Author Archives: Lewie Clark

Cultivating a Community Who Love One Another

Posted on by

Group leaders become frustrated when they are unable to cultivate a community that truly loves one another. Often the reason for this frustration is that the leader has put the cart before the horse. He/she has placed their energies on creating a community through the weekly meeting time rather than individually discipling the group members.

Christian small group leaders have been trained to build their community through the couple hours of “group time” that the members are together each week. I argue that the community’s environment is a result of the leader’s discipling of the members outside of the group time. As the orchestra’s concert is the consummation of lessons, private practice and rehearsals so the group dynamic is the expression of the discipler’s individual investment in his/her disciples. One cannot expect people who have not been discipled to behave like disciples in community.

Making Disciples Should Be Done In Community

Posted on by

Love is the mark of a follower of Jesus. Jesus said, “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:35) In my first 20 years of making disciples I followed the “one-on-one” discipling model. But after studying the discipling methods of Jesus, I decided to pull my disciples together one night a week at my apartment to form a community. I was in for a shock. Not only did these guys not love one another, but some of them did not even get along with one another.

I realized that sitting in a Starbucks a guy could snow me by giving the impression that all his relationships were healthy, but in a community with other believers his relational fault lines are exposed and his true character is revealed. Finding oneself in authentic community can stir up old fears and insecurities. Over the next several months I was coaching the guys individually on how to love the others and how to receive love. I would have to teach Tim specifically on how to love John. Some of the men did not believe they could ever be loved. I remember Grant working hard to learn how to receive friendship from the other men in the group.

Jesus took 30 months with his disciples to shape their community and to exhibit his love for them. Jesus then instructed the disciples to love one another with the same love that He had for them, “As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” (John 13:34) For eternity God’s love has been revealed in the community of the Father, Son, and Spirit, so then, our love for one another as disciples is an illustration of God’s love to the world.

First Things First

Posted on by

My name is Lewie Clark, and I have been in ministry for 28 years. As a young man I was discipled to be a follower of Jesus by a man named Taylor Gardner. The process of being discipled was life changing. After pastoring for a number of years I moved to Chicago in 2005 to begin ministry from “scratch.”

I am neither a writer nor a blogger, but several friends have asked me to journal our experiences. There are fifteen of us here in Chicago learning together what it means to build a community of followers of Jesus. Together we will periodically share with you the story of our journey.

First Things First

The great commission is to make followers of Jesus, not to plant churches.

My objective in moving to Chicago was to make followers of Jesus rather than plant a church. My conviction is that the by-product of making followers of Jesus is an authentic kingdom community.

Many church planting methods place the cart before the horse. One plants a church (meaning, one recruits a pastor, chooses a target group, decides on a name, writes a mission statement, creates a constitution with by-laws, and files for tax exemption) in order to reach people with the good news of Jesus. The church planting process is cumbersome, expensive, and therefore prohibitive. Although I do not question the motives of church planting I simply ask the question, “Is there a better way?”

It was C. S. Lewis who said, “Put first things first and we get second things thrown in; put second things first and we lose both first and second things.” When one makes disciples first it will result in kingdom communities of faith and love. But when one plants churches first there is the danger of not only not making followers of Jesus but also of setting the church start up for failure.

We are only allowing our Chicago community to grow at the rate that we can effectively make disciples. Years ago Robert Coleman exhorted the church:

One can not transform a world except as individuals in the world are transformed, and individuals cannot be changed except as they are molded in the hands of the Master. The necessity is apparent not only to select a few laymen, but to keep the group small enough to be able to work effectively with them.  [1]

I believe that Chicago and the world can be changed through our one small band of followers of Jesus.

[1] Robert E. Coleman, The Master Plan of Evangelism, (Old Tappan: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1963) p. 24.