Discipleship and Church Strategy: What Is Your Focus?

"Then Jesus came near and said to them, 'All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age." -Matthew 28:18-20, HCSB

This is the famous Great Commission passage, which happens to be the exact passage I opened up with my recent post, Discipleship: An Introduction, with. On Tuesday, I continued this series on discipleship, which is at the core of everything the Christian should be doing. Our primary concern should be to make disciples. It is the command Christ gave us to accomplish while waiting for His return (the end of the age).

This also applies to the Church as a whole. The mission of the Church should be discipleship. Not huddle groups and bible classes; discipleship is the job of every believer, not just a few "teachers." Every single Christian is to "go."

I've noticed an interesting thing, though. We almost always leave verse 18 off when we are talking about the Great Commission. If the last command of Christ is so important, why not include all of it? Sure, verse 18 isn't directly a command. However, it may be even more important, as it gives Christ's reasoning for verses 19-20.

The entire reason that Christians share the gospel, lead people to Christ and assist in the convert's journey into discipleship is because Christ has all authority in heaven and on earth. He is the supreme Lord and King over all. Everything we do is to glorify this King. He runs the show, and we lift Him up the whole way.

We can disciple and strategize and teach all day, and never accomplish the Great Commission. You see, if we forget that the entire reason for discipleship and church growth is the glory of our Lord, we are nothing more than a group of pagan idol worshippers, recruiting people to worship ourselves and our ideas.

We keep God and His Word at the center of everything we do, and we especially keep the very focus of God's Word (the gospel) at the forefront of what we are doing. If we remove the bright torch that is the glorious gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ from our focus, we will be left to be devoured by wolves and trip over our own feet in the darkness of this world.

The gospel, and the glory it brings God, is why we disciple. Without the gospel, you are simply leading people down a path of which even you cannot see. If you are leading people without a focus on their salvation in Christ and the glory of God in that, then you are leading people for an eternity away from God. That, my friends, is not a good direction to be headed.

Discipleship, Part One: Commitment Pt. I [Paul's Heart]

I apologize. I originally intended to have this discipleship series up weekly. However, my school schedule this semester has prevented me from being able to do this like I wanted to. I will not put up a new calendar for this series, but I do plan to get these posts up every week. We'll see how that goes...

Ironically, the first aspect of discipleship we will be looking at here is commitment. Let's look at a passage from 1 Thessalonians, and pick it apart, finding how the apostle Paul & Co. carried out this aspect.

"For our exhortation didn’t come from error or impurity or an intent to deceive. Instead, just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please men, but rather God, who examines our hearts. For we never used flattering speech, as you know, or had greedy motives —God is our witness— and we didn’t seek glory from people, either from you or from others. Although we could have been a burden as Christ’s apostles, instead we were gentle among you, as a nursing mother nurtures her own children. We cared so much for you that we were pleased to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own lives, because you had become dear to us. For you remember our labor and hardship, brothers. Working night and day so that we would not burden any of you, we preached God’s gospel to you.You are witnesses, and so is God, of how devoutly, righteously, and blamelessly we conducted ourselves with you believers. As you know, like a father with his own children, we encouraged, comforted, and implored each one of you to walk worthy of God, who calls you into His own kingdom and glory. This is why we constantly thank God, because when you received the message about God that you heard from us, you welcomed it not as a human message, but as it truly is, the message of God, which also works effectively in you believers." -1 Thessalonians 2:3-13, HCSB

This is a big chunk of Scripture, so we're gunna break it into a few parts. First we'll look at Paul's heart, and the next post will focus on going beyond a teacher.

There are several parts of this passage that really point to Paul's heart toward the believers in Thessaloniki. Let's highlight a few:

-V. 3-6 says Paul and Friends were not "from error, or impurity or intent to deceive...." and had no "greedy motives...[or] seek glory from people." They obviously weren't committed to these believers for their own purpose. Instead, they were approved by God. They were on God's mission, and they made it clear that it was His mission that they focused on. We must remember to keep this central to our commitment; our commitment doesn't mean a thing if it isn't focused on God's purposes.

-V. 7-8 shows that they cared for the believers with a "motherly, deep love." That is the love we must show toward our disciples; a passionate, deep, internal love and care for their well-being.

-V. 9-10 talks of how they were being witnessed in all of their actions by their disciples. They, therefore, worked hard to have "devout, righteous, blameless conduct." This takes commitment, and we will focus more on this in a different post.

-V. 11-12 focuses in on their method of instruction: "like a father" and to "each one." Just as we disciple with a mother-like love, we disciple with a father-like instruction. Our love leads us to instruct with authority and clarity. We also instruct all disciples individually; no one is forgotten or passed over in instruction. We must have a heart for all of our disciples.

-Finally, v. 13 shows what must be the driving force behind all of our instruction and love and conduct: God's Word. We must always make God's Word the guide and reason behind our discipleship. After all, if we are doing God's purpose, we should probably listen to what He says.

Paul and the others clearly had a commitment to these believers. Next time, we will look at some more examples from Paul, showing how we must commit to more than just teaching our disciples.

For more on commitment, check out Discipleship, Part One: Commitment Pt. 2.
 

Discipleship: An Introduction

Moses did it. John the Baptist did, too. Pharisees did, and almost everyone knows Jesus did. In fact, Christ even told us to do it. What is it?

"Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations..." -Matthew 28:19a, HCSB

All Christians are commanded to make disciples. Questions abound when I make that statement. Questions like...

1) What is a disciple?
     The word "disciple" comes from the Greek word for "learner" or "pupil."

So, if a disciple is a learner, the next question is...

2) How do we make disciples? What is discipleship?
     This is a harder question than it should be, purely because I personally believe that few churches are adaquately teaching their congregations what discipleship is. The fact that I have grown up in church, as have several of my friends, and none of us had a very good idea of how to disciple speaks volumes to me. Furthermore, when I wanted to lead a discipleship training, it was rather hard to actually find material on how to actually disciple people. Fortunately, I found www.disciplers.org. This website had an excellent presentation of what discipleship is, directly from the Word.

I will be basing my Tuesday posts off of this website and their model for disicpleship, which they refer to as "spiritual parenting." Spiritual parenting has four distinct aspects that we will look at over the next few weeks, in hopes that we can all become better at fulfilling the Great Commission.

September 4: Discipleship: An Introduction
September 11: Aspect 1- Commitment
September 18: Aspect 2- Modeling
September 25: Aspect 3- Personal Attention
October 2: Aspect 4- Teaching
October 9: The Dangers of Example-based Discipleship v. The Dangers of Teaching-based Discipleship

A Rather Explicit Warning to Christians

Warning: this blog post discusses a graphic portion of the Biblical text. It is most certainly not a PG post. It also contains a graphic warning for all Christians to observe.

While they were enjoying themselves, all of a sudden, perverted men of the city surrounded the house and beat on the door. They said to the old man who was the owner of the house, “Bring out the man who came to your house so we can have sex with him!” The owner of the house went out and said to them, “No, don’t do this evil, my brothers. After all, this man has come into my house. Don’t do this horrible thing. Here, let me bring out my virgin daughter and the man’s concubine now. Use them and do whatever you want to them. But don’t do this horrible thing to this man.”

This is a messed-up scene, huh? A bunch of men, attacking a house so that they can have their way with some visitor to town. This is, on a scale of 1-10, probably a solid 11 in "what the heck is going on?!" I mean, the owner of this house doesn't want the crowd to have the guy, so he offers up his own daughter and the visitor's woman. This seems like a series of events worthy of some divine judgment, correct?

This did, in fact, bring judgment; the whole "entire town rapes visitor" thing is the camel that broke the camel's back and led to the annihilation of Sodom and Gommorah. But I didn't quote from the famous Genesis 19 passage at the beginning of this post. In fact, the above passage of Scripture is not describing a "pagan" town. No, the event I quoted above happened in a town called Gibeah, home to part of the tribe of Benjamin. As in, the Israelite tribe of Benjamin.

This heinous event mirrors Sodom almost perfectly, and it happened among God's people. And it gets worse.

The owner of the house, while the visitor is presumably asleep, takes this visitor's lady friend and throws her out of the house, just to satisfy the sexual desires of these men. They rape her, and she is finally left to collapse in front of the door of the house as the sun comes up. When her husband found her, there was no response (Judges 19:25-28).

I believe that God's current people, the Church, should look back to this event as a warning. Those of us in the Church can be quick to point fingers at injustice, all while passing over our own sin (which is often the same sin we condemn others for).

It is biblical to call for all to repent, turning from sin. We must not forget that we, too, are called to repent.

Confidence Ain't Always Easy

Last week, I wrote about Gideon's confidence in God. I wrote about how we should strive to have that level of confidence in our Creator. The fact is, though, that this can be hard for us to achieve. I mean, come on. Gideon was a judge of Israel. How can we possibly relate to that? I'll tell you: Gideon lacked confidence, once upon a time...
Before the thorn-scraping, before the conquest of the Midian army, there was a young Israelite farmer named Gideon. He was out working on his dad's farm when an angel appeared, telling him to go lead God's people against their oppressors.

Unlike what we saw from Gideon last week, our hero was, well, not so heroic. He stutters and stammers around, whining and making excuses. He told the angel how he was weak, and so was his family, and that he was no warrior.

He said to Him, “Please, Lord, how can I deliver Israel? Look, my family is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the youngest in my father’s house.” -Judges 6:15, HCSB

However, God isn't really into excuses. When He decides that we should do something, He isn't real apt to say, "oh, never mind. Bummer that plan fell through." No, God gets what God wants, and if He wants you to do something, you will. So He persists.

“But I will be with you,” the Lord said to him. “You will strike Midian down as if it were one man.” -Judges 6:16

If God told me that, I'd like to think that would send the confidence meter soaring. However, given how Gideon responds, I'm not super positive. Turns out, even an angel telling you that God would make it to where you could whip an entire army wasn't enough for Gideon. It took not one, not two, but three miraculous signs from God to convince Gideon to even attempt to gather an army for an attack, and then it took another one to get Gideon to actually lead the attack on Midian.

That, my friends, gives us hope. If this man, clearly not a winner of the "Most Faith-Filled" award, can eventually get to the point of confidence in God that we saw last week, surely we can.

Will you strive to listen to God and put your faith in Him, or will you be a coward like Gideon was when the angel first appeared? That's a question for all of us.

Confidence and Thorns

The Olympics fascinate me. It's the only time that people get CRAZY about competitive swimming and track running. One thing I really enjoy is the confidence that athletes must have to win on what is probably the biggest possible stage of their lives. Just think: if Gabby Douglas didn't believe in her training and coaches, how well would she be able to compete on the floor exercise? If Michael Phelps didn't have total confidence in his backstroke, would he have won the 200-meter medley? Odds on, these athletes, as talented as they are, would not be as successful as they are if they lacked confidence in these kinds of things.

Sometimes, however, personal confidence can only get you so far. Sure, it may help one not slip up in a race, but how about capturing kings and saving your nation? Those are a bit bigger tasks than representing Team USA, no?

This is the task given to Gideon in the book of Judges. He was chosen by God to be His instrument to deliver Israel from the oppressive rule of the Midianites. After whipping the Midianites, Gideon and Co. are chasing down the kings of Midan, Zebah and Zalmunna. Then...

Gideon and the 300 men came to the Jordan and crossed it. They were exhausted but still in pursuit. He said to the men of Succoth, “Please give some loaves of bread to the people who are following me, because they are exhausted, for I am pursuing Zebah and Zalmunna, the kings of Midian.” But the princes of Succoth asked, “Are Zebah and Zalmunna now in your hands that we should give bread to your army?”

Gideon replied, “Very well, when the Lord has handed Zebah and Zalmunna over to me, I will trample your flesh on thorns and briers from the wilderness!” He went from there to Penuel and asked the same thing from them. The men of Penuel answered just as the men of Succoth had answered. He also told the men of Penuel, “When I return in peace, I will tear down this tower!” -Judges 8:4-9, HCSB

That, my friends, is confidence in the Lord. Gideon knew that he was on a mission from God, and was so confident in His Lord that he told people that he would "trample their flesh on thorns." That's some intense stuff, yo.

What's even better is that he followed through. If you read further, you'll see that Gideon caught up to the kings and captured them, dragged the kings up to Succoth and Penuel, and then proceeded to whip the two cities. He literally drug the men of Succoth through thorns, and he tore down the tower of Penuel. These people had doubted in the mission of the Lord, and they paid the price.

Have you been confident in God, just like Gideon? Do you believe that God will use you for a purpose, or do you feel like He only uses others?

Earth (Remix) [Feat. God the Maker]

I receive news updates from CNN on my phone in the form of push notifications. Rarely are these updates "happy." Yesterday, a Sikh temple was shot up, multiple people dead. A week or two ago, a man burst into a movie theater in Colorado and shot a whole bunch of people. Even in my hometown today, the top headlines include "Fatal stabbing in Perry County," "Two found dead in Louisville standoff," and "Paris police arrest man on child porn charges." Wildfires are currently torching Oklahoma, unemployment rates rose in July, and droughts are drying up crops in the Midwest. There was even a person struck by lightning and killed at a NASCAR race in Pennsylvania yesterday. All of this is just the current news in the United States of America. Add in the Syrian debacle unfolding currently, the tropical storm coming in on Honduras, and a Pakistani attack on NATO vehicles (just to name a few events), and one thing is clear to see: something is broken.

In Genesis 1, we see that God made everything. When it says that God made everything, that doesn't mean that He made everything in a shoddy, screwed-up way. No, when God made the universe, He "saw everything He had made, and behold, it was very good" (Gen. 1:31, ESV). Not just "aiight", not just "decent". He didn't even think that Creation was just "good;" no, Creation was "very good."

So, if God made everything, and said it was all splendid, how the heck did we end up with a world that looks like my opening paragraph? What happened? I'll tell you: Genesis 3.

In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve sinned for the first time in human history. They decided that they knew better than God, and were proven incorrect. Thus, with sin in the world, everything got messed up. Pain, evil, and darkness entered the world. Corruption and brokenness spread out from Adam and Eve and went into not just every person (since there weren't other people yet), but the entire earth. Romans 8:19-23 shows plainly the state that we find not only ourselves, but all of Creation in:

"For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies." -Romans 8:19-23, ESV

Creation is groaning in anticipation for God to restore everything back to the way that it was. It says that the intensity of which all around us desires to be restored is comparable to a woman in labor. That, my friends, is an object or being that desperately wants to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Just like a pregnant woman, we and all of Creation are suffering right now. We have bodies that age and break and hurt and get oily and need food and water and shelter and numerous other issues; Creation has earthquakes and death and global warming and numerous other issues. All of this, though, will fade.

Just as a new mother's painful memories fade at the joy found in holding the newborn, all of Creation (us included) will be ecstatic at the new way of things when God remakes all. I will no longer need contacts, have a slightly messed up left ankle or even a tendency to develop tension headaches. Earth will not have hurricanes, volcanoes or disease-carrying mosquitoes. All will be made new through God, and I personally cannot wait for that to occur.

"For I will create a new heaven and a new earth;the past events will not be remembered or come to mind."

-Isaiah 65:17, HCSB