:

1. How To Give Away Your Faith, by Paul Little, written in 1966
2. Brethren, Hang Loose, by Robert Girard, written in 1972
3. Out of the Saltshaker, by Becky Pippert, written in 1979
4. Lifestyle Evangelism, by Joe Aldrich, written in 1981
5. Power Evangelism, by John Wimber, written in 1985
6. Becoming a Contagious Christian, by Bill Hybels, written in 1996
7. The Celtic Way of Evangelism, by G.G. Hunter, written in 2000
8. Missional: Joining God in the Neighborhood, by Alan Roxburgh, written in 2011

Yes, of course, the methodologies advocated by each of these authors varies widely. Bob Girard was all for destructuring church down to house groups; Joe Aldrich advocated a friendship evangelism approach; John Wimber encouraged people to combine “proclamation and demonstration” via the use of spiritual gifts; Bill Hybels is the guru of the seeker-sensitive attractional model; Alan Roxburgh is one of many voices advocating the most recent “missionary to your own neighbourhood” approach.

And here’s the inconvenient truth: all of these methods have, and continue to, bear fruit.

Not perfectly, to be sure. Not entirely in a “one size fits every church or denomination or city or local neighbourhood” manner. But if we take an unfiltered look (ie. without wearing jaundice-coloured glasses or our-way-is-better blinders), we should be able to concede that God hasn’t exactly been handcuffed, waiting until we finally get our methodology just right.

One of the most helpful additions from the recent emphasis on being missional has been the focus on “what is God already doing in your neighbourhood”? (Similar approach to Joe Aldrich’s question: “What’s in your toolbox already?”, only from a different starting point.) Jesus once said, “My Father is always working” (John 5:17), and as the example of Peter being sent to Cornelius’ house as a result of Cornelius’ prayers (Acts 10:30-33) demonstrates, God is constantly on the move, and we get to participate with Him.

The focus on discerning what God is already up to in our cities and neighbourhoods is a good one; no doubt about that. But sometimes — and I’d like to quickly point out that it’s probably unintentional — there seems to be an unspoken assumption that everything that current churches have done and are doing, is ineffective. Perhaps even counter-productive.

Or at the very least, kinda lame and out-of-date.

So here’s my missional plea:

If we believe that it’s possible for us to discern how God is already at work outside of our churches, and therefore we can learn how to cooperate with what His Spirit is up to, why shouldn’t we equally expect that God is already still at work inside our churches, and seek to wed the two.

Look again at the publication years from the small sampling of books at the top of this post. In the five decades that I’ve been alive and on Planet Earth – without exception – books have been and are being written to encourage Christians to be culturally engaged as apostolos (sent ones) of Jesus Christ.

Missional is no more the “magic silver bullet” than seeker-sensitive or power evangelism. We don’t need to poo-poo one approach to bolster the validity of another. If we’re wise, we’ll learn from many streams and — with the guidance of a Holy Spirit who is far more invested in this project that we could ever be — craft something that fits our church, our neighbourhood, and our city.

Two quotes to ponder and apply, from the old boys’ club:

“Take the best, and go.” (John Wimber)

“I prefer my way of doing it, to your way of not doing it.” (D.L. Moody)

new ideas

When hearing new ideas, take great care. Do not be closed - no one has fully considered all that should be considered. But take great care.

"Really great moral teachers never do introduce new moralities: it is quacks and cranks who do that." - C. S. Lewis

defending the seeker church

David Rudd has an uncanny ability to find good and right in places where most of us see nothing but error and failure. I hope he doesn't mind my reposting of his recent pearl, In Defense of the Seeker Church Movement. This is not an invitation for anyone to pile on with all that is wrong with the movement, it's an invitation to benefit from some positive, and I think Biblical, insight.

1 Corinthians 14:20-26 is about tongues and prophesy. It's part of Paul's exhortation to do things decently and in order when the church gathers. His argument in these specific verses revolves around whether tongues and prophesy are for believers and unbelievers; and to make his point he quotes an old testament passage.

This topic is difficult and complicated. The context into which Paul was writing was unique and means we cannot make an exact transfer of Paul's instructions from Corinth to now.

However... I think there is a secondary principle in Paul's words that is at least worth a mention.

As I read these instructions, I notice three assumptions Paul has about the Corinthian worship gatherings. These assumptions seem to be somewhat universal in nature, and therefore are worth noting:

1. Nonbelievers were present at the worship gatherings and this was expected.

2. The presence of the nonbelievers at the worship gatherings warranted the Corinthian's attention and in Paul's opinion should have impacted what happened at the gatherings.

3. The salvation of the nonbelievers because of what happened at the worship gatherings was a desired outcome.

In the past few decades of the American church, much has been said (good and bad) about the "seeker" movement. I am one who prefers to change bathwater without changing babies, so I would suggest there is some good in the seeker movement, but as in any movement, there are always elements to be reformed.

From these short verses in 1 Corinthians, I think we can develop a basic understanding of some Biblical principles which encourage a seeker-type church:

1. We should expect and encourage nonbelievers to join us in worship.

2. We should give consideration to the presence of nonbelievers when planning our worship gatherings.

3. One important outcome of our worship gatherings should be the salvation of nonbelievers. 

What could be better than seeing people who were once at odds with God worshiping Him and declaring that "He is really among you!"

expository preaching

“One great reason why many ministers find expository preaching difficult is, that they have not been sufficiently accustomed to study the Bible” (Broadus, Preparation and Delivery, p. 308).

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creating community

I find the following to be true:

The biggest problem people have in searching for community is just that. You don't find community; you create it through love. Look how this transforms the way you enter a room full of strangers. Our instinctive thought is, "Who do I know? Who am I comfortable with?" There's nothing wrong with those questions, but the Jesus questions that create communities are, "Who can I love? Who is left out?" 

Here are two different formulas for community formation: 

1. Search for community where I am loved: become disappointed with community

2. Show hesed love: create community

--Paul Miller, A Loving Life: In a World of Broken Relationships

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a post on niceness

Matt Walsh posts the below brilliant piece - Jesus didn't care about being nice or tolerant, and neither should you.

There is no shortage of heresies these days.

If you want to adopt some blasphemous, perverted, fun house mirror reflection of Christianity, you will find a veritable buffet of options. You can sift through all the variants and build your own little pet version of the Faith. It’s Ice Cream Social Christianity: make your own sundae! (Or Sunday, as it were.)

And, of all the heretical choices, probably the most common — and possibly the most damaging — is what I’ve come to call the Nice Doctrine.

The propagators of the Nice Doctrine can be seen and heard from anytime any Christian takes any bold stance on any cultural issue, or uses harsh language of any kind, or condemns any sinful act, or fights against evil with any force or conviction at all. As soon as he or she stands and says ‘This is wrong, and I will not compromise,’ the heretics swoop in with their trusty mantras.

They insist that Jesus was a nice man, and that He never would have done anything to upset people. They say that He came down from Heaven to preach tolerance and acceptance, and He wouldn’t have used words that might lead to hurt feelings. They confidently sermonize about a meek and mild Messiah who was born into this Earthly realm on a mission to spark a constructive dialogue.

The believers in Nice Jesus are usually ignorant of Scripture, but they do know that He was ‘friends with prostitutes,’ and once said something about how, like, we shouldn’t get too ticked off about stuff, or whatever. In their minds, he’s essentially a supernatural Cheech Marin.

Read the comments under my previous post about gay rights militants, and you’ll see this heresy illustrated.

That post prompted an especially noteworthy email from someone concerned that I’m not being ‘Christlike,’ because I ‘call people names.’ He said, in part:

“You aren’t spreading Christianity when you talk like that. The whole message of Jesus was that we should be nice to people because we want them to be nice to us. That’s how we can all be happy. Period. It’s that simple.”

Be nice to me, I’ll be nice to you, and we’ll all be happy. This is the ‘whole message’ of Christianity?

Really?

Jesus Christ preached a Truth no deeper or more complex than a slogan on a poster in a Kindergarten classroom?

Really?

A provocative claim, to say the least. I decided to investigate the matter, and sure enough, I found this excerpt from the Sermon on the Mount:

“We’re best friends like friends should be. With a great big hug, and a kiss from me to you, won’t you say you love me too?”

Actually, wait, sorry, that’s from the original Barney theme song.

God help us. We’ve turned the Son of God into a purple dinosaur puppet.

There’s no way to be certain, but most theologians believe that, despite popular perception, Christ looked nothing like this.

I don’t recognize this Jesus.

This moderate. This pacifist. This nice guy.

He’s not the Jesus I read about in the Bible. I read of a strong, manly, stern, and bold Savior. Compassionate, yes. Forgiving, of course. Loving, always loving. But not particularly nice.

He condemned. He denounced. He caused trouble. He disrupted the established order.

On one occasion — or at least one recorded occasion — He used violence. This Jesus saw the money changers in the temple and how did He respond? He wasn’t polite about it. I’d even say He was downright intolerant. He fashioned a whip (this is what the lawyers would call ‘premeditation’) and physically drove the merchants away. He turned over tables and shouted. He caused a scene. [John 2:15]

Assault with a deadly weapon. Vandalism. Disturbing the peace. Worse still, intolerance.

In two words: not nice.

Not nice at all.

Can you imagine how some moderate, pious, ‘nice’ Christians of today would react to that spectacle in the Temple? Can you envision the proponents of the Nice Doctrine, with their wagging fingers and their passive aggressive sighs? I’m sure they’d send Jesus a patronizing email, perhaps leave a disapproving comment under the news article about the incident, reminding Jesus that Jesus would never do what Jesus just did.

Personally, I’ve studied the New Testament and found not a single instance of Christ calling for a ‘dialogue’ with evil or seeking the middle ground on an issue. I see an absolutist, unafraid of confrontation. I see a man who did not waver or give credence to the other side. I see someone who never once avoided a dispute by saying that He’ll just ‘agree to disagree.’

I see a Christ who calls the Scribes and Pharisees snakes and vipers. He labels them murderers and blind guides, and ridicules them publicly [Matthew 23:33]. He undermines their authority. He insults them. He castigates them. He’s not very nice to them.

Jesus rebukes and condemns. In Matthew 18, He utilizes morbid and violent imagery, saying that it would be better to drown in the sea with a stone around your neck than to harm a child. Had our modern politicians been around two thousand years ago, I’m sure they’d go on the cable news shows and shake their heads and insist that there’s ‘no place for that kind of language.’

No place for the language of God.

Jesus deliberately did and said things that He knew would upset people. He stirred up division and controversy. He provoked. He didn’t have to break from established customs, but He did. He didn’t have to heal that man’s hand on the Sabbath, knowing how it would disturb others and cause them immense irritation, but He did, and He did so with ‘anger’ [Mark 3:5]. He could have gone with the flow a little bit. He could have chilled out and let bygones be bygones, but He didn’t. He could have been diplomatic, but He wasn’t.

He could have told everyone to relax, but instead He made them uncomfortable. He could have put them at ease, but He chose to put them on edge.

He convinced the mob not to stone the adulterer [John 8], and you’ll notice that He then turned to her and told her to stop sinning. Indeed, never once did He encounter sin and corruption and say: “Hey, do your thang, homies. Just have fun. YOLO!”

The followers of Nice Jesus love to quote the ‘throw the first stone’ verse — and for good reason, it’s a beautiful and compelling story — but you rarely hear mention of the exchange that occurs just a few sentences later, in that very same chapter. In John 8:44, Jesus rebukes unbelieving Jews and calls them ‘sons of the Devil.’

Wow.

That wasn’t nice, Jesus.

Didn’t anyone ever tell you that you can catch more flies with honey, Jesus?

Of course, you’d catch even more flies with a mound of garbage, so maybe ‘catching flies’ isn’t the point.

While we’re often reminded that Jesus said, ‘live by the sword, die by the sword,’ we seem to ignore his other sword references. Like when he told his disciples to sell their cloaks and buy a sword [Luke 22], or when He said that He ‘didn’t come to bring peace, but a sword’ [Matthew 10].

Now, It’s true that He is God and we are not. Jesus can say whatever He wants to say. But we are called to be like Christ, which begs the question: what is Christ like?

Well, He is, among other things, uncompromising. He is intolerant of evil. He is disruptive. He is sometimes harsh. He is sometimes impolite. He is sometimes angry.

He is always loving.

Christ was not and is not a cosmic guidance counselor, and He is not mankind’s best friend, nor did He call us to be. He made dogs for that role — our destiny is more substantial, and our path to it is far more challenging and dangerous.

And nice?

Where does nice factor into this?

Nice: affable, peachy, swell.

Nice has nothing to do with Christianity. I’ve got nothing against nice — nice is nice — but even serial killers can be nice to people. They generally are exceptionally affable, except when they’re murdering. That means they’re nice to, like, 97 or 98 percent of everyone they meet.

I guess they’re following Christ almost all of the time, right?

And tolerance?

Tolerance is easy. Any coward can learn to tolerate something. Tolerance is inaction; intolerance is action. We are called to refuse to tolerate evil. We are called to get angry at it and actively work to destroy it.

Who’d have guess it — anger is far more godly than tolerance ever could be.

Obviously I’m not suggesting that anger is automatically, or even usually, justified. Christ exhibited righteous anger; righteous anger is the sort of anger that naturally fills our soul when we confront the depths of depravity and sin. It is wrong to seethe with rage because someone cut us off in traffic or gossips about us behind our back, but it is also wrong to feel no anger when babies are murdered and the institution of the family is undermined and attacked.

Anger is good when it is directed at things that offend not us, but God. Just as Christ’s intolerance, like the intolerance we’re commanded to have, stems from a desire to save souls and defend Truth.

Even when we have righteous anger, we do not have carte blanche to act on it in anyway we please. But, according to the Bible, there are times to use strong language, there aretimes to cause a scene, there are times to hurt people’s feelings, and there are times when we might need to use physical force.

Jesus told us to turn the other cheek when we are personally attacked; He never told us to turn our backs entirely and let lies spread and evil grow.

So, enough with the niceties.

Christians in this country sound too similar to the the Golden Girls song, and not enough like the Battle Hymn of the Republic. There’s too much ‘thank you for being a friend,’ and not enough ‘lightening from His terrible swift sword.’

We’re all hugging and singing Kumbaya, when we should be marching and shouting Hallelujah.

We’re nice Christians with our nice Jesus, and we are trampled on without protest.

Enough, already.

I think it’s time that Christianity regain its fighting spirit; the spirit of Christ.

I think it’s time we ask that question: ‘What would Jesus do?’

And I think it’s time we answer it truthfully: Jesus would flip tables and yell.

Maybe we ought to follow suit.

knee-jerking

As I'm taunted by current events, the following by James K.A. Smith serves as a great reminder:

“there is a deep sense in which the church is a people called to resist the presentism embedded in the tyranny of the contemporary. We are called to be a people of memory, who are shaped by a tradition that is millennia older than the last Billboard chart...

We are a stretched people, citizens of a kingdom that is both older and newer than anything offered by “the contemporary”. The practices of Christian worship over the liturgical year form in us something of an “old soul” that is perpetually pointed to a future, longing for a coming kingdom, and seeking to be such a stretched people in the present who are a foretaste of the coming kingdom”

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purpose and power

John Wimber in The Way In is the Way On:

In the Vineyard, we place a priority on being empowered by the Holy Spirit. But the Spirit empowers for a purpose-not just an experience. We seek the active presence of the Spirit to continue Jesus’ ministry. At times we almost lose the purpose; at times we seem to lose the power. From the beginning we have attempted, however inadequately, to keep these two together.

…

To continue Jesus’ ministry requires that we adopt His lifestyle. Unfortunately, Christians in the West would rather implement programs. We are blind to our mechanistic assumptions when we reduce ministry to reproducible components and try to apply them indiscriminately. There is nothing wrong, for instance, with a tool for witnessing like The Four Spiritual Laws. It helps believers communicate biblical truth. But should we use it every time? No. We must ask what is appropriate in each situation and learn the art of listening, even as Jesus modeled (see John 5:19, 30).

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discipleship back on track

Luke Geraty hits the nail on the head with Discipleship Gone Wrong: 5 Ways to Get Back on Track (as a side note - subscribe to think theology - the writers are some of the best thinkers out there):

What is a disciple? Some people say that a disciple is someone who is “following Jesus together as their Master and Teacher so that they may become just like Jesus.” Years ago, Walter Henrichsen said that Disciples are Made Not Born. Jesus himself said that the job of the Church was to make disciples, so Henrichsen’s statement still seems quite relevant. But the question still remains, what is a disciple? 

I’m convinced that discipleship doesn’t take place for so many of us simply because we have no idea what we’re shooting for. In other words, discipleship doesn’t happen because people don’t have a clear picture of what the target is.

Let’s cut to the chase and, for the sake of time, agree that making disciples means we’re focused on helping people become more like Jesus. Jesus himself said that disciples obey his commands (Matt. 28:20) and St. Paul famously speaks of being conformed to the image of Christ (Rom. 8:29) as we present ourselves holy before God (Rom. 12:1). A Christian disciple is someone who follows Jesus as Lord. Somewhere along the line, discipleship has gone woefully wrong… and our churches are suffering because of it. 

Soooooo, here are five ways that we can get back on track:

(1) Making disciples must be pneumatic. Followers of Jesus are “born of the Spirit” (John 3:1-22) as the Holy Spirit is the agent whom the Father works through to draw people to Jesus (John 6:44). We must keep in mind that our missional praxis of making disciples is completely ineffective if we believe that we are working by ourselves! I’ve yet to meet a person who is on mission with God who disagrees with this, but it is so vital that it must be repeated.

In addition to being pneumatic in the soteriological sense, making disciples is pneumatic in the ongoing relational sense. The Spirit must be at the center of our discipleship making. How else can we effectively baptize people into the Trinity, right? How else can we effectively teach people to obey Jesus’ commands? How else can we effectively build up and equip Jesus’ followers? In Kyle Strobel’s fantastic Metamorpha: Jesus as a Way of Life, he writes of the relationally transformative work of the Spirit by reminding us that,

“the Spirit is the agent of change in our lives, and because we often fail to relate to and interact with him as such, change remains elusive.”

So what does this look like? I have a young man that I’m currently in the process of discipling and there are some key formational practices that we are doing together that includes reading Scripture together, praying together, and doing ministry together. I’ve increasingly become aware of the necessity of leaning into and looking toward the guidance of the Holy Spirit. So when we get together to hang out, we are both doing our best to be sensitive to what the Spirit wants to do in our meetings. What is it that he would like us to address? How can we be discerning of his presence and work? Those are the types of questions that we both are keenly aware of because we both have come to the conclusion that making disciples is pneumatic.

(2) Making disciples must be intentional. I’m concerned that in the past ten years, all of our talk about being “missional” and “incarnational” has boiled down to one simple fact: we use new words to describe what we were already not doing. If we, as already reconciled-to-the Father followers of Jesus, do not live our lives with the intentional purpose of making disciples, we won’t.

Many of our churches often function simply as social clubs where the “already convinced” gather together to live as those who do not really believe that they are called to join God’s mission of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:18). Consider these questions:

• If your congregation did not exist, would the community you live in be aware of it?
• What makes your local church any different than a book club?
• How does your community take personal ownership of the task of making disciples?

These are the types of questions that I’ve been asking myself for over a decade. Being a “church kid” my whole life means that I’ve been in quite a few churches over the years and I’ve seen and been a part of many that simply did not have any focus on intentionally making disciples.

So what does intentional discipleship look like? Great question. When I was a teenager, I was fortunate to be a part of a church where my good friend Jason was the pastor. I can vividly remember his continual challenge, encouragement, and teaching on the importance of making disciples. The sermon that I remember always cast a vision of this and I saw it modeled in all that the church did. And guess what? The church grew… and many people were becoming followers of Jesus who made followers of Jesus. It didn’t happen over night, but it did happen. I saw first hand how being intentional made a huge difference.

(3) Making disciples must be sacrificial. Truth be told, sometimes it’s a huge challenge to be sacrificial. Sure, I don’t mind taking the time to pray for someone or share my faith with them if they are directly in my path. But to get in my car and drive somewhere that is off the beaten path… not so easy.

Yet the cross of Christ, if anything, is pointing us to the sacrificial nature of God. God gave of himself, totally off the beaten path (of heaven) so that people that he cared for and loved could call heaven “home.” As the biblical author writes, Jesus “has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself” (Heb. 9:26). Isn’t this one of the significant themes that is found in the parable of the Good Samaritan? In Luke 10:25-37 we read of a Samaritan man being sacrificially generous and Jesus closing the parable with the words, “You go, and do likewise” (v.37).

There’s a man in our church community that embodies this attitude in every way possible. His name is Mike and he has a this uncanny ability to sacrifice his time, energy, and money in ways that I am blown away by. When he finds about people’s needs, he’s the first one to go and meet it. I don’t think enough space exists to talk about how many driveways he has plowed snow off of, how much money he has given away, or how much wood he has split and delivered for people to have heat in their houses. The man is a giant of sacrificial giving. And guess what? It’s made a huge difference in our community and I can say without reservation that much of his service fits right into being intentional but is also heavily sacrificial. He serves, even when it isn’t convenient, and often gives credit away or shares it with the other people that he brings with him.

(4) Making disciples must be process oriented. If you are a control freak, this is a challenge. When we work with people, we can’t control the results (see item #1 in regards to the Holy Spirit!). I’m afraid that sometimes our discipleship is set up to look like a fast food drive-thru. We want results and we want them quickly!

When you read the gospels, we see Jesus working tirelessly with a band of people who can safely be described as “knuckleheads” (sorry St. Peter and St. Matthew and St. Thomas and… you get my drift). Yes, those people went on to be apostles and evangelists and start churches and whatnot, but they weren’t always the big names that they are now. Some of them were fishermen and tax collectors and they needed a lot of time and energy. And if it took more than three years for Jesus, the Son of God, to see some significant growth, how much longer do we need?!?! You get my drift?

Process oriented discipleship looks radically different than a quick checklist. It takes an investment of time and energy and prayer and becomes a primary focus of your energy and time. That’s why pastors are absolutely crazy to think or behave in a way that reinforces the heretical view that they alone are to be the church’s primary disciple maker!

(5) Making disciples must be reproducible. When I look at the model that Jesus gave us for making disciples, I am extremely encouraged. Why? Because it’s something that even I can do! I’m not the smartest guy or most gifted or extremely talented. I mess things up all the time. But I can spend time with people and pray with them and read the Bible with them and talk to them about Jesus and do my best to obey Jesus’ commands.

Much of what has passed as “discipleship” has been 100% impossible to reproduce. If praying for someone means that I have to use fancy words and dress in fancy suits and wear gold watches, chances are that most “normal” people aren’t going to get in the game. They will likely burn out before they even get started. If sharing my faith with someone means that I need to make signs and yell into a bull horn and distribute tracts from the 50′s, chances are that my friends and neighbors are going to have a difficult time joining in God’s work.

If you want to be effective at making disciples who also make disciples, you need to rethink the canned box that you may have inherited. Why? Because it’s simply ineffective. But if you get back to the basics and look to the Spirit for guidance as you intentionally and sacrificially enter into long term relationships with people, chances are that your disciples will pick up on your model and run with it!

prayer model step 4

Step 4 of the 5-Step Prayer Model - JRW on Prayer Engagement.

prayer model step 3

If you liked the Diagnostic Decision, you will love Prayer Selection. Here is JRW on Step 3 of the 5-Step Prayer Model.

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prayer model step 2

JRW on Step 2, the diagnostic decision, of the 5-Step Prayer Model.

prayer model step 1

JRW on Step 1, the interview, of the 5-Step Prayer Model.

prayer model intro

Here is John Wimber's intro to the 5-Step Prayer Model ... nothing too amazing here but I post for some background to future posts.

   

small group myths

While there are many small group myths, Philip Nation summarizes 3 that would be toward the top of my list:

1. Small groups are just for fellowship. Small groups must be an environment where people grow closer but not just for the sake of friendship. As believers, our fellowship deepens when it is centered on the truth. Fellowship is one of the functions of the church but it is not the ultimate reason for small groups. Transformation is. Small groups draw people together with a higher purpose than just hanging out in the name of Jesus. We want to draw people around His Word so they can be fed and then transformed by it.
2. People in small groups should stay together indefinitely. In other words, breaking up a group is bad. The argument is made that “our healthy small group should not be separated.” But healthy group members will want to share with others what’s occurred in their lives. Conversely, it is also a myth that leaders just want to split every group for an underhanded reason; control, spitefulness, power-grabbing. In reality, we all know that healthy things grow and then multiply. As leaders, we also know that when things don’t grow, then they begin to drain energy from other parts of the body. Small groups are the same. Now, this is not to say that a small group that does not multiply is moldy, rotten, or cancerous. But it can be reveal an inward-facing spirit that runs counter to the mission of God. By engendering a spirit of multiplication, small groups will eventually reach more people for Christ and help more people mature in Christ.
3. Anyone can lead a small group. I want to tread carefully in this one because it is so close to true. If the statement read, “Anyone can learn to lead a small group,” then we’ve got it. But, as it stands, it is a bit naïve. It comes back to purpose. If you buy into myth #1, then anyone can lead a small group. Just be there to host everyone for a good time and a quasi-spiritual conversation. But, if you want to lead people toward transformation, then as leaders, we need to produce leaders. Rather than just throw people into the situation of handling whatever comes up on their own, teach/train/prepare them to be a great small group leader.

re-thinking church

Dr. James Emery White is re-thinking church, here, regarding an inconvenient truth:

You are a church that is not experiencing the growth you desire, particularly among the young and unchurched.

You have a solid constituency, but they are older and, most definitely, churched. They are good people, giving people, serving people, but they like the church the way it is. 

You know, as a leader, that times have changed. Culture has shifted dramatically. Unless you reach the next generation, the church will simply get older and smaller, year by year, until it is a shell of what it once was.

But if you attempt to implement some of the things you know could make a difference, you run the very real risk of alienating your current base of support. The people paying the bills, serving in the nursery, and leading your teams.

So you feel stuck. If you don’t change, you fear a slow death. If you do change, you fear a quick death. Either way, you die.

So you look for the silver bullet. You search for the solution that you can seamlessly weave into the life of the church that will solve all of your problems but keep everyone currently attending happy. 

There’s only one problem. 

It doesn’t exist.

It never has, and it never will.

The reality is that if you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always be where you’ve always been.

(That might be worth re-reading.)

I’m sure you’ve heard that the definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over and expecting different results. But countless churches reflect this exact mental illness. If you want things to be different, you’ll have to do different things.

And when you do, expect resistance from the people who liked things the way they were. But you won’t be able to leave things the same and do things differently.

As Jesus said, “And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says, ‘The old is better.’ ” (Luke 5:37-39, NIV)

I’m sorry to say this, I really am. I know what lies before many of you as leaders as a result, but here’s the truth:

You must change or die.

If you change in the substantive ways you probably need to regarding style and strategy, you will lose people. And it may take some time for the results to pay off, ensuring a very difficult period in the life of your church, and your life as a leader.

But you must change, or die.

It’s an inconvenient truth.

But it is truth.

church innovation

My friend and curator of Cerulean Sanctum wrote this great post; Church Innovation And The Father's Doings.

I’ve been reading more nonfiction books on Christian living and church practice. Without exception, they’ve been a little (or a lot) disappointing.

What bothers me most is how quickly man-made ways of doing things come to the fore in those books. You can almost always trace the author’s primary influences back to their sources, and far too many times those influences are NOT primarily from Scripture.

This is not to say that there is no biblical justification for what is written, but the tendency is to take a man-made idea, wrap it in Scripture, and then sell it as wisdom.

That cannot work. Anything of worth must start with Scripture and proceed from it, not the other way around.

Over at Outreach magazine, Larry Osborne wrote on innovation in the Church (“Real World Innovation: It’s a Lot Like Sausage”). Coincidentally, I have Pastor Osborne’s Sticky Church on order from my local library as the next Christian living and church practice book on my to-read list. So, I was eager to hear his insights on this topic.

For as long as that article was, it didn’t have much to say about how Jesus, who was clearly the exemplar of innovation, approached the subject. Instead, I kept feeling like I was reading something out of Forbes rather than from a Christian source.

Let’s cut to the chase. This is Jesus’ approach to innovation:

Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” — John 6:28-29 ESV 

So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. — John 5:19 ESV 

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you. — John 16:13-15 ESV

You want to be an innovator in the Church? You want to be a genuine leader? A visionary? Then do two things:

Believe wholeheartedly in Jesus, and do only what the Holy Spirit shows you the Father is doing.

Do we not see the beauty in the Trinity at operation here? Is this not truth?

Then why are we so loathe to live this way? Why must we find some other kind of wisdom from some other source and try to position ourselves as some kind of Steve Jobs of Faith?

For all that Osborne wrote in his article, you know what I really would have liked to have read? How we Christians can better attune ourselves to understand what the Holy Spirit is showing us about what the Father is doing.

The sad part is that we seldom get that kind of answer, and I think it’s because too many of our contemporary Christian “leaders” simply do not know how to get it. They can recite content from an MBA course, Seth Godin, or Steven Covey, but they don’t know what the Spirit is telling them right now and right for them and their church.

It all comes down to this:

Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. —1 Corinthians 2:12-16 ESV

Spiritually discerned. Anything lasting, anything innovative, is spiritually discerned.

Church, it is long past time that we return to living by the Spirit. My prayer will be that God will raise up more leaders from among us who are better led by the Spirit and less by the wisdom of the world.

pray for your wife

From the folks at DesiringGod; a prayer for your wife ...

1. God, be her God — her all-satisfying treasure and all. Make her jealous for your exclusive supremacy over all her affections (Psalm 73:24–25).
2. Increase her faith — give her a rock-solid confidence that your incomparable power is only always wielded for her absolute good in Christ (Romans 8:28–30).
3. Intensify her joy — a joy in you that abandons all to the riches of your grace in Jesus and that says firmly, clearly, gladly: "I'll go anywhere and do anything if you are there" (Exodus 33:14–15).
4. Soften her heart — rescue her from cynicism and make her tender to your presence in the most complicated details of dirty diapers and a multitude of other needs you've called her to meet (Hebrews 1:3).
5. Make her cherish your church — build relationships into her life that challenge and encourage her to walk in step with the truth of the gospel, and cause her to love corporate gatherings, the Lord's Table, and the everyday life of the body (Mark 3:35).
6. Give her wisdom — make her see dimensions of reality that I would overlook and accompany her vision with a gentle, quiet spirit that feels safe and celebrated (1 Peter 3:4).
7. Sustain her health — continue to speak your gift of health and keep us from presumption; it is by blood-bought grace (Psalm 139:14).
8. Multiply her influence — encourage and deepen the impact she has on our children. Give her sweet glimpses of it. Pour her out in love for our neighbors and spark creative ways to engage them for Jesus's sake (John 12:24).
9. Make her hear your voice — to read the Bible and accept it as it really is, your word... your very word to her where she lives, full of grace and power and everything she needs pertaining to life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3).
10. Overcome her with Jesus — that she is united to him, that she is a new creature in him, that she is your daughter in him. . . No longer in Adam and dead to sin; now in Christ and alive to you, forever (Romans 6:11).