Category Archives: Community

Disciple Making and Children #1

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Around 80% of the children who are raised in an evangelical church will leave Christianity at college [1].  If the number were 50% we should be concerned, but at 80% alarmed. Yet churches seem to be more concern about their numerical growth than they do about losing their own kids.  Churches spend thousands of dollars on church growth conferences, consultants, and materials searching for the key to their expansion, while spending comparatively few resources to help parents with their marriages or on how to disciple their children.

In many cases if a married couple volunteers for ministry in their church, they will be required to have some type of training and be under the apprenticeship of an experienced leader for a period of time.  But when a couple announces to that same church that they are expecting their first child they will given little or no training on how to raise that child.

There is something inconsistent about strategizing on how to reach our community and the world when we are unable to reach our own children.

[1] Glen Schultz, Kingdom Education; 2002 Southern Baptist Council on the Family.

 

Why Hospitality?

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Making disciples of Jesus is best done in the context of your home, whether for your natural children or your spiritual children.  Disciples are the children of God; therefore the home is an ideal environment for a disciple to experience, (1) the parental nature of God, (2) what it means to belong to a family, (3) how to love and serve others, and (4) how to attach to brothers and sisters.  Children can witness what it means to follow Jesus by observing the daily lives of their parents in various circumstances.

In the West we tend to compartmentalize our lives, often separating our ministry from our home.  Even when ministry is conducted in the home, it tends to be done as a “study” or “meeting” rather than being a family gathering.  (In the many small group training conferences that I have attended, never did “family” or “a meal” enter the discussion.  A house was only a convenient place to hold a meeting.)

Some Benefits of Hospitality:

  • Hospitality provides you an opportunity to serve your disciple.  (Serving is another way to say “I love you”.)
  • Hospitality opens up your life to your disciple.  (A person’s home tells a lot about a person.  I have been in very few homes of pastors or church leaders.)
  • Hospitality provides your disciple an opportunity to observe how you relate to your wife and children.
  • Hospitality provides an opportunity for your children to serve others and to learn how to share.
  • Hospitality provides an opportunity for your children to love others and for others to love your children.   (A hug from a 4 year old will melt any heart.)
  • Hospitality provides an opportunity for your children to observe how you minister and interact with others.
  • Hospitality provides a place for your disciple to belong.
  • Hospitality provides a place for your disciple to serve.  (Help cook, help clean up, help with the children)
  • Hospitality provides you an opportunity for you to observe how your disciple relates to others.

What is God Like?

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While looking for ministry methods, Christianity has the tendency to skip over the Gospels and dive into the book of Acts and Paul’s letters.  Yet it is in the Gospels that we have four accounts of God coming to earth to show us what God is like.  “When Church Was a Family” by Joseph Hellerman is one of the more thought provoking books I have read in a while.  He writes:

“The earthly ministry of Jesus of Nazareth constitutes the one time in the history of humanity when heaven fully and finally came to earth.  In Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, we have the opportunity to see the question What is God like? answered in the flesh-and-blood world in which we live.  During His incarnation Jesus not only procured our way to heaven.  He also shows us how to live on earth.  Now we can pattern our lives after Jesus.”[1]

The answer to What is God is like? as seen in the Gospels is love.  At the baptism of Jesus the heavenly Father breaks silence and declares his love for his Son.  “And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” (Matt 3:17) Here we discover the family love bond between the heavenly Father and Jesus.  This familiar love becomes the basis for Jesus love for his disciples and the disciples love for one another.   “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.” (John 15:9) “As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” (John 13:34-35)

While reading the Gospels our Western eyes are drawn to ministry methods and we can easily miss the relational component of Jesus’ approach.   Imitating the methods of Jesus without the family love element will result in a sterile religion rather than a dynamic spiritual family.  It is essential for your disciples to understand that God relates to them as a Father and they are to relate to him as a son.  This understanding is the basis on which your disciples are to lovingly relate to one another as brothers.  The brotherly love your disciples have for one another is a window for the world to see into the heavenly Father’s love for Jesus and their perfect unity. “I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” (John 17:22-23)

[1] Joseph H. Hellerman, When the Church Was a Family (Nashville: B & H Academic, 2009), p. 62.

Teaching Your Disciple How to Love #2: The Meaningful Touch

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Creating an environment where affection is natural and meaningful is an essential component of the discipling process.  Not only is physical affection necessary between the discipler and his disciple, but it is also important for your disciples to be affectionate with one another.  As affection is a natural expression of love in a healthy family, so it should be among the children of God.

Four times the apostle Paul exhorts his disciples to be physically affectionate with one another by “Greeting one another with a holy kiss”  (Romans 16:16; 1 Corinthians 16:20; 2 Corinthians 13:12; 1 Thessalonians 5:26). Robert Banks explains the significant role of affection among believers in his work Paul’s Idea of Community.  He argues:

Two final physical expressions of fellowship remain.  ‘Greet all the brethren with a holy kiss.’ Paul says to his first converts in Thessalonica and to the recipients of his letters in Corinth and Rome.  To interpret this action as merely a formal or secondary procedure would be to underestimate its importance.  Not as significant as baptism and the Lord’s Supper, it does, like the laying on of hands, play an important role in early Christian communal life.  By means of this action the bond between each member of the church was given real, not merely symbolic, expression. [1]

Luke’s writing gives us a glimpse into the freedom that Paul’s disciples had in expressing their affection with him.  ”When he (Paul) had said this, he knelt down with all of them and prayed. They all wept as they embraced him and kissed him.” (Acts 20:36-37). Although our culture may be uncomfortable in expressing affection with a kiss, I do believe that our affection needs to go beyond a handshake; even strangers will exchange a handshake.

A mark of spiritual maturing in the life of a disciple is an ease of giving and receiving affection.  Awkwardness with affection could be an indicator of a deeper issue in the life of the disciple. It is also important for the discipler to monitor the affection between group members because it is an indicator how well the disciples are relating with one another.  It is difficult for a disciple to be affectionate with someone with whom he is disappointed or at odds.

[1] Banks, Robert, “Paul’s Idea of Community”, (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 1994), p.85.

 

Teaching Your Disciples How to Love #1

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Love is the mark of a follower of Jesus.  Yet for many, love does not come easy.  It is vital in the training of your disciples that they learn not only how to express their love for others, but also how to receive love from others.  Some love easily but have a difficult time accepting love, while others receive love with no trouble but have a difficult time expressing love.

Recently I was with one of our groups of disciples and in my private conversations I was impressed with the love each of the members had for one another.  I had assumed that they all knew of this mutual respect, but later I found out that none of the members had expressed their love to the others because embarrassment had closed off their heartfelt affection.   Immediately I went to each person (most issues are best resolved outside of a group meeting) and gave them the assignment of meeting face to face with each member to express their love exactly as they had told it to me.

Kierkegaard exhorts us:

Your friend, your beloved, your child, or whoever is the object of your love, has a claim upon its expression also in words when it really moves you inwardly.  The emotion is not your possession but the other’s . . . you should let the mouth speak out of the abundance of the heart; you should not be ashamed of your feelings and still less of honestly giving to each one his due. [1]

Some tips I have learned along the way:

  • Encourage your disciple to express the specific reason(s) why he loves another rather than just a general “I love you, man!”
  • Help your disciple look for opportunities to serve others in the group.  Nothing says “I love you” like meeting the need of another.
  • Discuss with your disciple the strengths of others and then encourage him to express his appreciation for those strengths to that individual.  It is easy to focus on the weakness of another which causes us to be blind to his strengths.  “Wherever there is building up, love is present, and wherever love is, there is building up.” [2]
  • The book “The Heart of the Five Love Languages” by Gary Chapman is helpful in providing practical ways for your disciples to express their love for one another.
  • Individual attention.  Have each of your disciples get together one-on-one and for the purpose of listening to each other’s life stories.

[1] Kierkegaard, Soren. “Works of Love”, (New York: Harper Perennial, 1962), 29.

[2] Kierkegaard, Soren. “Works of Love”, (New York: Harper Perennial, 1962), 204.

Hometown Disciple Making #2

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One question I am asked frequently is “how do you know who to disciple?”  One criterion I use is that the disciple lives in close proximity.   Jesus selected Capernaum to be his hometown and base for his ministry.  He chose men to disciple who lived and worked in the same region.  As Michael Wilkins has pointed out: “Most of the twelve disciples were from Capernaum and Bethsaida…” [1]

Being near to your disciples is important in order for you to know your disciples, for your disciples to know you, and for the disciples to know one another.  (This is not to say that longer distances between you and your disciple cannot work, but generally living close provides a better environment to make disciples.)

Here are some reasons why it is better if your disciples live near you:

  • For the Discipler:
    • The discipler needs to have access to his disciples during times of their personal suffering.  Trials are important times because they are the work of God in the life of your disciple.
    • Living in close proximity allows the discipler to serve the physical needs of his disciple.
    • When he (Jesus) had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. . . “I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you” (John 13:12-17).
    • “The pivotal pronouncement of servanthood in Mark 10:45 declares the essence of Jesus’ ministry.  By comprehending this, the disciples will comprehend the essence of discipleship as servanthood, including their motivation, position, ambition, expectations and example.  The disciple who is privileged to be a member of Jesus’ kingdom is a servant…” [2]
    • Life together allows the discipler to witness how his disciple responds to the circumstances of life and how he relates to people.
  • For the Disciple:
    • The disciple has the opportunity to imitate his discipler by observing the way he lives out following Jesus. (e.g. How he treats his wife, relates to his children, relates to others, and responds to suffering.) Paul became a model for others by first living among them.  “You know how we lived among you for your sake.  You became imitators of us and of the Lord” (1 Thess 1:5-6).
    • “Even though it is probable that Jesus’ disciples memorized much of his teaching and passed it on as the tradition of the church, the disciples were committed more to his person than to his teaching.  Following Jesus means togetherness with him and service to him while traveling on the Way” [3].
    • The disciple has the chance to interact with your other disciples.
[1] M.J. Wilkins, Disciples. Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, (Downers Grove: Inter Varsity Press, 1992) p. 177.
[2] Ibid p. 184.
[3] Ibid p. 187.

Unity and Making Disciples 3

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I just got off the phone with a missionary to remote China.  The struggle for the missionaries has not been the language, the food, or the culture; but rather the relational tension between the missionaries on their team.  They feel a loss of creditability in sharing the gospel because of their inability to get along with one another.  Jesus words, “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” taunt them.  One wonders why unity even among committed believers is difficult.

The community of believers in which a disciple finds himself is by design.  In his sovereignty, the Holy Spirit knows with whom each disciple needs to interrelate.  As Inagrace Tieterich correctly states:  “The role of the Holy Spirit is to form loving community: to create a people for God’s name, who bear God’s likeness in their character, as that is seen in their behavior” [1]. This community designed by the Holy Spirit will not only expose each person for who he is, but it will also give each individual the opportunity to learn how to lovingly relate to other believers in order that their relationship with one another can be a witness of the gospel to the world.  My friend Bill Greene says that he knows where the Lord is at work in his life based on who the Lord places into his immediate world for him to love; those from whom he cannot escape.

Robert Bellah sees living in community as an essential component for our own growth and for the benefit of others.  He writes:  “We find ourselves not independently of other people and institutions but through them.  We never get to the bottom of ourselves on our own.  We discover who we are face to face and side by side with others in work, love, and learning.  All of our activity goes on in relationships, groups associations, and communities ordered by institutional structures and interpreted by cultural patterns of meaning” [2]. It was no accident that Jesus made disciples in a group.

A couple closing thoughts:

  1. Conflict in a community of believers is not a disruption to the purpose of God but rather they are an opportunity to teach your disciples how to love each other, how to build unity and therefore expanding the kingdom of God.
  2. Your disciple’s interaction with the others in a community will help you know your disciple.  It is more difficult to get to know a person apart from community.
  3. Each individual, no matter how difficult, is an essential element in the Spirit’s building unity in the group.  (Be careful not to think, “This could be a good community if only Jessica were not on the team.” In reality, Jessica may be the key to building the unity on the team that the Lord intends.)

[1] Inagrace T. Tieterich, Missional Community, Cultivating Communities of the Holy Spirit, Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North American (Grand Rapids:  Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1998), 148.

[2] Robert Bellah, et al., Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life (Berkeley:  University of California Press, 1983), p. 84.

Unity and Making Disciples 1

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It was C. Norman Kraus who said, “The life of the church is its witness. The witness of the church is its life. The question of authentic witness is the question of authentic community” [1]. Our unity and love for one another as followers of Jesus is a proof to the world that the heavenly Father sent Jesus to earth. Jesus prayed for his future disciples that “they would be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me” (John 17:23). Our unity is a proclamation of the gospel.

When the world sees our unity, it resonates with their innermost being because man was created not to live a detached existence, but rather to belong. Our unity may even make the world uncomfortable as it exposes their disconnection with others and with God.

Unity is at the heart of making disciples because it is rooted in the nature of God. Jesus came to earth to introduce the kingdom of God through demonstrating the unity he had with his own father. He said, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me?” (John 14:9-10). But he also worked for nearly three years to cultivate unity among his followers knowing that their relationships with one another would be a picture of the gospel to the world. He confronted anything that could cause disunity (e.g., arguing among themselves who was the greatest, Mark 9:33-34) and encouraged anything that would build unity. (“Love one another as I have loved you.” John 13:34-35)

Kevin (not his real name) was an atheist who had become friends with our group of disciples. Kevin later became a follower of Jesus and told us that the group’s love for each other was something that he had longed for his whole life. He had never had a place to belong. This love caused Kevin to re-investigate the very claims of Christianity that he had been earlier refuting.

Some closing thoughts:

  1. Be intentional in building unity among your disciples. Talk to your disciples about unity. I have worked on 4 church staffs and 2 para-church organizations and do not recall ever having a deliberate plan to cultivate unity among the believers.
  2. Believers love for one another and unity as disciples may be one of the best ways to reach atheists.
  3. Making disciples should be done in a community (as Jesus demonstrated both with the twelve disciples and the other disciples in his home town of Capernaum.) It is in the interpersonal relationships among the group that love is learned and demonstrated.

[1] C. Norman Kraus, The Authentic Witness: Credibility and Authority (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), 156.

Making Disciples as a Team

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Christianity is struggling in Chicago. Evangelicalism has spent thousands of dollars on advertising, church planting, and evangelistic outreach with disappointing results. Although the gospel is powerful, I wonder if we are hindered by our method. Christianity continues to approach Chicago as it has always done with church planters and missionaries working as “Lone Rangers,” even though we have the example of Jesus building and ministering from a team. Training His men, Jesus used fishing as a picture for making disciples. We envision a lone person with a rod and reel, while in the first century, fishing was a group effort netting multiple fish. It was no accident that Jesus wanted fishermen on His team.

The Holy Spirit gives each person an ability that works in harmony with the other team members. In our own community Jeremy is the energy behind us serving one another. Ryan and Abbie remind us of the lost people around us while Dan keeps us authentic. Prayer is Maureen’s passion, Randall leads us to give, Leah keeps us in the word, and Rachel has a hug for everyone. It is living in community that we have learned how to work together and how to love a variety of personalities. Unity is a choice that requires humility and hard work to keep a sure grip on the net.

The basis for this team approach is found in the nature of God. God is made up of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They exist in harmony, and out of their relationship flows an infinite love to the world through the cross of Jesus. A discipling team is a picture of God to the world by their love for one another as John describes in 1 John 4:12: “No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” The team embodies our message.

Our mission is no more difficult than the Roman world of Jesus. As He faced the challenge by forming a team, so we also should form teams believing that our unity is the point of engagement with our culture. Our unity is how Chicago will be convinced that the Father has sent Jesus into the world. “May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me” (John 17:23).

A Servant’s Heart and Making Disciples 2

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There is a story of Jesus and his disciples that makes me smile every time I read it. They were getting settled into the house after a road trip, and Jesus asked the disciples, “What were you guys arguing about back there on the road?” Busted! The disciples answered him with silence because he had caught them arguing about which one of them was the greatest. Here is the exact account:

“They came to Capernaum. When he was in the house, he asked them, ‘What were you arguing about on the road?’ But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest. Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, ‘If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.'” Mark 9:33-37

As followers of Jesus there is a particular “way” we are to relate to one another and live out our lives together (Luke actually calls Jesus’ new movement “The Way” in Acts). Jesus formed a group with the 12 disciples to have a relational laboratory in which to teach the values of the kingdom of God. The “way” kingdom disciples are to live is to consider others more important than themselves and to serve one another. Form any group, and there will eventually be conflict. Jesus was able to use each conflict that occurred among His disciples as a teaching point to expose the source of the conflict and also to provide them with the solution. The solution was found in the example of Jesus himself. He said to them, “…I am among you as one who serves,” (Luke 22:27) and “…just as I did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give my life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28).

A discipler’s instruction alone is not enough to form the kingdom values in the heart of his disciples and their community. It requires the discipler to demonstrate a servant’s heart by his actions and attitude.

In closing:

  1. It is in community that the discipler can both teach each disciple how to serve the others, and illustrate a servant’s heart by his own life.
  2. Conflict in your community is not a disruption, but rather an opportunity to move the community toward serving one another.
  3. Help each individual to identify opportunities to serve the other members in the group. (Do not assume that they are aware of opportunities to serve. Our eyes are tuned to see ways for people to serve us, rather than to see how we can serve others.)