Tag Archives: sacrificial love

Symbol Usage

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Recently a Christian told me that there was nothing he enjoyed more than lighting up a cigarette in front of other Christians just to make a statement.  Cigarette smoking has become for him a symbol that he uses to disassociate himself from a certain “brand” of Christianity.  Cigarette smoking in itself is not a symbol but when smoking is used to convey a message it becomes a symbol.

Whatever the motive behind your disciple’s symbols it is important for you to investigate them in order to know and understand him.  He may not even be aware that he has embraced certain symbols let alone what the motive is behind them and so it is your job to help him explore the reasoning in each of his symbols.  Some symbols are noble while others are self-destructive.

There are several ways that your disciple may use a symbol:

  1. Identification.  He chooses symbols to identify to whom or what he belongs.  Neal’s room is decorated in team pennants from the Bulls, Cubs, Bears, and Black Hawks as he unabashedly declares himself a Chicagoan.
  2. Disassociation.  Another use of a symbol is to distance oneself from a particular person, group, or ideology as seen in the cigarette illustration above.
  3. A Weapon.  Symbols can be used as a weapon to hurt others.  A child knows exactly which symbols will upset his parents or “get his parent’s goat” as the saying goes.  A child can also target his parents by desecrating a symbol that his parents hold dear.
  4. A Cry for help.  Your disciple may have cried out for help for years to his parents, friends, teachers, and to fellow believers to no avail, and so in desperation he turns to a “flare gun” symbol that he hopes will get someone’s attention.

Longing to Belong

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Parents and disciple makers get it wrong when they try and form a person’s character by outward conformity.  It is putting the second thing first, the cart before the horse.  To make a disciple of Jesus begins by engrafting him into a group (family) where he belongs and then out of this belonging will flow the character of Jesus. It is the first thing.

C.S. Lewis wrote, “…you can’t get second things by putting them first.  You get second things only by putting first things first” [1]. It is fruitless to try and get your disciple to live by kingdom values or to have a right attitude if he does not understand to whom he belongs.  You will become frustrated and you will frustrate your disciple if you do not begin by helping him unite to God and to a people, which I would argue are inseparable.

Man is created in the image of God, which means he was designed to belong.  When your disciple feels disconnected his behavior will become erratic and often self-destructive as he seeks to compensate for his detachment.   He will attach himself to some inappropriate group through inappropriate bonds to give the illusion that he belongs somewhere and to someone.

When Jesus called his men to follow him, he was also calling them to belong to a group of 12 other men. Jesus formed a community not only because it flowed out his nature but also because he knew that for his disciples to live as God intended they must belong to one another through bonds formed by love.

In closing:

  • Rarely do I disciple someone apart from being with him in community.
  • A large part of the discipling process is teaching your disciple how to love and receive love and how to serve others and to be served in community.
  • Starting a discipling community is difficult as seen in Jesus’ disciples’ relationship with one another.  It is more difficult than starting a bible study, small group, or maybe even a church plant.  It takes months and years rather than weeks.  The process does become easier as your disciples learn how to love one another.

[1] C.S. Lewis, “First and Second Things,” in God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics (Eerdmans, 1994), p. 280.

 

The Manipulator #1

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Your disciple may be caught in the trap of a manipulator.  This manipulator could be his mother, father, brother, sister, mate, child, boyfriend, girlfriend, friend, pastor, teacher, or boss . . . a manipulator could be anyone. Teaching your disciple how to recognize and deal with a manipulator is an important part of the disciple making process.

What is a manipulator?

A manipulator uses unfair or subtle means to control circumstances or people to his own advantage.

The manipulator disguises his actions so shrewdly that few recognize his true intent.  He is so masterful at deflecting the blame off of himself and onto others that if questions do arise both the victim and the outside observer believes that the victim is the real problem.

Manipulation is the antithesis of love.  One of the tools I use to help my disciple discern manipulation is 1 Corinthians 13.  Here the apostle Paul gives us a clear and understandable picture of love, which we can use as measurement against the behavior of the manipulator.

Beginning the process:

  1. Discuss with your disciple each of his relationships, both past and present, with the eye for the manipulator.
  2. Manipulators strike fear in the heart of your disciple.  Expect reluctance, procrastination, and excuses when he begins to deal with the manipulator(s) in his life.
  3. The process is long.  De-tangling any manipulative relationship is complicated and will take time, but dealing with a family member who is a manipulator is even more knotty and can take even more time.

Love: Keeping the Main Thing the Main Thing

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In 1972 Eastern Airlines Flight #401 to Miami was using the most advanced commercial airliner in the world being flown by a pilot with 30 years of experience.  On their final approach the indicator light that the landing gear was in place had not illuminated.  While the pilot, co-pilot, and flight engineer focused on the $12 burned out light bulb the airplane crashed into the Everglades killing 99 people because no one was flying the plane.  The moral of the story is: keep the main thing the main thing.

To be distracted from the main thing has consequences. Recently I was involved with a relational conflict between two church planters.  I asked one of the pastors when was the last time he had told his fellow pastor that he loved him, after an awkward silence he replied timidly “a couple of years ago.”   Meanwhile, I spoke at a church that has a history of interpersonal conflict.  After the service the pastor asked if he could walk me to my car to ask me a question.  He asked: “Do you think that it is important for me to tell the individuals in my congregation that I love them?”  At that moment I began to understand the reason for their church’s relational troubles.

Peter tells us our main thing: “Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.” 1 Peter 4:8 Our main thing is based on the truth that our God is love (1 John 4:16), our message is love (Romans 5:8), and our distinction is our love for one another (John 13:35).

In closing a quote from the poetry of Thomas Traheme:

You never enjoy the world aright. . .till you love men so as to desire their happiness, with a thirst equal to the zeal of your own; till you delight in God for being good to all; you never enjoy the world . . . [1]

[1] Thomas Traherne, Selected Poems and Prose (New York: Penguin Classics, 1991)

On Loving Well

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The guiding question for my sister Margie’s life and ministry is: “Am I (or are we) loving each individual well?”

We measure what is important to us.  An insight into American Christianity is what it does not measure.   Some noticeable questions missing from evaluation are:  How many of our children are following Jesus into adulthood? Do our people love one another?  How healthy are our marriages?  How many of our converts continue to follow Jesus after 5 years? What is our reputation in the world?”

Love requires us to consider at what rate we can effectively add people to our ministry.  If we randomly keep adding people then we put ourselves into a position where not only can we not love the new people but we also are unable to love those who are already in our ministry, which is to say we can love no one.

To love requires time.  If when I say “I will spend time with you” to a new comer, requires me to say “I do not have time to spend time with you” to someone who is already in my ministry, then there is the possibility that we have become too large.

I can hear some say, “But I thought disciple making and the gospel is about multiplication and expansion?!” Exactly! In order to multiply and expand we must love well.  To not love well is to hinder the replicating process.

False Advertising

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Making disciples of Jesus requires time.  We come dangerously close to false advertising when we declare that we are a church or ministry of “God’s love” and then the people in our ministry are too busy to spend time with one another or with outsiders.  It is hurtful to be told by someone “I love you” and then they do not have the time to spend with you-especially when you need them.  Who has not been stung by family or friends who were too busy to get together? Love cannot just be verbalized but it also must be demonstrated as seen in God’s love for us: “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:6-8

It has been said that the gospel declared but not demonstrated is not heard.  Since the gospel is love, I would add that a love declared but not demonstrated is not heard.  The words “I love you” mean little without the action to accompany those words.  Action requires time.  If I have no time then I am not able to act and therefore not able to love.

This then begs the question: why am I so busy? I have wondered if my busyness is an attempt to avoid slowing down enough to realize that either (1) I am not loved, (2) that I do not know how to love, or (3) I understand the cost to love and I am unwilling to pay that price.  It is also less painful to blame the void of love in my life on busyness rather than having to admit that I am not loved or do not know how to love.

Love Limits to Multiply

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To love requires time.  To disciple is to love, therefore disciple making necessitates time.  To make a disciple is to say, “I will spend time with you.” When Jesus said, “follow me” to each of his disciples, he was saying to him, “I want to spend extended time with you.” He who is too busy cannot love and therefore cannot make disciples.

Jesus chose to spend three years with his small band because he was not only going to instruct them about love but he was also going to cultivate the group so that they could experience what it is like to be part of a group that loves one another.  (Notice that others came to Jesus asking to be his disciple but he kept the number at twelve.)

Here in Chicago we pace our growth based on how many people we can disciple and on how many people we can love.  We are surrounded by millions of people and tremendous need so we must be extra careful not to “swamp” our canoe.  At the moment that a group has more people to disciple than there are disciplers they become “swamped.”    The same is true with love, when there are more people to love than our group can love effectively; once again we have allowed the boat to be “swamped”.  Once the group is “swamped” with too many people I am convinced that there is no effective way to “unswamp” the canoe.

Love Limits

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Love limits.  When a man says “I do” to his wife, he says “I don’t” to all other women and when a couple decides to have children they choose a lifestyle that is limiting in comparison to their childless friends.  Recently I attended my nephew’s wedding. Both sets of his grandparents are still living whose combined years of marriage is 114.  I was moved at the sight of a room full of their direct descendants who all love and enjoy one another. We willingly set margins around our family so that love will multiply to future generations. To neglect a marriage leads to divorce and to neglect a child results in a wounded person, which both break the love continuum.

Christianity accepts the setting of boundaries to effectively love our families but for some reason we do not apply that same principle to our ministries.  I can only love a limited number of people, so to choose a disciple making approach to ministry (which in a word is love) means to limit the number of people to whom I can minister.  To not limit the number of people in my ministry is to actually hinder the gospel multiplication process, but if I can remain disciplined and love my few disciples well, in the long run there will be a continual multiplication of love for generations to come.

Disciple Making and Children #2

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Recently I was with a Jewish couple that had converted from Judaism to Christianity.  One difficulty in the transition was the home life.   Judaism had provided for them a template for a Jewish home (e.g., keeping the Sabbath, Passover, and feasts, etc.), whereas Christianity gave them little help on what a Christian home should look like.  (Other than they were told to be sure and get their children into Sunday school and youth group.)  As Voddie Baucham points out, Christianity’s approach to ministry communicates to parents: “leave the spiritual training of your children to the professions.” [1]

God gave the Israelite parent the responsibility for the spiritual training of their child.  To be an Israelite meant to train children for a lifetime-not only were they expected to teach their own children but also their grandchildren.  “…teach them to your children and to their children after them.” (Deuteronomy 4:9-10)

Since God is familial (Father-Son-Holy Spirit) the best environment for a child to learn and experience the nature of God is in a family.  Are there benefits for a child in attending Sunday school, children’s ministry, vacation bible school, and youth group? Sure.  But the best context for him to experience sacrificial love, belonging, grace, and a servant’s heart is in a home.  Here, day after day, year after year, a child learns what it means to belong in a family just as the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are in perfect union.

[1] Voddie Baucham  http://media.sermonindex.net/15/SID15607.mp3

 

When Your Disciple Dramatically Fails #3

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There is no simple formula for making disciples.  The Modern Western approach would like for you to think that to mix the right ingredients, at the right time, will result in a disciple.  I am humored at publishers trying to simplify the disciple making process into a step-by-step curriculum.  Disciples are made as a result of the triadic relational interaction between the disciple, discipler, and the Holy Spirit.  These relationships are complex, mysterious, and often risky; this is why many would rather choose a safe, non-relational approach to ministry.  Programs can be done without a relationship, disciple making cannot.

The bond of love between you and your disciple will not only draw you into his failures, but you may find yourself the object of his failure, even as Jesus was the object of Peter’s betrayal.  If Jesus’ disciples brought him pain, what makes me think that my disciples will not hurt me?  If Paul’s disciples brought anxiety and disappointment to his life, what makes me think that I will not experience the same questioning and betrayal?

Forgiveness is the nature of God and therefore an important lesson for your disciple to learn.    A disciple learns how to forgive by being forgiven by his discipler, just as Jesus forgave Peter after his very public failure.  (I can hear Jesus’ critics saying, “What kind of teacher is this Jesus guy anyway?  Look!  Even his own disciples have betrayed him!” ) To lay down your life for your disciple is to open yourself up to hurt, pain, and maybe even public ridicule.

Though we were an enemy of God, he took the initiative in seeking an adoptive relationship with us to become his children.  Paul writes: “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:6-8). Your disciple’s behavior may not deserve your love, but that is beside the point.  Love reaches out to her enemies and to those who betray her.

A couple of closing thoughts:

  1. Your forgiveness of your disciple is an opportunity for him to understand the forgiveness and love of God.
  2. You are able to forgive your disciple because Jesus paid for his sin on the cross.  (Even his sin against you.)
  3. To Parents.  Children are a disciple of their parents.  Your child will fail somewhere along the way and bring you heartache, disappointment, and possibly public shame.  You are to forgive as Jesus forgave Peter.  (Be aware.  Your other children are watching how you handle the failure of their siblings.)