9 Reasons to Prioritize One-on-One Discipleship

Few people in our local church shout “Amen!” when I preach which may be a testimony to the quality of the sermons. Yet every once in a while, I preach something decent. I know this because some of our members will grunt and nod their heads aggressively. This has become the telltale sign that I’ve said something helpful or convicting. The easiest sermons to preach are sermons on discipleship, particularly the necessity of fulfilling the Great Commission. The grunt per person ratio is off the charts on those Sundays. One Sunday, the general tone of agreement led me to believe those to who heard me preach were particularly ready and willing to take personal ownership for the mission of disciple-making. My assumptions led me to seek out disciple-makers for young believers in our church actively—either those who came to faith through our church’s ministry or those who had only been walking with Jesus for a short time. It made sense to target those who had known Jesus for years and pair them with a younger believer so they could fulfill Jesus’ call to teach one another to do all things that Christ commands (Matt 28:18–20).

But the more I attempted to engage the church in discipleship, the more I found that far too many of the seasoned saints had no idea where to begin or what to do. They acknowledged their responsibility to make disciples and had a relationship with someone who needed investment of time and training, but the mature believers were unsure what disciple-making should look like. Though they had attended church for years, many had passively learned that disciple-making was something that the staff or structure of the church was supposed to accomplish. If someone needed to be taught the basics of the Christian life, they assumed that Sunday school, small groups, or sermons would do the trick—what those structures could not accomplish would be the work of the professional pastors or ministry leaders.

Over the years, the gap between the mission of disciple-making and the actual practice of most Christians grew wider and wider. Many knew they should be making disciples and wanted to do so, but they simply didn’t know how.

I’m convinced that a return to the practice of one-on-one, life-on-life discipleship is one of the most critical needs for today’s church.

Here’s why:

One-on-One Discipleship Allow Every Member of the Church to Carry Weight

We laughingly jest at the “80/20 rule” (20% of the people in the church do 80% of the work) and wonder why our churches lack the every-member ministry we know God desires. Many attendees, much less members, sit as bystanders to the life of the church. They show up, sing the songs, listen to the sermons, give an offering, and leave through the back door. Often those without meaningful investment in the work of the church are the first to complain when their needs are not met or the leaders do something they don’t like. So, how do we call these people out of passivity and into action? Giving out bulletins before a service is unlikely to do the trick. We need more. A culture of one-on-one discipleship among the members of the church would communicate that everyone has a vital role to play in the spiritual health of the body. Passive consummation and petty squabbles would likely be minimized if it was assumed that every member of a local church was going to meet with at least one other Christian on a regular basis for the sake of their spiritual growth and transformation.

One-on-One Discipleship Allows for Honest Conversation

We’d love to assume that believers are ruthlessly honest with each other at all times—be it the 5-minute conversation in the hallway of the church or sitting around in a living room during a weekly small group gathering. But we know this is not true. Nor is it reasonable. Most settings simply do not allow for the level of honesty we need to fight sin and pursue holiness. It would be unwise and unhelpful for a man to confess an ongoing battle with pornography in a mixed-gendered small group. Even if this man were bold enough to share with the men in the group, he will likely struggle to mine the depths of his sin in this setting. The men in the group may be able to listen, pray, and encourage him with the Scriptures, but he’ll need one or two men who are willing to meet with him and walk with him through what is likely to be a long process of repentance and change.

One-on-One Discipleship Allows for Personalized Application 

Consider the difficulty when a college student raises her hand during the typical Sunday morning sermon or even in a Sunday school class and saying, “Yeah, I understand that, but this just doesn’t make sense to me yet,” or “That may be true, but I’m not sure how it applies to my life.” These settings aren’t designed for personalized care. Most sermons and classes operate at the 30,000-foot level—trusting that God, by his Spirit and through his church, can apply the truth of his word to the needs of each person in attendance. This move from broad teaching to personalized application happens best in one-on-one discipleship settings.

One-on-One Discipleship Allows for Evangelism and Discipleship to Unite

Churches with a culture of one-on-one discipleship have no question with what to do with someone who comes to faith in their church. First, the person who was most instrumental in sharing the gospel with the new believer should be the go-to source for ongoing discipleship. Following baptism, these two can continue to fan into flame the good work that God has started. If the person came to faith apart from a relationship with a church member, such as through a Sunday sermon or big event, then the church has a farm system of ready, willing, and capable disciple-makers. Imagine the long-term fruit that could result if every church could say to new believers, “We have someone who would love to walk with you for the next year as you grow in your faith.”

One-on-One Discipleship Allows for Ongoing Accountability

Genuine change happens when someone brings sin out of the dark and into the light—both to God and to fellow brothers and sisters. Then the fight begins. Hard work must be done to put protective measures in place to aid in one’s pursuit of holiness. A man who finds his identity in his job and neglects his family needs to confess this sin to another brother and have this man hold him accountable to being home for dinner, putting his phone down at night, and playing with his children. These actions cannot change the human heart, but they are a means by which we can spur one another on to love and good deeds (Heb 10:24).

One-On-One Discipleship Allows for Burden Bearing Relationships

In an age of incessant social media chatter, we assume that every believer is surrounded by people who will pray when they hurt, and love and support them when they suffer. A simple glance at your Facebook feed will almost certainly find another person asking for prayer. Yet, in an age of constant connectivity, people are as lonely as ever. While Facebook “friends” may like your post or offer prayers of support, it is impossible to bear another’s burdens in a meaningful way via technology. We need someone to sit with us, listen to our muddled conversation, make us something to eat, and pray while we cry. We need burden-bearing relationships. Those that know us know where we hurt, know where we are weak, and are willing to drop everything to be by our side (Gal 6:1–10).

One-on-One Discipleship Allows Other Ministries to Thrive

Discipleship relationships are not an alternative to small groups or Sunday school. In fact, they enhance the work that happens in these groups. One-on-one discipleship frees small groups from the pressure of assuming that they must accomplish all the heavy lifting of disciple-making. Most groups know that they can’t teach the Bible, apply the word to each group member, care for the wounded, make new guests feel welcome, live on mission to their neighborhood, promote passionate prayer, and practice biblical hospitality. The thought that all of these laudable goals must happen between 6–8 p.m. on a Tuesday night or 9–9:50 a.m. on a Sunday morning is a crushing burden. A church filled with a culture of disciple-making can trust that their groups don’t have to do it all, freeing these groups to do the very things they do best.

One-on-One Discipleship Allows for Mutual Growth

One-on-one discipleship is often explained as if it is only for the benefit of the younger Christian who is being discipled. Yet, ask one of the older women in our church who has engaged in this work and she will insist that the process of discipleship was as transformative for her as for the new believer she served. Do you want to grow in your hunger for God’s word? Meet with a younger Christian and have them ask you questions about the Bible. Do you want to see change in your prayer life? Meet with someone who doesn’t have it all together and is looking to you for help. Do you want to see change in your personal sin struggles? Invite someone into your life and say, like Paul, “follow me as I follow Christ” (1 Cor 11:1).

One-on-One Discipleship Allows for Healthy Relationships

Biblical community is a buzzword in the church; however, like a mythical unicorn, biblical community can be easy to define, yet hard to find. Sunday services alone are unlikely to create the deep love we long to see among the people of God. But one-on-one discipleship can. Imagine what happens if, over the course of five years, a member of your church has met with five to seven people (one or two a year) for the purpose of intentional discipleship. In these relationships, they have cried and laughed, talked and prayed. They’ve seen God transform them both and they are better for it. Though they may no longer meet, the deep love they have for one another will be unmistakable. Now, assume that those with whom they’ve met are also meeting with others and doing the same thing. Multiply this process by the number of members of your church and imagine the love that would permeate your local church (Jn 13:35).

Discipleship relationships are not one of a host of options on the buffet line of spiritual formation alongside Sunday sermons, small groups, Sunday School, men’s or women’s ministry or a host of other good activities of the church. Certainly, people can’t do everything, and expecting a person to take part in every ministry the church has to offer is unreasonable and unhealthy. Yet, one-on-one discipleship relationships are not optional extras once the other ministry obligations have been fulfilled. Like the Sunday gathering of the entire church and some form of community group (either Sunday school or small group), those seeking to participate in the life of the church in a meaningful way should regularly be engaged in one-on-one discipleship—for the good of others, the good of the church, and their own good as well.

—

Matt Rogers is the pastor of The Church at Cherrydale in Greenville, South Carolina. He and his wife, Sarah, have three daughters, Corrie, Avery, and Willa and a son, Hudson. Matt holds a Master of Arts in counseling from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary as well as a Master of Divinity and a PhD  from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Matt writes and speaks for throughout the United States on discipleship, church planting, and missions. Find Matt online at www.mattrogers.bio or follow him on Twitter @mattrogers_

5 Portraits of Gospel-Centered Counseling

Previously we asked, “How Does God Use His Word in Our Lives?” We pondered together what is most important in biblical counseling. Is the ministry of the Word primary and loving relationships are secondary? Or, is the relationship central and you need to wait to share truth until you’ve established a trusting relationship? We saw that God calls us to give both Scripture and soul, truth and love. We also noted that 1 Thessalonians 2 provides 5 portraits of a truth-and-love biblical counselor. Here we want to dig into those.

Portrait # 1: The Love of a Defending Brother

Portrait 1 paints the picture of the love of a defending brother. Paul uses the Greek word for “brother” twenty-one times in 1 and 2 Thessalonians. He starts his first letter to the believers in Thessalonica by letting them know that he always thanks God for them “for we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you” (1 Thess. 1:4). Paul is saying they are siblings in God’s family by grace. Imagine hearing from the great apostle Paul that you are family; you are equals—equally loved by God’s grace.

Paul’s use of the word “brothers” is not limited to a family context, but also extends to a military context in the sense of a band of brothers who have one another’s backs. Paul says it like this in 1 Thessalonians 2:1-2:

You know, brothers, that our visit to you was not a failure. We had previously suffered and been insulted in Philippi, as you know, but with the help of our God we dared to tell you his gospel in spite of strong opposition.

The word “opposition” means agonizing and struggling together. It was used of teammates training together and of soldiers fighting together in warfare.

Though persecuted, Paul courageously shares Scripture and soul because he cares. Paul’s brotherly relationship is not devoid of truth; it is richly focused on Christ’s gospel of grace.

Portrait # 2: The Love of a Cherishing Mother

In the first portrait, Paul says to his counselee, “I’ve got your back fam!” In this second portrait, Paul speaks as a mother who says, “I long for you with a nourishing and cherishing affection.” We read of Paul’s motherly love in 1 Thessalonians 2:7: “But we were gentle among you, like a mother caring for her little children.”

Paul’s describes his gentle relational ministry like a nursing mother, literally picturing the tender nourishing of breast-feeding. The word “caring” highlights cherishing, keeping warm, and tenderly comforting.

John Calvin portrays the scene beautifully:

A mother nursing her children manifests a certain rare and wonderful affection, inasmuch as she spares no labor and trouble, shuns no anxiety, is worn out by no labor, and even with cheerfulness of spirit gives herself to her child.

In 1 Thessalonians 2:9, we learn the nature of the nourishment Paul shares. “While we preached the gospel of God to you.” Paul’s motherly love is not simply touchy-feely love devoid of truth. It is passionate love filled with the meat of God’s Word applied to people’s lives.

Paul continues his theme of motherly affection in 1 Thessalonians 2:8. “We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God, but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us.”

I call this a ministry sandwich because Paul sandwiches loving them so much and being dear to us around sharing Scripture and soul. The phrase “we loved you so much” means to long for, to affectionately desire, and to yearn after tenderly. “Delighted” means to joyfully serve out of pleasure and not out of a sense of duty or obligation. “Impart” emphasizes sharing generously and personally.

Speaking about 1 Thessalonians 2:8, Milton Vincent, author of A Gospel Primer for Christians, describes well who we are, how we relate, and what we share:

We are significant players in each other’s gospel narrative, and it is in relationship with one another that we experience the fullness of God in Christ…. The greatest gift I can give to my fellow-Christian is the gospel itself.

Portrait # 3: The Love of a Shepherding Father

Paul’s third portrait of the biblical counselor communicates, “I love you as a father guiding you individually and uniquely.” We see this beginning in 1 Thessalonians 2:11, “For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children.”

The Greek word highlights the individual, focused attention that Paul gives each person he ministers to—each of you, his own children. Leon Morris notes that this is not just general group concern, but individual pastoral care. To Paul, no one was simply a number, or an item on a “to do” list.

Paul further describes his fatherly focused attention with these words, “as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting, and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory” (1 Thess. 2:10b-11).

Paul’s ministry is not a one-size-fits-all ministry.

• To those in need of hope, Paul offers encouraging care—coming alongside to help and to en-courage (i.e., to implant courage into).
• To those struggling with loss, Paul offers comforting care—consoling the grieving and fainthearted, and sharing in their sorrows.
• To those in need of insight and direction, Paul provides guidance by urging them—discussing application of truth to the specifics of their lives.

Paul offers person-specific, situation-specific, and need-specific counsel (see also Ephesians 4:29; 1 Thessalonians 5:14; and Romans 12:15).

Portrait # 4: The Love of a Longing Child/Orphan

Paul now turns his portraits upside down. Previously he has described his relationships as a brother to a sibling, a mother to her infant children, and a father to his individual children. He now contrasts and communicates the love of an orphaned child bereaved of his parents. “But brothers, when we were torn away from you for a short time (in person, not in thought), out of intense longing we made every effort to see you” (1 Thess. 2:17).

“Torn away” is a phrase used of a child bereft from a parent. Chrysostom, a Church Father, depicts the word powerfully,

He sought for a word that might fitly indicate his mental anguish. Though standing in relation of a father to them all, he yet utters the language of orphan children that have permanently lost their parent.

It reminds us of Paul’s description of his leave-taking with the Ephesian elders.

When he said this, he knelt down with all of them and prayed. They all wept as they embraced him and kissed him. What grieved them most was his statement that they would never see his face again. Then they accompanied him to the ship. After we had torn ourselves away from them, we put out to sea and sailed straight to Cos. – Acts 20:36-21:1

And what was the content of Paul’s relational ministry to the Ephesian believers? It was gospel truth for daily sanctification.

You know that I have not hesitated to preach anything that would be helpful to you but have taught you publicly and house to house. … However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace. Now I know that none of you among whom I have gone about preaching the kingdom will ever see me again…. For I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God. … Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears. Now I commit you to God and to the word of his grace, which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified. – Acts 20:20, 24-25, 27, 31-32

When torn away, here’s how Paul responded. “Out of intense longing we made every effort to see you” (1 Thess. 2:17b). We could translate it like this, “We experienced such non-stop, eager desire to reconnect with you that we endeavored exceedingly to see you!”

Let’s be honest. There are some counselees whose struggles are so difficult and whose way of relating so troublesome that at times we think, “Couldn’t someone else counsel this person?” In those moments, we need to pray for the Spirit to empower us with the type of love and longing that Paul writes about in 1 Thessalonians 2:17.

Portrait # 5: The Loving Respect of a Proud Mentor

Paul’s final portrait of the personal ministry of the Word comes in a military context. He writes in 1 Thessalonians 2:18, “For we wanted to come to you—certainly I, Paul, did, again and again—but Satan stopped us.” “Stopped us” literally means a cut in the road—an obstacle placed in the road by a military opponent to impeded or slow the advance of oncoming troops.

Paul continues this military context in 2:19: “For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes?” Paul now paints the image of the conquering king or general. Typically that general would gladly, and not-so-humbly, claim all the accolades for himself. Instead Paul turns to the “lowly private” and says, “You earned the victors crown. The glory wreath! You are a spiritual warrior. Well done!”

Sometimes we so focused on confronting the sins of our counselees that we forget that they are, by God’s grace, saints—victorious in Christ. And we forget to celebrate their victories.

As if to put an exclamation point on his respect for them, Paul concludes, “Indeed, you are our glory and joy.” Paul loves them and is proud of them. He publicly honors them for their esteemed service. They are spiritual champions in Christ.

Truth for Life and Ministry

Could the people we minister to say the following of us?

•  “I experienced you as a beloved brother embracing me as a fellow, equal member of God’s forever family by grace.”
•  “I experienced our relationship as a band of brothers and as a teammate who fights for me and agonizes on my behalf as you relate Christ’s grace to my life.”
•  “I experienced you as a nursing mother nourishing me with gospel truth through tender, cherishing love.”
•  “I experienced you as an affectionate, generous mother giving me Scripture and your very own soul because I am dearly loved by you.”
•  “I experienced you as a father focused on me with individual pastoral attention”
•  “I experienced you as a wise and caring father, shepherding me with exactly the biblical wisdom I uniquely needed at that specific moment.”
•  “I experienced you as longing for me so much that when we are apart you grieved like an orphan.”
•  “I experienced you as desperately longing for deep connection with me as a child longs for connection with a parent.”
•  “I experienced you as a mentor so proud of who I am in Christ that you give me a spiritual medal of honor.”
•  “I experienced you as a mentor so proud of who I am in Christ that I am your pride and joy.”

—

Dr. Robert W. Kellemen: Bob is the Vice President for Institutional Development and Chair of the Biblical Counseling Department at Crossroads Bible College, the Founder and CEO of RPM Ministries, and served for five years as the founding Executive Director of the Biblical Counseling Coalition. For seventeen years Bob served as the founding Chairman of and Professor in the MA in Christian Counseling and Discipleship department at Capital Bible Seminary. Bob pastored for 15 years and has trained pastors and counselors for three decades. Bob earned his BA in Pastoral Ministry from Baptist Bible College (PA), his Th.M. in Theology and Biblical Counseling from Grace Theological Seminary, and his Ph.D. in Counselor Education from Kent State University. Bob and his wife, Shirley, have been married for thirty-five years; they have two adult children, Josh and Marie, one daughter-in-law, Andi, and three granddaughters: Naomi, Penelope, and Phoebe. Dr. Kellemen is the author of thirteen books including Gospel-Centered Counseling and Gospel Conversations.

Answering Life’s 8 Ultimate Questions

Whenever I talk about gospel-centered counseling, I discuss what I call 8 ultimate life questions. From time to time, I’m asked, “Why don’t you call them 8 ultimate life answers”? Michael Horton answers this question, in his fine work, The Gospel-Driven Life, by noting: We typically introduce the Bible as the “answer to life’s questions.” This is where the Bible becomes relevant to people “where they are” in their experience. Accordingly, it is often said that we must apply the Scriptures to daily living. But this is to invoke the Bible too late, as if we already knew what “life” or “daily living” meant. The problem is not merely that we lack the right answers, but that we don’t even have the right questions until God introduces us to His interpretation of reality.

Exactly!

So let’s compare the world’s 8 ultimate life questions to the Bible’s 8 ultimate life questions—to see that the world doesn’t even get the questions right!

Ultimate Life Question # 1

The World’s Question: “What is truth?”

The Word’s Question: “Where do we find wisdom for life in a broken world?”

Do you see how rich and robust the Word’s question is? And how real, raw, and relevant the Word’s question is? The world asks about truth in the abstract—philosophical truth. The Word asks about and provides the ultimate source of wisdom for living—how broken people live wisely in a broken world.

Ultimate Life Question # 2

The World’s Question: “Why is there something rather than nothing?”

The Word’s Question: “Who Is God?” “What comes into our mind when we think about God?” “Whose view of God will we believe—Satan’s or Christ’s?”

When Shirley and I recently visited the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, we read displays that constantly pondered why there was something instead of nothing. They not only failed to provide an answer, they were asking a shallow and foolish question.

See again the richness of the Word’s question: “Whose view of God will we believe—Satan’s or Christ’s?” We all have a view of God. We are all worshipping beings. And we all follow someone’s portrait of God—either an evil portrait painted by Satan or the beautiful portrait painted by Christ—in His blood.

Ultimate Life Question # 3

The World’s Question: “Who am I?”

The Word’s Question: “Whose are we?” “In what story do we find ourselves?”

Wow! Just add those two letters—s and e—and what a world of difference we find between the world’s question and the Word’s question.

“Who am I” is such a tiny, puny, and self-centered question. It is a question that pictures the world revolving around me. “Who am I?” is a question that can only be answered by self-sufficiency and self-reference—I am who I see and make myself to be.

“Whose are we?” is such a gigantic, even infinite, question. It is a question that pictures the universe revolving around God. “Whose am I?” is a question that can only be answered in-reference-to our Creator—coram Deo. The story of our life is not an auto-biography. The story of our life is a God-biography—we are each an epic poem (Eph. 2:10) written by God as pages in chapters in God’s book of eternal life.

Paul answers this ultimate life question in Romans 1:7: “Beloved by the Father and called to be saints.” We are loved sons/daughters and cleansed saints—that’s who we are because of Whose we are!

Ultimate Life Question # 4

The World’s Question: “Why do we do the things we do?”

The Word’s Question: “What went wrong?” “What’s the root source of our problem?”

The world answers its wrong question with a wrong answer. “I do the things I do because of others—it’s my spouse’s fault, my boss’ fault, my parents’ fault.” Or, “I do the things I do because of my feelings—they are out of control, beyond my control.” Or, “I do the things I do because of my body—I need better medication because my physical brain is the ultimate source of my soulful problems.”

The Word gets to the heart of our heart problem. Yes, our life situation influences our actions. Yes, our emotions are tricky and complex. Yes, our bodies are frail and fallen jars of clay. However, the root of our problem is spiritual—it is a worship disorder. It is a loss-of-awe disorder. We are all spiritual adulterers and heart idolaters—that’s the root of our problem.

Recognition of that root compels us to cry out in God-sufficiency for an Answer—a Person—who has paid the price for adultery and idolatry.

Ultimate Life Question # 5

The World’s Question: “How do people change?”

The Word’s Question: “How does Christ change people?” “How does Christ bring us peace with God?”

The world’s question focuses on human self-effort—which is the very definition of secular thinking. It’s all about me and my self-sufficient efforts to be a “better me” in my power for my good.

The Word’s question focuses on Christ-sufficiency—it’s all about Him, His power, for His glory—and becoming more like Christ, not simply a “better me.” Yes, there is a role that we play—but that role is a grace-empowered role. Already changed by Christ, we now put off the vestiges of the old us and put on the new person we already are in Christ—through the Spirit’s empowerment. Christ not only changes our inner person, but also changes our relationship with the Father from enemy to family, from alienation to peace.

Ultimate Life Question # 6

The World’s Question: “Where can we find help?”

The Word’s Question: “Where can we find a place to believe, belong, and to become—like Christ?”

The world says, “It takes a village.”

The Word says, “It takes a church.” Sanctification is a community journey with our brothers and sisters in Christ. As Ephesians 3:14-21 reminds us, it is together with all the saints that we grasp grace and grow in grace to glorify our gracious God.

Ultimate Life Question # 7 

The World’s Question: “Where are we headed?”

The Word’s Question: “How does our future destiny impact our lives today?”

We all want to know, “What’s the point?” “What’s our purpose?” The world asks these questions in a vacuum.

The Word asks the destiny question knowing the answer and relevantly tying our future to our present. As Christians, our future destiny is in eternity with God on a new heaven and a new earth where we have intimacy with God, purity in our hearts, and victory in our lives. Since this is true, the Bible urges us to live today in light of eternity. As saints who struggle against suffering and sin—our future makes all the difference in our lives now.

Ultimate Life Question # 8

The World’s Question: “Why are we here?”

The Word’s Question: “What’s our calling/purpose?” “How do we become like Christ”?

The world’s take on the question of ultimate meaning begins with a shallow question and responds with an even more superficial answer: “To be a better me.”

The Word sees our purpose as a calling in relationship to God and others. And the Word focuses our answer on Christlikeness. We are here to glorify the Father the way the Son glorified the Father. We are here to increasingly reflect Jesus. Each of us will do so in unique, idiosyncratic ways because we are each fearfully and wonderfully made to reflect Christ in a billion different ways.

The Right Questions and the Right Answers

Here’s my tweet-size summary of the implication of getting both the questions and the answers correct: To offer wise & loving biblical counsel, we must ask & answer gospel-centered biblical questions. [Add tweet link]

The world not only gets the answers wrong, the world’s questions are impoverished. The Word not only gets the answers right, the Word’s questions are rich, robust, and relevant. Is it a new thought for you that the world not only has foolish answers, but also shallow questions? If so, what impact might this realization have on your life and ministry?

How are you biblically answering life’s 8 ultimate questions?

—

Dr. Robert W. Kellemen: Bob is the Vice President for Institutional Development and Chair of the Biblical Counseling Department at Crossroads Bible College, the Founder and CEO of RPM Ministries, and served for five years as the founding Executive Director of the Biblical Counseling Coalition. For seventeen years Bob served as the founding Chairman of and Professor in the MA in Christian Counseling and Discipleship department at Capital Bible Seminary. Bob pastored for 15 years and has trained pastors and counselors for three decades. Bob earned his BA in Pastoral Ministry from Baptist Bible College (PA), his Th.M. in Theology and Biblical Counseling from Grace Theological Seminary, and his Ph.D. in Counselor Education from Kent State University. Bob and his wife, Shirley, have been married for thirty-five years; they have two adult children, Josh and Marie, one daughter-in-law, Andi, and three granddaughters: Naomi, Penelope, and Phoebe. Dr. Kellemen is the author of thirteen books including Gospel-Centered Counseling and Gospel Conversations.

Adapted with permission from RPM Ministries (here & here)

Overcoming Discouragement in Ministry

Once a month, I have the great privilege of meeting with a number of extremely wise and godly ministers alongside of whom I minister in the PCA. We either discuss a topic or share with one another certain things that are going on in life or ministry. Recently, we shared with one another the ways in which we have learned to deal with discouragement in ministry. Here are a few takeaways from our time together:

1. We must remember that we need to be sanctified

Just as we often say that marriage helps us recognize our need for sanctification in areas that we might not otherwise see, so too in pastoral ministry. When the hardships and trials come, we must remember that we need to be sanctified in certain areas of our lives that we might not see, were the trials and challenges not there. For instance, pastors might not realize sinful anger that remains in their hearts until some unjust action takes place in the church and that anger begins to well up within. Pastors may not recognize their need to listen better or communicate better until some issue arises that helps them see their own sinful deficiencies. God may have placed this trial or challenge in your ministry to sanctify you as a pastor.
 We must remember that we need to grow in wisdom. Just as we need sanctification, pastors need wisdom. A faithful pastor will want to grow as a wise shepherd of the flock. Solomon asked the Lord for wisdom above everything else because he wanted to pastor God’s people with great skill (1 Kings 3:6-9). I have, many times, gone to older and wiser men for counsel as I face trials and challenges in ministry; and, I hope that, to some degree, I am growing in wisdom as I press through one challenge and head into another. The experience gleaned from both successes and failures often brings with it a greater measure of wisdom. We learn this from the book of Ecclesiastes. There were things that Solomon learned from the experiences of life. Often the trials and challenges of ministry serve as the vehicle by which God grows ministers in wisdom.

2. We must remember that we are insufficient for ministry

The Apostle Paul repeatedly told the members of the church in Corinth that ministers are insufficient, in and of themselves, for ministry (2 Cor. 2:16; 3:5: 12:9). This was necessary because there were certain “super apostles” who cast aspersions on the Apostle Paul were boasting as if they were sufficient. When trials and challenges come, ministers feel their own insufficiency. In the midst of challenges with congregants, ministers remember that they cannot change the hearts of the people to whom God has sent them to shepherd. In many cases, the only course of action in a particular trial is go to the throne of grace and plead with the Lord to bring whatever we are facing to a felicitous end.
4. We must remember our calling to ministry. When Timothy began to retreat from ministry, or act in fear, the Apostle Paul charged him to remember his ordination to ministry. In fact, he did it twice. In 1 Timothy 1:6, he wrote, “This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you, that by them you may wage the good warfare;” and in 2 Tim. 1:18 he told Timothy, “For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands.” Remembering that God has set us apart to pastor His people helps fan the flame of our zeal for ministry. This is essential for ministers to remember when the discouragements come in ministry. Knowing that God has called you into ministry enables you to keep going when things get tough.

3. We must remember that the particular church to which we have been called needs us to be faithful pastors

It has become almost cliche for ministers in Reformed churches to say things like, “Don’t think that God needs you for ministry. He can replace you with anyone He wants.” While this is absolutely true, it is just as right to say, “While God does not need you for ministry, the church to which you have been called does!” The Apostle Paul told the church in Philippi, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account” (Phil. 1:22-24). This is one of the keys to contentment in ministry in whatever church in which you serve. Pastors must remember, when they faced ministry challenges, that the Lord has called them–and not another–to minister in just the right church, in just the right town at just the right time.
6. We must remember that we have been called to suffer. There is a solidarity that pastors have with the Lord Jesus, the Apostles and other faithful ministers who have suffered before them. The Apostles strengthened the members of the early church with the following words: “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). We should not be surprised when trials and challenges come because God has promised that we will suffer. In one of his most astonishing statement, the Apostle Paul, told the church in Colosse, “I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church” (Col. 1:24). In 2 Corinthians 1:6-7, Paul wrote, “If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.”
7. We must remember that we are in ministry to bring glory to Christ. The ultimate encouragement to help ministers press through the discouragements they experience when they face trials and challenges is that we were created, redeemed and called into ministry in order to bring glory to Christ http://buff.ly/1X7M2Mq The cry of the ministers heart must ever be, “He must increase, I must decrease.” The ministries to which we have been called by God are not for our own glory. So often the discouragements that ministers feel are on account of a wrong view of ministry. A wise pastor once told me, “Too often, we think that we will be happy if we can get people to do what is right rather than simply being happy that we are doing what is right in order to bring glory to God. We do so while we recognize that only Jesus can bring about change in the lives of the members of the church or peace in whatever trial or challenge that we face.” We exist to bring glory to God through exalting the Lord Jesus Christ.

—

Rev. Nicholas T. Batzig is the organizing pastor of New Covenant Presbyterian Church in Richmond Hill, Ga. Nick grew up on St. Simons Island, Ga. In 2001 he moved to Greenville, SC where he met his wife Anna, and attended Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. He writes regularly at Feeding on Christ and other online publications. Follow him on Twitter: @Nick_Batzig

Originally published at Feeding on Christ. Used with permission.

On Mission In New Places

Where I grew up, I remember people telling me about a guy in town who served in the Vietnam War. They explained that he was in some sort of Special Forces unit where he was dropped in the jungle by himself for his missions. As you might expect, he was described as the tough guy who could pretty much do anything. Missionaries have wound up in unfamiliar places as well – think about one of the most well-known, Operation Auca with the Elliots, Saints, McCullys, and Youderains. We have all heard stories about people who were thrown into foreign places and cultures and expected to adapt in order to fulfill their mission—whether missionary or military. What we may not realize is that many of us find ourselves in similar scenarios, though under less extreme circumstances. This could be a new workplace, a new community, a new church, a new family, a new group of friends, or a new school. However, just being in a new place does not fully put us in a similar scenario, like the guy in the example above, we must have a mission in this new place. What is our mission? Well for the Christian, it is a commission given by our Lord,

“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 all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:19-20

With this commission in view, we could say that as Christians, there is no place the Lord could send us where his mission does not stand. Therefore, if the mission always stands, then the lack of Great Commission following that we find in our lives must be our fault, not the one who gave the mission. Where do we most often find this failure in following the Great Commission in our lives? Isn’t it often when we find ourselves in new places? Isn’t it also in places where we have not yet figured out that the gospel has bearing? So it could be in places that are new to us or in places that are new to our understanding of the gospel’s impact on them. So where do we start?

Find and Get to Know the People

Since the mission given us by our Lord is about people, it is helpful to know where the people are.For a new school or workplace that isn’t terribly difficult, because we’re thrust in the midst of a bunch of people every single day. For a new community or church it may take a bit more time in finding people particularly because in these types of scenarios we don’t spend as much time with people in these places as we might elsewhere. Much of this is about opening our eyes to the people who are in front of us. Paul exemplifies this for us in Acts 16. After he was forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia, he winds up in Philippi after the Macedonian man appeared to him in a vision.

“And on the Sabbath day we went outside the gate to the riverside, where we supposed there was a place of prayer, and we sat down and spoke to the women who had come together.” Acts 16:13

Paul went looking for people. Plain and simple.

Once we have found people, the process of getting to know people takes time. Languages need to be learned, or instead getting to know how the people talk. Knowing how people talk around us will help us to know what they find important, what they believe, and what they value. Paul does this in Athens to a degree, as he shows familiarity with their poets, “as even some of your own poets have said,” (Acts 17:28b). This brings out an important element of learning the language of a people, which is to learn about the entertainment they enjoy and the various forms of the arts with which they engage. This can often bring about some of the most personal connections with people. Ultimately, this is about getting to know the culture and that is exactly what Paul did. If you have worked for a large company, they will likely spend a great deal of time trying to talk about and build their culture. They want their culture to flow down to the people and become a part of the company’s DNA. Every place has its own distinct culture and we can better know the people when we learn the culture.

God brought my wife and I to a new church about twenty-five minutes from our house nearly two years ago. Though that distance doesn’t seem that far, it is a different town, school district, and county. Lots of things make this new place quite different from our old stomping ground, which is only a short drive away. Everything I learned about what used to be home in terms of demographics, needs, understanding of and openness to the gospel, and just basic values is not applicable to this new place. Through understanding these differences, we can learn more about the people with whom we have been placed.

Get to Know the Story

So we have found the people, we have gotten to know the language, and even gotten to know some of the surroundings of this new place. What’s next? While in Athens, before mentioning their poets, Paul says,

“Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘To the unknown god.” – Acts 17:22b-23b

Paul makes more than simple observations about what he sees, but he uses those observations to develop a story. The story he develops is the story of Athens or rather what is really going in Athens beneath all the people, culture, and supposed knowledge. Of course, if we know the rest of what Paul says after verse 23, we know that he is building towards something.

Every place has a story residing underneath all that is going on; a story that people are living according to. Michael Horton, in the introduction to his book, The Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims on the Way, says,

“The inextricable connection of faith and practice in terms of drama, doctrine, doxology, and discipleship has evident corollaries in every philosophy, religion, and culture. The drama determines the big questions as well as the answers” (15).

What Horton says here speaks to what we are grappling with in terms of the stories behind the people we encounter in these new places. As Horton says, the drama (story) determines all the big questions that people are asking and what the answers to those questions are. In Athens, Paul knew an underlying story was being told through what the people of Athens said, did, and thought. These stories pointed to what the Athenians believed about the world. When we understand the stories people who we find ourselves among in these new places believe, we are then ready to take the final step in obedience to our Lord’s commission.

Apply THE STORY

Paul shows us that in Athens he is not merely a sociological commentator. In other words, he does not walk around Athens and just make comments and conclusions about what he sees. Instead, he knows that to understand the people, the culture, and the story that lies beneath both, he can find the access point through which he can give the gospel story powerfully and effectively. Paul says,

“The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.” – Acts 17:24-25

Paul goes on even afterward to point for point respond to the story that the Athenians had been living with the true story of the gospel. Horton says,

“The Christian faith is a counterdrama to all of the meganarratives and metanarratives of this passing age – ancient, medieval, modern, and postmodern. It speaks of the triune God who existed eternally before creation and of ourselves as characters in his unfolding plot” (19).

In other words, the true story of the gospel speaks into and sits sovereignly over any other story about reality, truth, and how the world supposedly is. The gospel deems contradicting realities untrue as it points to the ultimate truth, which is embodied perfectly in a person, namely Jesus Christ.

Through this engagement with the stories, we are pointing to the story that points to Jesus. However, we will have a harder time applying the story of the gospel to our culture if we don’t first know it. We don’t have a definitive amount of time that Paul was in Athens in Acts 17; however, he was there long enough to observe and know the culture and the people. Paul was always living with his mission at the forefront of everything he did. Wherever Paul wound up, either by his own planning or the Lord’s direction, it was always the place that God wanted him. If we could talk to Paul now, he wouldn’t attribute his single-minded focus for this mission to his apostleship or being a missionary, but to his call to be a disciple of Christ who made more disciples.

Conclusion

Let us consider the places that God has put us as purposeful, strategic appointments from our Lord. Whether we have just arrived at our place or have been there for quite a while, let us ask God to help us open our eyes. We would do well to follow the pattern of the apostle Paul—getting to know people, getting to know their story, and applying the story of the gospel. No corner of creation is considered mundane or hidden from the King. Our families, workplaces, schools, communities, churches, lunch tables, favorite breakfast places, waiting rooms, and every other nook and cranny of our lives are places that God has put us for his glory. The guy in the Special Forces from my neighborhood wasn’t dropped in the jungle so he could build himself a hut to cozy up and watch Netflix. He got to work fulfilling his mission the minute he touched down. May we do the same.

—

Nick Abraham (DMin student at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) lives in Navarre, OH with his wife and daughter. He serves as an Associate Pastor at Alpine Bible Church in Sugarcreek, OH. He is a contributor to Make, Mature, Multiply: Becoming Fully-Formed Disciples of Jesus and blogs at Like Living Stones.

Diligently Teaching Our Children to Spot Counterfeit Gods

I have a friend who works in the banking industry, and as he was training I was fascinated by a particular story that he shared with me. He was sitting in the training room and his manager began to lay twenty-dollar bills on the table. As he laid them down he looked up and asked, "Which one is a counterfeit?" My friend carefully examined the bills and chose one. He chose the wrong one. The manager picked the bills up and began to teach him how to spot the counterfeit bill. This happened everyday until he could spot the counterfeit within seconds. Likewise, we must train our children so well that they can spot the counterfeit gods that our society invites them to serve within seconds. These brazen invitations to serve counterfeit gods are the reason our children need to be trained just like my friend who works in the bank.

Teach Them Diligently

These are the words of God in Deuteronomy 6:

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. –Deuteronomy 6:4-9

When we think about raising children, these words from God come quickly to mind. God commands believing parents to raise their children diligently.

"You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise."

This training is a lifestyle and you must teach it to your children.

We must answer the question, "Why?" Why do we need to be teaching this to our children? It is quite simple—because as believing parents, we are the primary means of discipleship in our family. God tells us to teach our children diligently and that is exactly what we must do. Besides, as you may have figured out, this command has many practical implications for your life and your children.

God is very clear in why he commands his people to train their children up in the way they should go; because when they go into the land that he has promised them, there will be counterfeit gods and they will be tempted to go and worship them! Well, we know that the only God that must be worshipped is the Lord and he is a jealous God for his people (Deut. 6:15). He demands we worship him and him alone (Exod. 20:1-6).

My mind immediately goes to Galatians as Paul warns those believers not to turn to a "different gospel" (Gal. 1:6). Well as frankly as I can put it, believers are finding their children turning to a different gospel and falling into the temptations from its counterfeit gods because we have not followed the command from Deuteronomy 6 to diligently teach our children.

More times than not I hear parents say, "I'm just going to let my child be a child. They don't need to worry about things like homosexuality or abortion until they're out of college."

This response is oblivious at best because everything that surrounds them in life pushes them to counterfeit gods and their “gospels.” Our children are pushed by the media to care more about Brady's deflated footballs than the devaluation of human life. Their schools teach them that it's foolish to believe in God and that only science should be trusted . I could go on and on about how our world is telling our kids to run far away from God and into a different gospel of false love and acceptance—where anything goes and God does not exist.

Three Common Counterfeit Gods

As a youth director, I regularly encounter these three counterfeit gods: the counterfeit god of choice, the counterfeit god of sex, and the counterfeit god of acceptance.

First, our children are being proselytized by the god of choice. This is the idea that they are entitled to live life the way they see fit. This counterfeit god’s gospel proclaims that how they and others choose to live their lives is no one's business. There is no absolute truth; there are no rules for life only whatever they see as right. Jesus rebukes this counterfeit god by saying, "Sanctify them in the truth, your word is truth" (Jn. 17:17). The Word of God is the only absolute truth. The Word of God tells us what is right and points us to Jesus. Many today see the Word of God as binding them, but the Psalmist David exclaims that the Word of God makes the believer's paths wide (Ps. 119). The Word of God is where our children will find their perfect joy and peace in this life, and ultimately, Christ prays that his people will be sanctified by it.

Second, our children are being proselytized by the god of sex. We live in a culture that glorifies sex without consequence. The television shows, the movies, and the music that surrounds our children shove a sexual lifestyle that carries no future weight in their lives. Our children see this bogus glorified lifestyle and they begin to desire to live their lives this way. This counterfeit gods gospels proclaims that they know what true love is and a rampant pornography industry says they know what sex is designed to be. Our children fall into this trap time and time again. The gospel counters this counterfeit god by reminding believers that their bodies are temples of God and that sexual immorality should not be named among believers (Eph. 5:3). Jesus is clear in his definition of marriage and beyond that definition is against the will of God (Mark 10:6-9).

Last, our children are being proselytized by the god of acceptance. As our children fall into the lies of counterfeit gods, so do their friends. As their friends begin to believe a different gospel, they proclaim the gospel of acceptance and urge our children to follow suit in esteeming the opinion and acceptance of man above the one true God. What does the true gospel proclaim? Our reward for faithfulness is in heaven (Matt. 5:12). Our children must live a life that is always ready for eternal life and able to say, "Come Lord Jesus, Come quickly, Amen" (Rev. 22).

So, as parent's, how do we disciple our children, and stop this constant sliding into a lifestyle that is led astray by these counterfeit gods? We must teach our children that the only way to discern what is important in our world is to look at what is important to Jesus. We must teach our children how to spot counterfeit gods and different gospels.

And this must start at the home! Parents must diligently disciple their children in the faith once delivered. Parents, you spend the most time with your children and you must be intentional about raising them up in the faith so that they will not be like the house built upon the sand that falls when faced with the great storms of life (Matt. 7:24-27).

Two Means to Recognize the Counterfeits

I think we have two primary means to disciple our children:

1. Go to Church Regularly as a Family

I do not know of a better place to have your children other than in the church—where we are called to worship in the very presence of God. They will be accustomed to hearing the Word preached, the sacraments being practiced, and prayers being made. These aspects of worship are the primary ways by which our God pours out grace upon his people. Parents, why would we not want our children in church? For children to see their parents worshipping God, to see them fellowship with other believers, and to see them serve the church faithfully—there is no greater training that you can give!

If you worship God together in the church fifty times every year over the course of your child’s life, they will have heard and seen the gospel over 600 times. Don’t miss these opportunities. Families who worship in the church together help to counter the current trend in our culture because when you know what true worship looks like on Sunday, you can truly worship rightly on Monday through Saturday.

2. Worship with Your Family at Home.

Because family worship is often neglected in the church, it is a practice I’m intentional about promoting to the children and families I help shepherd. How can we obey Deuteronomy 6 without setting aside time for family worship? If your children see God being glorified in the home, if they see their parents living out their worship that takes place on Sunday morning through the rest of the week, and if they feel encouraged to live their life for Christ, they will be more prepared to boldly stand for their faith outside of the home when the time comes.

Parents, it is not good enough to live for Christ on Sunday morning and not the rest of the week because your child will grow up and do exactly the same thing. These two practices go hand-in-hand. Our worship on Sunday flows into our family worship throughout the week. We worship in our churches, the benediction is proclaimed and the service ends, and now we are sent out into the world. However, discipleship cannot end there. We must worship in our homes so that as the counterfeit gods of our culture assault our children they instinctually recall what we have diligently taught them in our churches and in our homes.

Through worshipping together on Sunday mornings and worshipping throughout the week in the home, our children will have been in the presence of God so much that they know exactly how these counterfeit gods look and their response will be to flee from them. Parents, disciple your children. Make going to church a habit and worship regularly together, in your church and in your home. Teach your children diligently. It's vital for your family and our culture. Now the time to take Deuteronomy 6 seriously.

—

Matthew D. Adams is the Director of Youth and Family Ministries at First Presbyterian Church, PCA in Dillon, SC. He is currently a Master's of Divinity student at Erskine Theological Seminary in Columbia, SC. He lives in a small town by the name of Hamer, SC and is married to Beth. Follow him on twitter @Matt_Adams90.

Are Children a Barrier or Blessing for Missional Communities?

Missional Communities are a beautiful mess, especially when they have kids! I remember the first Missional Community (MC) that my wife and I led. We had a diverse group consisting of college students, singles, married couples, and lots and lots of kids. I remember one time we took a photo in our backyard. It looked like we were running a pre-k program every Thursday night. Not only were my wife and I trying to plan and prepare for our community's meeting every week, but we also found that we needed to dedicate and intentionally build in planning time for the children. Week in and week out, we'd have 10-14 kiddos at our house. We quickly learned that it was a beautiful mess—one that called us to steward well the responsibility of having children in our groups. In talking with others leading or participating in MCs, one thing has become apparent—trying to meaningfully incorporate children into the life of a community on mission is relatively new territory. I've seen the church build momentum with this in large corporate gatherings, which is a beautiful evidence of grace upon the church. However, the church must shift focus and begin building similar systems and rhythms for the children in our groups. For most missional communities, the extent that children participate is coming with their parents, usually destroying the host's home, enjoying unlimited lasagna and cookies, watching a movie, and then leaving at the end of the night. For children under 3, that's not bad. We want them to enjoy their time. That doesn’t mean they can’t digest basic ideas, songs, and stories about Jesus, but we shouldn’t drowned toddlers under 3 with theology.

My focus, in this article, is missional communities with children 3 and up, especially those with children 6 and up. Why? Because developmentally, children between 3-6 can start learning basic concepts building to more advanced concepts as they approach 6. They're learning to learn and are able to do things like sit for longer periods of time and be attentive to instruction. Kiddos 6 and above have clearly learned the "learning to learn" skills to be successful with just that, learning! One final comment on developmental appropriateness; not all children develop at a typical rate. There are lots of kiddos in each and every community that require special attention and have specific learning styles. That said, keep in mind that we'll have to be flexible as we plan for the group at large, knowing that we'll have to adjust instruction and teaching for certain learners that are wonderfully different.

Intentional Incorporation

What would it look like to intentionally incorporate children? First, we must instruct and teach them at their level each and every week—whether you're taking the concepts that the whole MC is learning and making it developmentally appropriate for children, or whether your lesson planning new concepts altogether. The idea is that we're intentional and we're planning. In addition to planning lessons and units of teaching, we want to engage the kiddos in community by encouraging the sharing of their hearts, the confessing of their sins, and by sharing the good news of the rich grace that more than covers their iniquities. If we do one thing well with our kiddos, let's teach them the concept of grace. Let's teach them how sweet it is and the cost that was paid for their sins. Not only will our children grow in grace, but also they'll learn to lead well in a generation that truly needs it. You want revival beyond us and our generation, focus on the children in your groups.

Luke 18 helps us understand why we should do this well. In Luke 18, Jesus encounters a group of children. Essentially, we know that Jesus calls the children to him yet let's look deeper. I'm going to make an assumption in examining this passage as to Jesus' heart in calling the children to himself. As opposed to saying, "Hold up kids! I'm not sure you know this, but I'm Jesus, you know, the Son of God. I'm busy preaching and teaching. You'll have to come back later." Was that Jesus' heart and attitude towards the kiddos? Did he take himself so seriously that he sent the children on their way? Absolutely not! He calls them to himself. That's an example for us leaders. You might be thinking “I’ve never turned away the kiddos during MC,” yet in your heart, I’m sure you’ve felt like they're getting in the way. You've probably felt like putting them in a room for the sake of peace and quiet. The heart there is what we're aiming for and where I want to focus. As opposed to viewing children as a barrier, let's view them as a blessingYes, it's chaotic. Yes, it can drive us crazy. But, despite that, let's model graciousness in our families and groups towards our children. After all, what must God think of our messy lives? The Father looks down and extends grace, rather than becoming irritated with us.

Deuteronomy 11:18-20 also supports this rationale. Moses gives a clear command for us to teach "these things" to our children. When? Where? While we're sitting at home, walking along the way, and in every part of our life. It's very casual, yet important. This passage gives the sense that teaching our children is to be done on a regular basis, both informally and continually. If we're called to do this so informally in our homes, that's all the more reason to better steward a structured time like MC.

Practical Recommendations

So how should we do this well from a practical standpoint? I want to be pragmatic and practical in this section. How are we going to do this well? Remember, these are recommendations and should be modified to fit the context of your MC and its participants.

• Ask for volunteers. Volunteers can make the MC more life giving for the families participating. I'd encourage the MC to look for an individual within the church that can serve each week. We had a faithful servant in our missional community that loved our kiddos. We loved her and demonstrated our appreciation for her in tangible ways. She loved when we gifted her the ESV Study Bible. It was a little gesture to show our appreciation of her commitment. A good volunteer can make the group more engaging for the parents participating.
• Provide Direction. A good way the church can serve these volunteers is by providing support in the way of lesson planning and strategic vision and direction. This can be done by a paid Children’s Director or by partners in the church that are gifted in working with children. Remember, it takes a village.
• Plan. Plan ahead for the kiddos that are there. Putting them into informal "clusters" will help you keep the expectations appropriate for each respective grouping.
• Kiddos under 3 need to have a good time. Cookies, cake, toys they like, and other special activities (Play-Doh, bubbles, etc.) will keep them engaged and loving the weekly rhythm of MC, which is worth its weight in gold. Parents will tell you—they're thrilled if they can meaningfully participate in MC because their under 3 kiddo enjoys being there. Gold I tell you.
• Kiddos between 3-6 can start to learn Scripture and enjoy the stories found in a good kids Bible. We recommend the The Jesus Storybook Bible. We love that the main Hero in the Story is Jesus and that's what we'd love for kiddos in this cluster to start learning. Jesus is the main character and all of Scripture points to him. It's our job to model a love of Scripture and an excitement for what’s found within the Book.
• Kiddos 6 and up may also like the Action Bible. It's with this group that you can expect more (sharing their hearts, confessing sin, understanding and applying grace, praying for one another, etc.)
• Look for leaders within this cluster. My sons are 6 and 8, and by God's grace, they're good leaders. They have 2 little sisters so they've had lots of opportunities to practice leading as tough and tender boys. I’ve also met lots of little girls that are firm and enjoy “mothering.” These kiddos will be the best helpers in the group; they can support the volunteer in reading to the younger children or playing games with them. This also gives us the opportunity to build them up as they embrace responsibility. Find leaders and equip them just like you would their parents!
• Have a rough schedule planned out but be flexible. The most successful leaders are agile, especially when you’re working with children.
• Work Together. Make sure there's gracious collaboration between the volunteers and family. The volunteer is not going to be perfect nor will they know the children as well as the parents. There's a learning curve involved but collaboration is important.
• Pray with and for all the children regularly—it's vital!

What Works for Your MC

In light of the different directions you could take, I’d encourage you to prayerfully consider what might work for your MC. Ultimately, we want our children in the church to grow up knowing what it looks and feels like to have authentic community. If we can accomplish this, the ripple will be far beyond anything we can ever measure. Lives will be changed and the gospel will move forward. We must take and win this territory. It's untouched and ripe for the picking. Jesus says in Luke 10 that the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Let's cultivate what's needed from an early age to raise up laborers for the kingdom of God. They're right there in our groups, you know, the ones reaching for the cookies.

—

Rob Fattal serves as CEO and BCBA in high-touch boutique firms providing educational services to children. He started his career as a credentialed teacher and served in both the public school system and at the university level. He and his wife have 4 kiddos of their own and have led and coached MCs and MC leaders. Ultimately, they love the church and hope to serve it well.

An Exchange Worth Making

Children often struggle with being fickle and indecisive when receiving or shopping for a gift. Those who’ve witnessed that awkward, anti-climactic moment when a child is clearly unimpressed by some gift they’ve just been given know the gut-wrenching desire that the unfortunate moment would pass quickly. One of the hallmarks of adolescence is an inability to discern the true, objective value of one thing in comparison to another. What glitters in the eyes of a child today becomes rubbish tomorrow. For children, the investment that originally secured the object for them is of little concern.

Christmas and birthdays are a prime time to observe this phenomenon. A child unwraps a gift like a tornado ripping through the aluminum siding of a mobile home, plays with it momentarily, and then drops it in hot pursuit of the next big thing.

Unaware that material goods offer only a fleeting, momentary satisfaction, children convince themselves that happiness will be found in the next best gift. They have not yet learned that discontentment produces only sadness and disappointment. The things of this world are surely passing away (1 Jn. 2:17).

A parent’s dismay at their child’s struggle with idolatry is short-lived, however, when they hear Paul say, “Such were some of you” (1 Cor. 6:11). We are not entirely unlike our little ones, as we’ll soon learn.

A History of Gift Exchange

As adults, we carry on a legacy of gift exchange that works in our hearts like an almost unstoppable force. The next big thing tempts us in much the same way that we see our children enticed by things that glitter. An example of this might be the ensuing fervor that occurs whenever the latest smartphone or luxury car hits the marketplace.

Many people today sit at the counseling table or in discipleship meetings brokenhearted over what amounts to the inability of their functional gods to make good on false promises (Deut. 4:28).

In biblical counseling, we refer to this as spiritual or circumstantial sadness and depression. It’s different from a sadness that’s rooted in biology, but it’s no less real. It doesn’t originate in the brain, as much as in the heart. In a materialistic culture, it’s all too common—even for those in the church.

Ruling desires of the heart not aligned with Scripture lead us into the restlessness of which Augustine warned: You made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it finds its place of rest in you.[1] Humans were created for worship. Indeed, something or someone will always occupy the throne of man’s heart. For this and other reasons, we are instructed to guard our hearts—the wellspring of life (Prov. 4:23).

We fail to guard our hearts, however, when we seek wholeness in career, fulfillment in marriage, happiness in education, comfort in the praises of men, or ultimate rest in recreation. Instead, we risk further estrangement from the God who created us and who now offers us fullness of joy in relationship with him when we continue seeking to exchange what we cannot lose for what we cannot keep (Ps. 16:11).

God the Father is indeed the Giver of all good gifts, such as those listed above, but when we exchange the pleasure of knowing the Giver for the gratification of merely possessing the gift, we reveal the true condition of our heart.

We say, in effect, God may be good, but there must be something better.

A Gift Exchanged for a Curse

Our propensity toward dissatisfaction begins in the garden with Adam exchanging the unspeakable joy of covenant communion with God for the false hope of becoming like God (Gen. 3:5). The horror of Adam’s deception was that he was already like God. Adam was the unique recipient of God’s immortal image and was the pinnacle of God’s creation (Gen. 1:26).

The greatest gift given to Adam at the beginning of human history was not “free will,” but the privilege of being God’s image-bearing vice regent over all the earth. God had already loved Adam, but Adam would ask God, in effect, “How have you loved me?” (Mal. 1:2).

By exchanging the divine gift, that is, his covenantal relationship with God in the garden, what Adam received was not blessing but curse. Not higher freedom but slavery. Not life but death. Not the truth but a lie. Not a deeper faith but unbelief.

Adam believed, in a way similar to an immature child, that he would find in the creation something better than the good gift he already possessed in God. The fruit of this is that we inherit this tragedy from Adam—the curse of sin and death along with a fundamental nature that is altogether different from Adam’s original state (Gen. 2:17; Ps. 51:5).

We continue making Adam’s fatal exchange each time we reject God’s good gift of communion with him in favor of lustful desires for something better in the world. Like Adam, we attempt to seek in the creation what can only be found in God. Like fickle children, only sadness and disappointment await us when we seek to exchange this toy for that toy.

It was C.S. Lewis who wrote in “The Weight of Glory”:

It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.[2]

A Biblical Exchange Policy

It used to be that stores would not exchange a gift without a receipt and certainly not after it had been opened or beyond thirty days. Store policies have changed over the years, so much so that shoppers are encouraged to read the fine print on any gift receipt. Shoppers are warned to not lose their receipt or attempt the return of items not purchased at the same store.

Thankfully, the story of the gospel, in both its diagnosis of man’s condition and prescription for redemption and restoration, has never been altered or amended.

This biblical exchange policy, though strict, is incredibly gracious to the returning customer (man) who offers an item (sin) that did not originate with the storeowner (God). Even more outlandish is that the customer seeks an item in exchange for their sin and sadness to which they can lay no claim—the righteousness of Christ and eternal life in him (Jn. 3:16).

The scandal of this policy is the storeowner’s perfect and just willingness to allow and even make provision for this outrageous exchange. Concerning this transaction, Paul writes:

“He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in [Christ]” —2 Corinthians 5:21 HCSB

Unlike children who are bound for eventual sadness and disappointment when the newness of something better wears off, those who receive the miracle of this Great Exchange will never tire of restored peace and fellowship with the author and finisher of their faith (Heb. 12:2).

To be sure, shadows of happiness and pleasure are evident in the world, but shadows do not fill the soul.Produced by that which moth and rust destroy, they leave the heart restless and empty (Matt. 6:19). By contrast, the “holiday at the sea” Lewis alluded to was secured by Jesus for Christians when he traded places with them on the cross.

Writing of this glorious truth, authors Jerry Bridges and Bob Bevington write:

In this Great Exchange, we find ourselves arriving at God himself. . . . Far from being slaves, we are now God-esteemed sons of God and Christ-esteemed brothers of Christ. . . . What can this inheritance mean? What blessing can be excluded? What a reward, what grace, what a God, what a Christ, what a Gospel![3]

 An Exchange Worth Making

Much of what passes as clinical depression today is discovered to be situational rather than biological. Some significant percentage of those cases, once the layers are pulled back, are driven by unruly desires of the heart. Satisfaction and contentment in Christ alone have been exchanged for whatever fills the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life (1 Jn. 2:16).

The good news is that despite our great folly when this is the case, God offers hope for prodigals who exchange their birthright for a bowl of soup or who spent their future inheritance on immediate pleasures only to find themselves wallowing in a pig’s pen.

As the Prodigal Son of Luke 15 learned, let us be convinced of our need for repentance and faith in the face of our own misguided exchanges and let us run with confidence back to our heavenly Father who waits for us and stands ready to exchange our soiled garments for a robe of righteousness and our earthly trinkets for eternal treasure.

[1] Augustine, The Confessions of Saint Augustine, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 2005), 15.

[2] C.S. Lewis, “The Weight of Glory Quotes,” goodreads, accessed August 24, 2015, https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/1629232.

[3] Jerry Bridges and Bob Bevington, The Great Exchange: My Sin for His Righteousness (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2007), 168-69.

— Joshua Waulk is the Founder and Executive Director of Baylight Counseling, a nonprofit biblical counseling ministry in Clearwater, Florida. He is married with four children, three of whom are adopted. Josh earned the MABC and is now pursuing the D.Min. in biblical counseling at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is ACBC certified.

The Original Jesus

Then a tiny streak of gold began to run along his white marble back—then it spread—then the color seemed to lick all over him as the flame licks all over a bit of paper—then, while his hindquarters were still obviously stone, the lion shook his mane and all the heavy, stone folds rippled into living hair. Then he opened a great red mouth, warm and living, and gave a prodigious yawn. . . .

Everywhere the statues were coming to life. The courtyard looked no longer like a museum; it looked more like a zoo. . . . And instead of the deadly silence the whole place rang with the sound of happy roarings, brayings, yelpings, barkings, squealings, cooings, neighings, stampings, shouts, hurrahs, songs and laughter.

—C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe[i]

This passage from C. S. Lewis’s epic Chronicles of Narnia series gives me chills every time I read it. Narnia, under a deep freeze as the result of the White Witch’s spell, was emerging from winter. Having defeated death at the Stone Table with a “deeper magic,” Aslan now rescued from death the creatures calcified into statues by the witch.

This image of breathing life into death easily calls to mind the spiritual rebirth we experienced as Christians when Christ, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, invaded our lives. Prior to salvation, we didn’t think we were dead, but we were. Paul tells us in Ephesians 2 that without Christ we existed as walking dead, spiritual corpses without any ability to please God. We walked with pleasure in the ways of our father Satan, and had no life within us. But Christ, through the regenerative power of the Holy Spirit, breathed life into us. The same life-giving breath that formed life at the dawn of creation has now breathed new life into His fallen creatures.

This creation, redemption, and renewal are the story of Christianity. But I wonder if the church has lost this message in some ways. I’m not speaking about a turn to heresy or those who reject the exclusivity of Christ, but I’m speaking of a development among those of us who hold fast to the gospel. We are tempted to promote a kind of near-gospel that offers blueprints for personal renewal without an emphasis on repentance made possible by the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.

This Dr. Phil Jesus is attractive in a self-help society. Jesus as a self-help star who doesn’t renew us from the inside but offers a set of vague moral principles by which we can work our way to success. This Jesus is not the one who breathed life into dead creatures but the one who offers a serene pathway to your best life now.

At this point you might ask, “Doesn’t this Jesus offer life principles?” Or you may also ask, “Don’t Christian principles work at times for non-Christians who follow them?” The answer is yes. Christian doctrine holds that all truth is God’s truth. Theologians have long held that the world lives under a concept called “common grace.” This is God’s favor and providence over all of humanity, even those who have no faith in Christ. For instance, a businessman may run his business according to the book of Proverbs—wise and honest, with integrity and fairness—and yet may have never read that book. Along the way he has gleaned useful principles for life, whether from his upbringing, from his application of commonly held best practices, or by learning from wise teachers. And so he applies what can be found in the Bible without even reading the Bible. This is common grace.

Similarly, a husband and wife may enjoy a long, fruitful, intimate marriage and yet not be believers. They apply the things to their marriage that the Bible says makes marriages hold—fidelity, forgiveness, grace—and yet are as lost in their sin as anyone else. How does this happen? It is by God’s favor upon fallen creatures living in His world, under His domain, according to the way He ordered the world to work.

The Bible has good principles by which to live; it is the best collection of wisdom in the world, written by the One who created the world. So in this sense Christians should live by the Bible and be unashamed to declare that God’s way is the best way.

And yet in another sense, the Bible was not given to us by God primarily as a book of wisdom, though wisdom is contained in its pages. It’s not primarily a book of principles, though life principles can be found in its pages. It’s not primarily a self-help manual, though self-improvement can be found in its pages. The Bible is one, long, continuous story, woven through various authors and genres and thousands of years of history. It’s a story that begins with the world as it was intended to be, good and beautiful, perfect and innocent. It’s the story of who we are as humans, created by God in His image and for His glory. It’s the story of a tragic fall and a heroic rescue.

For most of my Christian life, I didn’t read the Bible this way. I’m grateful for the Bible teaching I received growing up, the gospel message proclaimed to me, the Bible verses I memorized, and the hymns we sang in church that have stuck to my soul as an adult. Growing up, much of the preaching I heard was essentially this—how Jesus could improve your life followed with five steps to do better in a particular area of your life.

I didn’t get this message from a liberal, mainline denominational church. I grew up in an ultraconservative church. The way we looked at the Bible was not as God’s unfolding revelation of Himself, the story of His work through time and history to redeem His people. We looked at the Bible as a sort of guidebook for life with a way to get to heaven in the end. It was better than Dr. Phil or Dr. Laura or even Dr. Dobson, mainly because its words were inspired by God and therefore perfect. What we missed, however, was the grand narrative. Thankfully I heard the salvific message of the gospel, but there was so much more of its riches and depth that I missed.

I’m afraid much of our preaching and teaching in the church is like this: merely good, practical, helpful messages by godly men but that could easily be preached at a corporate business seminar. I’m afraid many of our pulpits lack the kind of Christocentric, gospel-saturated, bloody-cross-infused preaching that reminds us daily that Jesus didn’t come primarily to slightly improve us, but to breathe new life into the walking dead.

A Righteous Man Reborn

This kind of proclamation animated Jesus’s ministry. This is why I think the most shocking story in the Gospels may not be His walking on water, feeding thousands with a little boy’s lunch, or even raising Lazarus from the dead. Those events proved that Jesus was indeed the Messiah, the promised one prophesied by the prophets of old. But to me, the most surprising narrative is Jesus’s encounter with Nicodemus in John 3.

Nicodemus might have been the most admired religious figure in Israel. If you combined all of the warm vibes our culture holds for Billy Graham, Mother Teresa, and Pope Francis, you’d have Nicodemus. He was described as “the teacher” in Israel (John 3:10). When people had spiritual questions, it was Nicodemus who gave the answers. If anyone had a lifeline to God, surely it was this revered teacher of the Scriptures.

And yet in John 3 we find Nicodemus, the learned scholar, teacher, and spiritual leader, asking questions of Jesus, the suddenly popular carpenter’s son from Nazareth. There was something in Jesus’s message of repentance that was different than anything Nicodemus had heard. And sure enough, when Nicodemus asked these questions Jesus confronted him not with esoteric religious philosophy, but with his yet-unseen personal spiritual crisis.

Jesus pointed his finger at Nicodemus and said, “You must be born again.” This doesn’t seem like much for us who live in the West. Ever since Jimmy Carter employed it in his quixotic presidential campaign, “born-again” language has been part of our modern vernacular.

But to Nicodemus these words were a cold dose of reality and kind of a shock. After all, if anyone needed to be reborn, it was probably those crooked tax collectors at the temple, the unrepentant adulterers, and definitely the Romans who occupied the land God promised to Israel. But Nicodemus? He didn’t think he needed rebirth.

Nicodemus was already reborn, or so he thought. He was spiritual, religious, virtuous, moral. But had Nicodemus been reading the Scriptures closely, or how they were meant to be read with a redemptive-historical focus, he would have seen that the narrative of the Old Testament revealed mankind’s dangerous paradox. Scripture reveals a moral law from God that demands perfection as well as mankind’s inability to perform that law because of our depraved condition. The prophets foretold a day when a Messiah would come and establish his kingdom. The features of this kingdom would be a call to repentance and the regeneration of the heart. Ezekiel said God would come in power not simply to rescue Israel from its oppressors, but primarily to give them a new heart (Ezek. 36:26).

Jesus saw past Nicodemus’s outward religiosity and into his sinful heart. He knew that what Nicodemus needed from Him was not just an updated reading on the Old Testament law, a few pointers on how to better serve his people, or a list of best spiritual practices. Nicodemus needed what those statues in Narnia needed. He needed the breath of life from God.

Despite his performance, his knowledge of Old Testament Scriptures, and his status as an admired spiritual guru, Nicodemus was no closer to the kingdom of God than Barabbas, that dangerous criminal being held in solitary confinement somewhere in Jerusalem. Nicodemus needed what everyone needs, the sovereign work of the Spirit of God breathing resurrection and life into what was once dead. Nicodemus could apply principle after principle—even principles found in the pages of Scripture—and still be no closer to the kingdom of God.

What separates genuine Christianity from every other attempt at reaching God is that it aims not for the moral self-improvement of sinners, but the resurrection of sinners to new life. This is not just a distinctive feature, it’s a whole new paradigm.

Jesus didn’t come to be a great teacher and motivator. The stories of Scripture are not merely for our inspiration and enlightenment. We are fallen creatures created to glorify God but willingly worshiping ourselves and our false gods. Unless there is a movement of the Spirit of God within us, we are hopeless and helpless in the world. This is why Paul, that learned Jew, said that if Christ did not rise from the dead, “we are of all men most miserable” (1 Cor. 15:19 KJV). He knew that the human condition is inherently corrupted. We cannot help ourselves, improve ourselves, or save ourselves. Only Christ in his power can save us.

[i] C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2002), 168.

—

Daniel Darling is the Vice President for Communications for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention (ERLC). For five years, Dan served as Senior Pastor of Gages Lake Bible Church in the northwest suburbs of Chicago and is the author of several books, including Teen People of the Bible, Crash Course, iFaith, Real, and his latest, Activist Faith. He is a weekly contributor to Parse, the blog of Leadership Journal. His work has been featured in evangelical publications such as Relevant Magazine, Homelife, Focus on the Family, The Gospel Coalition, Christianity Today, . Dan's op-eds have appeared on CNN.com's Belief Blog, Faithstreet, Washington Times, Time, Huffington Post and other newspapers and opinion sites. He has guest-posted on leading blogs such as Michael Hyatt, Jeff Goins, and Jon Acuff. He is a featured blogger for Crosswalk.com, Churchleaders.com, Covenant Eyes, and others.

Daniel Darling, The Original Jesus, Baker Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group, ©2015. Adapted by author. http://www.bakerpublishinggroup.com

The Sucker’s Choice

Sometimes the choice to make a choice is the wrong choice. In the insightful book, Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High, Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler write about avoiding “the sucker’s choice.”

In short, “the sucker’s choice” is when we force an “EITHER...OR...” dilemma when it can be a “BOTH...AND...” opportunity. You may have heard someone say something like: “Either we can have fun OR we can have competition.” It implies that you can’t possibly find a way to have both fun AND competition. It sets up an unnecessary choice, aptly named: “the sucker’s choice.”

An example in youth ministry goes something like this: EITHER we prepare and deliver a message with non-Christian teenagers in mind OR we prepare and deliver a message with Christian teenagers in mind.

We don’t have to make that choice. I believe that there is a way to effectively preach to both audiences at the same time and with the same words. The solution is to preach the Gospel.

I remember a time in my life when I had the mindset that the Gospel message was only for those who didn’t know Christ. I thought that, in time, mature believers “graduated from the Gospel.” I was wrong.

The message of the Gospel is not something that is solely necessary at the beginning of a teenager’s faith journey; it is their faithful companion every step of the way. We never graduate from the truth of the Gospel rather we cling to itand allow it to bring about more and more change in our lives.

Repentance and faith in the message of the Gospel justifies us but it is also the Gospel, at work in us, which causes us to grow in faith, purity and maturity. While hard work and determination are a part of the Christian’s life, if they are not “in line with the Gospel” they will not sanctify, they will strangle.

The main problem, then, in the life of a Christian teenager is that they have not thought out or lived out the deep implications of the Gospel. They have restricted the work of the Gospel to the initial work of salvation (justification) and not allowed it to run rampant in their lives bringing about growth and gratitude (sanctification).

Paul makes it clear in Galatians that we are not justified by the Gospel and then sanctified apart from the Gospel through our own efforts. The Gospel is the way we grow.

1 You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. 2 I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard? 3 Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?—Galatians 3:1-3

Human nature is clearly seen in our attempts to control the source of our salvation with works-righteousness instead of fully trusting in Christ. The Gospel reminds us that we are now hidden in Christ and because of that we are both righteous and welcomed. Apart from Him we are hopelessly lacking and desperately trying to do something about that lack. Both believers and unbelievers need to hear this message...repeatedly!

Negative emotions and sinful behavior manifest in the life of a Christian teenager because at that exact moment something or someone other than Christ and his work has become more central to their existence and they’ve elevated that thing (good or bad) to an ultimate thing. The Bible calls this idolatry.

In other words, everyone has “saving faith” in something or someone. Everyone is looking to an accomplishment, an achievement, an experience or an individual to gain approval and acceptance...to justify their existence. Non-Christians do this because they haven’t had a grace awakening but Christians do this when they forget or don’t believe the Gospel.

The Christian way to drive out lesser love (idols) is to daily center our lives on our greatest affection. Thomas Chalmers says it this way: “We know of no other way by which to keep the love of the world out of our heart than to keep in our hearts the love of God.”

We are prone to sin when we believe a lie about the nature of God. As Tim Chester writes in his book, You Can Change, we forget that God is great, glorious, good and gracious. The Gospel is the most intimate and intensive reminder of who God is and what He has done. We need to be “Gospel- fluent” with students, with our families and with ourselves!

Whether Paul was dealing with marital issues in Ephesians 5, emphasizing the importance of generosity in 1 Corinthians 8, or confronting Peter’s hypocrisy and racism in Galatians 2, he never just addressed their behavior. He didn’t verbally bully or emotionally manipulate. He didn’t guilt or scare them into change.

He repeatedly points to Christ, he preaches the Gospel. He’s essentially says to them: you are not living as if the Gospel is true! Your heart does not resemble a heart that has been both captured and freed by the life and work of Jesus. And he’s saying this to believers! In fact much of Paul’s writings can be classified as preaching the Gospel to people who already knew it.

One final reason to avoid “the sucker’s choice” (I heard Tim Keller share on this once): Christian teenagers need to hear you talking to non-Christian teenagers and non-Christian teenagers need to hear you talking to Christian teenagers. Why?

Christian teenagers need to hear you talking to non-Christian teenagers about the Gospel because many of them don’t know how to do the same. As you preach the Gospel in a way that engages and answers the questions and objections of the irreligious, your Christian teenagers will be learning how to do the same! Those same students will also realize that youth group is a place to bring their non-Christian friends to get their questions answered.

On the other hand, non-Christian teenagers need to hear you talking to Christian teenagers about the Gospel because they need to have a sense of the community, the values, the priorities, the passion of a Christ like people and the REASON for all of those things. The reason is the Gospel. They also need to experience growing sense that they are on the outside of something that is beautiful...namely Jesus.

In Romans 1:15, Paul writes that he is “eager to preach the Gospel” and he’s writing to Christians! Friends, there’s no need to make the “sucker’s choice.” Preach the Gospel to the lost, preach the Gospel to the found.

—

David (@DavidHertweck) has served the New York Assemblies of God as the director of youth ministry and Chi Alpha since February 2011. Prior to that he served as a youth pastor for 12 years in upstate New York. David is passionate about helping local church youth workers create and sustain disciple-making environments marked by Gospel Fluency, Spirit Dependency and Biblical Community. He has his MA in Transformational Leadership from Northeastern Seminary. David is the author of two books, Good Kids, Big Events and Matching T-Shirts: Changing the Conversation on Health in Youth Ministry (My Healthy Church) and The Word and the Spirit (GPH). David is married to Erin and they have three daughters: Lilia, Caraline and Madelaine. David loves his girls, his family, good music, good food, his Weber grill, his Taylor guitar, Liverpool Football Club, the Yankees and the Gospel.

Used with permission from the author. Excerpt from Good Kids, Big Events, & Matching T-shirts.

Reconciled At the Table

The way many churches exclude the Lord’s Supper from their regular worship service deeply concerns me. The Lord’s Supper forces the church to look itself in the mirror. When Jesus welcomes the congregation to the table of fellowship, we are confronted with the reality that he is far more welcoming and hospitable than we are. Christians can often be fickle people. On the one hand, this is understandable. Christians have an objective standard from which to judge right and wrong. This is a good thing because Christians have a moral and ethical compass with which we can navigate the swells of an increasingly relativistic society.

On the other hand, this can be a bad thing. Christians are often prone to use God’s objective standards to shun and exclude people when the God they worship is neither shunning nor excluding.

Look around the congregation.

How many people can you count that you would not invite to your table? There are great sinners in the congregation. There are people you don’t like. But all of these people are welcomed to the Lord’s table at the his invitation.

Jesus once told his disciples that he will draw all men to himself when he is lifted up (Jn. 12:32). What happened to Jesus when he was lifted up? He was broken. What happens to the bread when the minister lifts it up before the congregation? It is broken. The Lord’s Supper is much more than an act of remembrance for individual Christians. The Lord’s Supper is a participatory event where all men find themselves drawn to Christ’s broken body.

When Jesus’ body was broken the walls of separation between Jew and gentile, male and female, slave and free, black and white were broken as well (Gal. 3:28). This happens in the Lord’s Supper. People who would not dine together at their own tables are brought together at the Lord’s Table, they are brought together by the broken body of Jesus Christ. At the Lord’s Table, we participate in and show forth the great reconciliation of mankind.

Moreover, because the table is fenced, it is not up to us whether or not our neighbor will participate or not, it is up to use whether we will participate or not. At our own tables, we decide who we will invite and who we will exclude. At the Lord’s table, we are all invited, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28), but we are also told that we are to examine ourselves (1 Cor. 11:28).

When we are invited to the Lord’s Table each week, we are taught to look at our own hearts in regards to fellowship rather than to our neighbor’s faults. Sinful hearts look outward for excuses not to commune with others, sinful hearts turn in on themselves. In the Garden, Adam’s sin was a sin of consumption and blame shifting. When he was confronted, Adam shifted the blame on Eve, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate” (Gen. 3:12). In the Lord’s Supper, we are invited to eat rather than prohibited. Further, as we participate we are conditioned to remove the plank from our own eye before commenting on the speck in our neighbors (Matt. 7:5).

Look around the congregation.

How many people look just like you? Are they all white (let’s hope not)? Are they all black (let’s hope not)? Are they all republicans or democrats (let’s hope they’re libertarians)? No, there are people from all walks of life, all races, all socioeconomic classes, and all ideologies being drawn to the broken body of Christ.

In a world where selfishness has become a cultural virtue, the Lord’s table is hardly a place to perpetuate selfish interests. At the Lord’s Table, you dine with and commune with people you might never dream of inviting to your own table. But there you are, partaking of the same loaf and drinking from the same cup. In this act much is being proclaimed. Who you eat with says a lot about you and at the Lord’s Table we eat with Jesus, this cannot be overlooked. But while we eat with Jesus we are also eating with other people who are eating with Jesus.

The Lord’s table proclaims not only that we belong to Christ, but also that we belong to one another—all our differences and problems included. God’s people are not static in our relationships. Both vertically with God and horizontally with each other our relationships are dynamic. The Lord’s Supper images the dynamic nature to the life of Christ’s Body. We are growing, albeit with growing pains, further and further into the image of Christ, the head of the Body (Eph. 4: 15-16).

The church is a body of many members. Further, God’s word serves as a two edged sword cutting to the hearts of his people (Heb. 4:12) who have become living sacrifices (Rom. 12:1). Throughout each service God’s word has cut His church into pieces just as the levitical sacrifices are cut into pieces (the sermon). But the service does not end here. The church must learn that we are only broken by God’s Word because the Word of God was broken for us: “This is my body broken for you.” Moreover, as the body of many members (the church) partakes of the broken body of Christ we are made whole again by our participation in the one loaf (1 Cor. 10:17).

Perhaps the reason there is so much strife in the church nowadays is because we are not communing with one another as we ought. Our ultimate allegiances need to be formed not by who we would invite to our tables but by whom Jesus, weekly, invites to his.

Just food for thought.

—

Michael and his wife Caroline live in Athens, GA. Michael blogs weekly at Torrey Gazette. You can follow Michael on Twitter @_Michael_Hansen.

Why Does the Church Ignore Jesus?

If you missed part one in this series, check out “How to Ignore Jesus While Accepting Your Christianity.” We ignore Jesus because discipling takes a long time and it is very hard to measure. We’ve become a people who care more about measuring things rather than the hearts of Image Bearers.   We have become a church that looks more like American Business, than the church found in Acts 2.

American business has to count things because that’s how we get more business. We count profits, employees, customers, etc. If I showed you everything I measured in my business it’d make you dizzy. I don’t see much difference in the American Church.

The church has a CEO (which isn’t Jesus) that puts out the vision and directives then has the employees carry that vision out. If the employees start to question those things or the CEO, or if they get in the way, or they are struggling in certain areas of their lives, they are sidelined. Why? Because we have things we must count—attendance to our events, the amount of services we have, money in our coffers, and the size of our staff and buildings. If these things are growing, we are a success; if these things are stagnant or going backwards, then we are failing.

The problem is discipleship is very difficult to measure. Not only that, but many of those things that can be measured within discipleship will take years to measure their effectiveness and don’t fit nicely on a spreadsheet.  Because of this, many churches have taken discipleship from the mission of the church to a program of the church. That way, we can measure it in the way that makes the church in the West more comfortable.

Think of it . . . if you have a 12 week discipleship class, you can measure how many people are going through that class. You can determine success or failure.

Actual discipleship takes a lot of time and moves very slowly. Not only that, but people’s muck rises to the surface and might make the church look bad to many because of all the actual issues that are being dealt with. But, because the church is more like a business than the New Testament church, we don’t delve into those issues. We cover them up or just keep our church people at a surface level so that when you ask “How are you doing?” everyone answers, “Good.” Now we can move on to more important things . . . things that can be measured. This is why most churches like to count baptisms. Again. What’s interesting is that Jesus says, “Make disciples of all nations . . . baptizing them.” Baptizing is a byproduct of discipleship, not the other way around.

How Do We Change?

We are talking about a paradigm shift. We’ve been caught in this business mentality in church life for far too long. We are now attempting to u-turn the titanic, not a speed boat.

We must ask ourselves, “Is making disciples our very reason for being on this earth?”

Not only that, we must also ask, “Are we willing to be the first one to say ‘I need to be discipled’ and make our ‘Up’ relationship the primary in our lives and the lives of others?”

If we truly desire to make disciples who make disciples, then we have to . . . let me say this again . . . WE HAVE TO make it primary, no matter the cost, time, or sacrifice.

Are we willing to make everything else secondary to making disciples of selves, our family, our church, our neighborhood, our city, our nation, and our world?

To do this, we have to start asking, “What do I need to change to make this happen in my own life?” I need to lead change, not merely talk about it.

What in our lives, our churches should be kept, changed, or dropped for the sake of making disciples who make disciples?

For me. I have stopped putting multiplication first. I have stopped trying to put a timeline on when my missional community will multiply. Instead, I have decided to focus on a few and live a deep life with them until the Spirit releases them with his power to start another missional community.

I believe by doing this, I’ll be setting up a blueprint for what church life looks like and can say as Paul did, “Imitate me as I imitate Christ.”

By no means will I do it perfectly, but I’ll be doing it relentlessly asking how can I effectively be a disciple who’s primary reason to live on this earth is to make more disciples of Jesus. Period.

New Measurements

My friend Ben Hardman recently reminded me of this: What gets celebrated is what gets repeated. If we are going to try and change a paradigm so that discipleship is the central reason the church exists we have to change how we measure our “wins.”

I’ll give you one example that I’ve given before, in my article “Why I’m Tired of Church Planting.” Many of us know the parameters of success – the three B’s: butts, budgets, and buildings. If you measure the success of the church based on the fruit that only can be provided by the Spirit you will kill your church and its leaders. What do I mean? I think we should measure what we can actually control, standing amazed at the greatness of our God and the indwelling Spirit when we are blessed with witnessing the fruit that God allows us to see with our own eyes.

What if we measured the success of our churches by asking this question: How many people’s stories in your context do you know so intimately that you know exactly where they need the good news?

The reason that this is such a good measurement tool is that this gives everyone a fighting chance. This kind of measurement would require your people to be doing the work we’ve been called to do: to shepherd people to the only hope we have. It requires us to be involved with people. It requires us to invest deeply into a few people instead of too many on a surface level. In the end, if we have this as our measurement tool, we can see people being discipled instead of merely “making a decision” or just showing up to a church service.

We might see them actively bringing all areas of their lives under the lordship of Jesus by the power of the Spirit through the good news. This is discipleship! After this, you baptize. After that, you teach them everything that Jesus has commanded, but not before they have entered into a deep discipleship relationship with you.

The church could feel freed to do the ministry to which we’ve been called if we didn’t measure success through programs, conversions, attendance, and baptisms. These might all come, and we should be thrilled when they do, but statistics are not what we are primarily called to do. We are called to make disciples.

The Question

Here’s the question to end all this: How would you define yourself? What is your primary identity?

No matter how you answer this, anyone who is reading this needs to know, your primary identity that will never fail you is simply this: You are a son/daughter of the Creator God.

Whether you believe this or not is another question.

But, if we are sons and daughters of the perfect Creator God who loves us, is patient with us and has literally done everything in his power to show off who he is then there is only one thing we are left with: We GET TO show off who Dad is like to others around us. In other words . . . we GET TO disciple others.

That’s what we get to give our lives to. Everything else in our lives should pale in comparison. What in your life is above your identity as a son or daughter of God?

What do you need to start/stop believing about God so that you can be freed into the life of discipleship?

What needs to be added to/taken away/enhanced in your life so that you can make disciples who make disciples?

Who is discipling you and who are you discipling? Meaning . . . who are you living with so closely you know exactly where their idols are and where they need to hear the good news of redemption? And they know the exact same things about you . . . and you both speak up in these regards and are actively pursuing the power of the Spirit to bring these under the Lordship of Christ so you can be freed of them into the good news of Jesus.

—

Seth McBee is the adopted son of God, husband of one wife, and father of three. He’s a graduate of Seattle Pacific University with a finance degree. By trade. Seth is an investment portfolio manager, serving as President of McBee Advisors, Inc. He is also a MC leader/trainer/coach and executive team member of the GCM Collective. Seth currently lives in Phoenix, AZ with his wife Stacy and their three children: Caleb, Coleman, and Madelynn. He is also the artist and co-author of the wildly popular (and free!) eBook, Be The Church: Discipleship & Mission Made Simple. Twitter: @sdmcbee.

5 Ways to Discern a Shared Call to Ministry

When my wife and I first met, I didn’t know what I wanted to do after college. In fact, I was failing out of college. Now eleven years later, my wife is a pastor’s wife and any other children that we may have in addition to our daughter will each be a pastor’s kid. There was a whole host of things that happened in those eleven years, but one event made me say, “I think God is calling me to ministry.” I felt the internal call like many before me. Soon after that, I was looking into seminary and committing myself to four years of work. At times, seminary nearly made me want to commit myself. Prior to this, my wife and I had conversations about this call—what it meant and what it would mean. We talked about how it would change our lives, but we didn’t fully comprehend how. We can both attest to how God’s calling shapes us. It changes who we are, how we live, and how we maneuver through life. We essentially filter life through God’s calling on our lives. For example, if we are called to be a parent, we process decisions through that parental calling. This is a bit of what happens to the family of those called to ministry. Everything filters through that calling. My wife’s overall calling to Christ, to be my wife, and to be our daughter’s mother is also mingled with my calling to vocational ministry. My daughter will not be able to do certain things and will live a certain kind of life because of my calling. That’s why the call is a shared one.

A Shared Call

Much of what can be read in regards to assessing a call to ministry focuses on the individual person being primarily called into ministry, which makes some sense. However, other people are affected by a man’s call. I asked my wife several times, “Do you feel called to be a pastor’s wife?” That question was usually a part of the larger conversations and prayers regarding what God was leading me towards. Many who assess church planters will say to pay attention to the planter’s wife because she will tell the truth about calling and readiness. If that’s true, God calls not just the man, but his family as well.

Many pastors whose wives didn’t share the call could explain the importance of that shared call. For the pastor’s wife who doesn’t feel called to ministry, the pressures of ministry would only be expanded. Two people united in the covenant of marriage cannot successfully go in two, entirely different directions in terms of their service to Christ—at least not in separate directions that are not mutually supportive.

For children, I could not ask my daughter if she felt called to be a pastor’s kid. She was just born one. Nevertheless, my call will alter the rest of her life. Her walk with Christ and conversion will be vastly different than her mother’s or mine. Her call to be a pastor’s kid came through the sovereign will of God forming her and bringing her to us. The same could be said about all of us who consider ourselves to be partakers of the shed blood of Jesus. None of us, before we were saved, contemplated feeling called to be disciples of Jesus. Yet we were called. In the same way, no Christian should sit down to decide whether they are called to share the gospel, because every Christian is called to share the gospel in light of the Great Commission. Therefore, callings are entirely about God’s design and less about our feelings. Our feelings may reflect God’s design, but they are not sovereign over that design. Thus, we can see how children can also be a part of this shared, family calling.

In what can be considered an effort to speak to the ramifications of this shared call, the Apostle Paul exhorts the unmarried to stay unmarried and encourages marriage if one cannot exercise self-control (1 Cor. 7:8-9). Later in that chapter, he explains why he encourages the unmarried to stay unmarried, “The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided,” (1 Cor. 7:32b-34a). Paul says taking a wife and a family adds refinement to one’s calling. A married man cannot do certain things, because he has a responsibility to his wife and children. The Church has a husband and he died for her so we don’t have to. God as Father and as bridegroom exemplifies for us the importance that he places on those two responsibilities. In other words, God is concerned about husbands and fathers being about the business of being husbands and fathers. Thus, a pastor who is a husband and a father, as he works out his primary calling as a proper disciple of Christ, is first a husband and a father, before he is a pastor.

Additionally, it seems that Paul affirms this refinement of calling that comes through having a family. One could call it a limitation, but that could be misunderstood as a negative thing. Everyone who is trying to discern what God is calling them to is asking God for limitation of that calling or for God to set aside the things to which they are not called so that they might be limited to the thing to which they are called. Therefore, I think it is safe to deduce from Paul’s words as well that there is a collective or family calling that is placed on a couple and their children.

In light of this, it is crucial that those seeking to be in ministry or even those in ministry discuss the following with your wives:

1. Does your wife feel called to be a pastor’s wife? It can be helpful to look at other couples in ministry and examine their lives, their responsibilities, and their ministries. It can also be helpful to talk to those couples about what it is like being in ministry, both the good and the bad.
2. How will this impact your future or current kids? If you have kids already, how will this impact their lives? Will they be able to adjust to this new life? Perhaps it may be appropriate if they are old enough to process it, to ask what their thoughts are about this change. If you don’t have kids yet, in what ways can you start to pray and prepare to be raising PK’s?
3. Is your wife’s support simply an affirmation that she supports whatever you want to do or does she feel a shared passion for people and seeing them grow in Christ? There is a huge difference between the two. If the answer is the first, then it could mean that she will end up at least frustrated or possibly even resentful. To some degree, she should probably share in your passion for people and their growth in Christ.
4. Will you both be able to accept the change in financial means from what you either lived with before or what you expected to be living with? This can be challenging when switching from “secular” employment to vocational ministry. It could also be a challenge if you had an expectation for your financial life that is different from the life of vocational ministry.
5. Is your family ready to open itself up to a congregation? It is crucial to a healthy Christian life to be known by our brothers and sisters in Christ. However, in pastoral ministry, the pastor’s life as well as his family’s lives are on display for the congregation. This can be played out through opening your home in hospitality to those in the congregation or just the visibility of the little conversations with your wife, the outbursts of your kids, and the like.

In recognizing the shared calling that a life in ministry is, we can do well for our families and our ministries to keep these things frequently in our prayers and conversations. This gets to the root of the health of our souls when we talk about how on board our wives and children are with what God has called us to. It is near impossible or at least just incredibly challenging to be effective without a shared sense of calling in our marriages and families. If we take the time in our preparation for ministry to pray and talk through these things, God will bless that. Even if we find ourselves having been in ministry for some time, we would do well to begin or continue to pray and talk through these things. May God bless you in your service to him, whatever and wherever that is!

—

Nick Abraham (DMin student at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) lives in Navarre, OH with his wife and daughter. He serves as an Associate Pastor at Alpine Bible Church in Sugarcreek, OH. He is a contributor to Make, Mature, Multiply: Becoming Fully-Formed Disciples of Jesus and blogs at Like Living Stones.

How to Ignore Jesus While Accepting Your Christianity

Jesus was straightforward with his mission when he left. And he gave us the Spirit to accomplish it. He didn’t mince words; he didn’t hide it in the book of Numbers (knowing most of us wouldn’t dare read that). He was and is clear on our mission: Go therefore and make disciples of all nations. If it is that clear, why do we ignore Jesus and pursue other things so far down the list of “to-dos”?

Bottom line: we don’t know how to make a disciple and/or we ignore how Jesus made disciples.

I haven’t written an article in a long while. I’ve been honestly rethinking everything I know about the missional “movement” and asking why aren’t we seeing more missional community churches multiplying missional communities to saturate a city? To ask this question though, I couldn’t just point fingers. I had to ask this of myself. I have multiplied missional communities and trained many leaders to do so, but the number of disciples made now making disciples is embarrassing low in my life.

However, I have found a way to surround myself with some pretty smart dudes that don’t mind me ranting and being honest about the missional community movement and my own lack of disciple making. But, now, I think I’ve figured out in my head and heart why this is and am starting the process of working it out with my hands.

The Cart Before the Horse

Think about that saying for a second. How stupid. Why would anyone put the cart before the horse? The reality is that most don’t know that is what they have done, because (I hope) they wouldn’t purposely put a cart before the horse. I know I didn’t, but that is exactly what I did for the past 8 years in this missional life.

For me, the cart was multiplication. For others it could be a church building, a church service, prayer groups, budgets, people showing up to an event or some sort of service, etc.

Let me focus on my cart. Multiplication. Like most of the things listed above, multiplication is healthy and a good thing . . . but it’s not the ultimate thing. With discipleship you will get multiplication, but just because you multiply doesn’t mean you necessarily get discipleship.

If the focus is on multiplication, we will do whatever we must to raise up new leaders and send them out. The focus becomes on what they do, instead of who they are and what they believe. This is a huge distinction for discipleship.

Training and our lives becomes: “How can I quickly give information to someone so that they can go do this themselves?” instead of “How can I disciple people so that they are bringing every area of life under the Lordship of Jesus and go to show off how great our Dad is?”

What’s even more crazy is when we put the mindset of multiplication first. When that happens the one thing that will really irritate you is when people don’t get it, or when they question things. When multiplication is made ultimate what happens when major, deep issues that are lording over people’s lives come up that need you to stop and take time to work through? In reality, when multiplication (and many other things) become our primary priority, then people aren’t seen as the Imago Dei, but a tool that helps you “win.” When it’s not primariy, discipleship gets in the way. Some discipleship may still happen, but becomes shallow instead of deep and life transforming submitting every area of life to the Good News.

I believe this is exactly why we see Peter and the other disciples saying some very stupid things while living with Jesus. Jesus desired discipleship over all other things, knowing this is exactly how others would see who his Dad truly was. They knew they could say whatever they desired to Jesus. He was with them, one of them and desired the best for them. They didn’t feel like a tool to be used or a project to be converted. They felt they were a person to be loved.  A person to be believed in. A person to be discipled. A person to be more like Jesus, so they could taste and see that the Lord is good.

Breakfast with a Beard

As I was downloading some of this information with a good friend of mine, Zac Gandara, over breakfast, he started to drop some knowledge on my head.

We’ve both learned a lot through our relationships with 3DM. Zach drew the familiar triangle with UP, IN, and OUT listed at the points:

He told me, the following. Seth, you will never have issues making friends with outsiders. You naturally have many relationships with many who are not yet believers. You will naturally have the “in” relationships found in community with like minded people who desire to make disciples . . . but what I don’t hear from your mouth is much of Jesus or Dad. Because you are so focused on the OUT portion of the triangle, you have really started to ignore the most important part of the triangle and the one that Jesus focused on primarily: the UP relationship with Dad. When that part is missing, true discipleship will not happen. Something is happening because you’ll always have many relationships, but the good news will not be at the center of these relationships. If that is missing . . . so is discipleship.

He then went on to show me the life of Jesus and how Jesus continually concentrated on his relationship with Dad (which informed his identity as God’s Son), which then informed his relationships with his disciples and the world.

Nailed it.

When we focus on our identity in Christ (the “Up” relationship), the “In” and “Out” will be informed and formed by the gospel . . . the good news.  If our “In” and “Out” relationships are informed by our “Up” relationship then discipleship will flow out of that.

Jesus’ Discipling Culture

Jesus wanted to fill the world with disciples who would show off his Dad in heaven. He did this by gathering twelve of the weirdest people he could have. Notice that he didn’t gather the smartest people, the ones with the most competency, but he gathered those that would actually follow him. He gathered the ones that would show up (a whole book could be written on this). What did he do with those twelve? He lived with them for three years before he ever released them on their own to multiply. Jesus knew that if multiplication was going to happen that would be like the original group, he would have to go deep with a few, instead of shallow with a lot.

To go deep with a few, Jesus knew the only way this was going to happen was to live life with his disciples and to teach them holistically where the gospel was hitting every area of their lives. In essence, Jesus knew he’d have to teach them head knowledge, heart knowledge, and hand knowledge . . . they’d have to know what Jesus was teaching, believe in what Jesus was teaching, and do what Jesus was teaching.

Jesus refused to put anything ahead of discipleship. He wanted those twelve men to have full access to him so they could see what he required of them. This meant these men were allowed into Jesus life at a very deep level, every day, and completely unchained. We see this was happening because of how comfortable these men became with Jesus. They yelled at Jesus on the boat when the winds and waves came. Peter said many things that got him in trouble. James and John asked their mom to make sure they could sit next Jesus in heaven. I could go on. Why do we see this? Because they were being discipled and when this happens all our muck and crap comes to the surface where the good news needs to be applied so we believe the good news and its power to set us free instead of being chained and enslaved to sin and guilt and shame.

Through 3DM and Launch, I’ve learned four stages of leadership development.

• I do you watch
• I do you help
• You do I help
• You do I watch

You can also use the MAWL method

• Model
• Assist
• Watch
• Leave

Here’s the big difference between us and Jesus. Jesus was willing to spend three years of life with the few in stages 1 and 2. He knew if he did when the disciples were sent out they’d look a lot like him instead of a muddy image of the original.

We want to hurry through the first two stages so we can send out more people, or we want to spend all our time in stage 1 so that we become a functional savior for people and they are never released.

David Rhodes showed me that if you look in the book of Acts you notice something pretty awesome. Look at what the dispcles are doing. They are preaching, taking care of the poor, praying, healing, being family, and suffering. What you’ll notice is when you cover up who is actually doing it you’d assume it’s Jesus. The “copy” or the multiplication that happened, looks almost identical to the original.

Why? Because Jesus actually discipled deep with a few, instead of shoveling information down the throat of many.

To be continued . . .

—

Seth McBee is the adopted son of God, husband of one wife, and father of three. He’s a graduate of Seattle Pacific University with a finance degree. By trade. Seth is an investment portfolio manager, serving as President of McBee Advisors, Inc. He is also a MC leader/trainer/coach and executive team member of the GCM Collective. Seth currently lives in Phoenix, AZ with his wife Stacy and their three children: Caleb, Coleman, and Madelynn. He is also the artist and co-author of the wildly popular (and free!) eBook, Be The Church: Discipleship & Mission Made Simple. Twitter: @sdmcbee.

5 Vital Ways to Seek the Welfare of Your Neighborhood

I have spent my entire life living in two inner city neighborhoods of Chicago (Humboldt Park and West Garfield Park). It is easy to believe that God has abandoned these two communities due to the poverty, crime, lack of education, absence of fathers, and hopelessness. While many would want to avoid these two communities, I have come to understand God’s sovereignty in determining the boundaries of my dwelling place. God has invited me to be his presence for those seeking him. God has invited me into his mission for those feeling their way towards him.

“And He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward Him and find Him. Yet He is actually not far from each of us, for in Him we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:26-28)

Has God abandoned the hood? Of course not! Have Christians abandoned the hood? Sadly, in many ways we have. We have abandoned God’s mission for our momentary well being. We have focused on our desires before other people’s needs. We do not realize that our well being is tied up in the well being of those around us. We do not realize that we actually find life through death to our individualism.

“But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you…and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” (Jeremiah 29:7)

Following are five simple ways that you can seek the welfare of your community (whether it’s an inner city neighborhood or not). This is not an exhaustive list, but my prayer would be that it sparks believers to understand God’s purpose for us in the exact places that he has sovereignly placed us.

After reading the five steps, feel free to give additional ideas that you may have. Let’s grow together as urban missionaries!

Step 1: Pray daily for your community

Take ten minutes each day to pray for the families on your block. As you see your neighbors, be purposeful in asking for prayer requests and then follow up with them on those requests.

Step 2: Spend time in your community

In today’s day and age when we jump in our car to go from here to there, this will take some intentionality. But let yourself be seen. Be friendly. As opportunities arise, get to know people. Walk your community, play basketball at the local park, shop at the local stores, eat at the local restaurants, volunteer at a community center or nursing home, worship at a local church.

Step 3: Asset map your community

Map out the resources available in your community and city. These resources might include job training programs, GED programs, sports leagues, after school programs, day camps, tutoring programs, and church service times. Include as much info as possible (Contact name and number, cost, address, etc). Print these lists out and distribute them to people in your community.

Step 4: Beautify your community

Pick up trash. Help your neighbors plant grass on their lawns. Begin a community garden that the block can own and enjoy together. Recruit skilled labor to do a service day in your community.

Step 5: Open your home to your community

Invite people over for dinner. Host a game night. Lead Bible Studies. If you have an extra room, invite someone in need to live with you.

—

Brian Dye is a servant of Jesus Christ. Husband of Heidi Dye. Elder at Legacy Fellowship. Mentorship Director at GRIP Outreach for Youth. Director of Legacy Conference. Follow him on Twitter @VisionNehemiah

Originally published at Vision Nehemiah. Used with permission.

Women in the Local Church: A Conversation

Today we are hosting a conversation with Lore Ferguson, writer and speaker. This conversation centers on how the local church can make, mature, and multiply stronger women disciples.

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Gospel-Centered Discipleship: There are many opinions about what Christian women need most in and from the church. In your opinion, what's the greatest need for women from the church?

Lore Ferguson: What women need most is the same as what men need most—to understand and see the power and effects of the gospel made clear in their lives. I think we often think of the men as the gospel proclaimers and the women as the gospel enactors. Men teach and preach, women serve and build. Even if we wouldn’t draw such clear distinctions with our words, it is the way the local church seems to function. In the same way the gospel is for all people, though, the effects of the gospel are for all people all the way through.

GCD: Pastors have not always honored or considered the needs of women in the church. How can pastors grow in their understanding of the needs and meeting the needs of women in the church?

Lore: Ask us! Whenever my pastor is asked by another man how to lead his wife, my pastor says, “I know how to lead my wife. You ask your wife how to lead her!” It’s the same with us. Keep an open dialogue with the women in your local church (not just the wives of your pastors/elders). Many pastors seem to have similar personalities and marry women with similar personalities/giftings, which enables them to minister well to women of the same personalities. But the local church is made up of every personality and gifting. Ask women—aside from your wives—how you can serve them and help them flourish.

GCD:

What are the biggest hurts for women in our churches that we are overlooking and missing?

Lore: Every woman is different, so my answer here might not be helpful in the sense that it might reflect more what’s going on in my heart than in the average woman’s heart. I think there seems to be a universal desire for us to be loved and cherished as an essential part of the body. This includes being heard and not having to fight for a voice, but recognized as someone who has an equal and distinct voice (the essence of complementarianism). We understand the distinct part, and feel that often, but we don’t feel the equal part quite as much.

GCD: As a follow up to that, I’ve heard from women that they desire a voice on the front end of the decision process as opposed to hearing about it after the fact and being asked for feedback. How would you recommend pastors change their approach in decision making to include a broader range of voices and specifically women?

Lore: If the approach is that they’re asking women’s input after the decision, or the only women they’re asking on the front end are their wives, I’d just say invite more women into the front end fact-finding mission. I regularly have men from my church seek me out for thoughts on how we minister to women in different contexts. In no way do I assume I’m part of the final decision making process, but I hope and pray my words are considered as a part of the water that ship sails on. As I say further down, a woman’s role is to help, but sometimes we’re better helpers on the front end of things.

GCD: One of the biggest conversations in the church has to do with women's roles and opportunity in the church. Many women feel there isn't a role for them in the church, yet when someone reads how Paul praises women's involvement in the church, we can't help but ask—How did we get here? Why is our experience of church seemingly different than Paul's?

Lore: There seems to be a lot of fear in some complementarian churches. Fear of the messiness of life on life, fear of sexual brokenness, or fear of being seen as a place where the women wear the pants (whatever that means). What that results in is the staff can become a Good Ole Boys Club instead of a place where we see, value, employ, and utilize the gifts of women in an equal measure. I don’t mean women are given equal authority—eldership in the local church is clearly for men, but the disparity in staffing and investment in women does not reflect the equality we say we believe.

GCD: From the outsider's eye, there seems to be a rise in women bloggers, women's books, ministries, and bible studies. How have these helped in empowering women? In discipling women? And what are the dangers of these in relation to discipleship in the church?

Lore: In regard to empowering women, the internet/publishing world has empowered every voice, so I don’t know that we’re moved the conversation that far forward as a whole. For every woman who speaks out, there’s another voice speaking against her. I’m not sure the quantity has helped the quality. I do think that all the voices might have harmed the discipleship of women because it’s taken discipleship out of the local context and made it global. Women are getting their theology, encouragement, teaching, etc. from blogs and books in an unprecedented way. Meanwhile face to face engagement within the local church has suffered.

GCD: In this conversation, there seem to be polar extremes of complementarianism and egalitarianism. Have those terms clouded the conversation or helped the conversation in empowering women?

Lore: They’ve done both. Whenever we have terminology for something, it helps make the conversation more clear. The problem is when our experience differs from the actual definition, and I think the complementarianism/egalitarianism debate is a cesspool for disparate experiences and definitions. We’re talking past one another most of the time instead of really sitting down and understanding culture, context, history, and how the Bible speaks to all people for all situations.

GCD: Women on staff at complementarian churches are the minority and, when they are, they are rarely in roles beyond children and women. How can complementarian churches seek to empower women better in staff roles?

Lore: Hire them! The benefit of elder led churches is you have men whose responsibilities include shepherding and discipling men. We would think it was foolish if that wasn’t a qualification for an elder, but we don’t have women in those official roles (or if we do, they’re in charge of “women’s ministry” which is a fuzzy, unhelpful term). We need women whose job it is to disciple and shepherd women. Not necessarily lead women’s events, organize meals, or teach VBS or kids church. We need women who will walk faithfully with women in discipline, holiness, Bible study, teaching, etc. One thing to note is that I’m speaking from the context of larger more urban churches with more resources, you’re going to be able to hire more women. In a smaller church where hiring more women isn’t possible for various reasons, it should just be on the minds of the leaders there that they’re going to need an extra measure of intentionality in making sure their women are shephered and are discipling.

GCD: I've heard many women express a lack of discipleship while they watch men experience it. How does this happen? How is it fixed?

Lore: I don’t think the lack of discipleship is a distinctly female issue. Discipleship is going to be hard no matter our context or gender, otherwise we wouldn’t have needed to be told to do it so emphatically by Christ. Men experience a lack of discipleship too, but I think what happens is, especially in complementarian contexts, men are more visible, so we see the resources being poured into them in a more visible way. If there is a lack though, this is how it happens: many women only know how to contextualize the gospel in one situation or life-season, i.e., their marriage or home. The result of that is you have single women and empty-nest women who don’t have specific people within the sphere of their influence with whom they’re walking in discipleship. But it secondly happens when the local church doesn’t prioritize the discipleship of women. It’s fixed by prioritizing it in your staffing and ministry paradigm.

GCD: How have you heard gifted, godly, and strong women express their desire to serve the church and their elders?

Lore: In every way and every day. Women were uniquely designed to be helpers, so we see possibility in every situation. We’re not just helpers in the sense that we come alongside what’s already happening, though, we’re also helpers in the sense that we see things men just don’t see. That’s actually a beautiful thing! We don’t want to do the same thing as the men do, or overtake their God-given roles. We do desire to play our equal and distinct part though.

GCD: There seems to be an unnecessary awkwardness in male and female relationships. Many fear inappropriate relationships. How does the gospel free us from this fear and empower our relationships?

Lore: All through the New Testament Paul uses shockingly inclusive language to refer to the church, familial language. It’s not shocking to us because we’ve used it for two thousand years, but to the early church, calling one another brother and sister and father and son without the blood bond would have been shocking. In the western church we’re very accustomed to holding the opposite gender at arms length—which actually provides more room for fear than if we drew our brothers and sisters close and engaged in the messiness of family. There is righteous wisdom when it comes to avoiding sin, or the appearance of evil, but there’s also so much we miss out on when we hold our brothers and sisters away from us and don’t engage their distinctiveness from us. The gospel is marked by hospitality, by being drawn close to God (who is the most holy of us all!). By drawing us near, He is saying, “Your soiled self doesn’t sully me. I will engage that and cover it and love you all the more through it.” I say embrace that awkwardness, press through it, hug generously, listen fearlessly, counsel wisely, and live as though you’ll give an account for every action. My lead pastor does this better than almost any man I know. He simply isn’t afraid of women and always draws near to us. As much as he’s able and it’s appropriate, he closes the gap.

GCD: What levels of leadership and responsibility can a woman have in the church without encroaching on a pastoral role?

Lore: This is a tough one partially because I think it does depend on the pastor(s). If you have strong and humble men leading, men who will listen and lead well, a woman has a lot of freedom within those bounds. But if you have timid and/or young immature men leading, there’s going to need to be more restraint by the women. As far as biblically and theologically, that’s an issue for the local church elders to navigate.

GCD: A misconception seems to exist that complementarian and strong, gifted, and godly women don't go together. In this misconception, egalitarianism seems to draw the strong women. How can complementarianism strengthen women?

Lore: By majoring on the majors. We believe that women are equal and distinct, but too often we only feel our distinctiveness, our otherness. If we believe women are equal, then we have to begin to treat them as such. And—forgive me for encouraging men to be like Sarah—but we have to do it without fearing what is frightening (I Pt. 3:6). It will be messy or difficult—but so is gardening, child-rearing, and building a house, and we know we don’t do those things in vain.

GCD: Men can be taught, encouraged, and impacted by the gifts and lives of women. This seems lost in opportunities given to them to teach class, lead mixed small groups, and even in everyday church relationships. How do we move away from this gap?

Lore: Again, I think it needs to be reflected in staffing/ministry paradigm. We don’t need wide here; we need deep. By that, I mean we don’t need a huge women’s ministry. We don’t need more conferences or retreats, etc. We need to staff women who will go deep with few, disciple them in a long-suffering, difficult way, so those they disciple are empowered to do the work of the ministry. The more we are building healthy, discipled women, the more confident those women will be in engaging men in right and biblical ways, and the more happy they’ll be to submit to God’s good design for them as equal, distinct image bearers.

GCD: Paul highlights many women as “partners” with him in the gospel. It is safe to say that women don't often feel that way. What would a great partnership look like to build the church without compromising a complementarian approach?

Lore: If complementarian churches would gather and staff an equal amount of women as men, I think they’d be surprised at how effective the ministry of their local church would be. We seem to assume a church with strong leadership means a church with more men on staff, but staff isn’t eldership. Our elders/pastors ought to be men, but we should have a clearly reflected equality throughout the rest of our ministerial staff. In the same way as a marriage in which there is a clear partnership is effective, the local church that reflects this equality would thrive. And I don’t mean it would thrive in the sense that it would grow leaps and bounds (though I think it would), but their people would thrive under the firm, godly, nurturing, gentle, wise unification of their male and female leaders.

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Lore Ferguson is a writer whose deepest desire is to adorn the gospel in everything she says and does. She lives in Fort Worth, Texas, and is a covenant member at The Village Church. Lore writes regularly at Sayable.net, and you can follow her on Twitter @loreferguson.

Jesus is Better Than Kingdom Building

One of my favorite quotes comes from Count Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf, who was a catalyst for the 100-year long Moravian prayer movement. It’s reported he said, “Preach the gospel, die, and be forgotten.” However, that’s only half true. I mean, I want it to be one of my favorite quotes, at least the principle behind it: embracing the obscurity of my vocation—which in my case, is pastoral ministry—and being content with my name not being recognized, except by the people I shepherd. What if I never write a book or even another article? What if I never get to speak at a conference or have the type of “ministry success” that seminary students only dream of? I come back repeatedly to these questions as I continue to battle this one nagging temptation: I want my name to be great.

Feeding the Monster

As a seminary student, the battle is often subtle. However, between the several thousand pages of reading and the many writing assignments, not to mention conversations with those clearly more brilliant, reflective, and academically gifted than myself, there’s a dullness that builds, a frustration if you will. Instead of seeking to celebrate how these fellow brothers and sisters of mine are truly gifts to God’s church, I find a discontented soul.

I find myself asking God, “Why do they have that much influence? Why can’t I do things like that? After all, I’m more educated than they are and more thoughtful than they are.” However, the opposite is true as well, which can be even more paralyzing: “Why am I not as smart as them? Why do the original languages have to be so hard for me? Why can’t they come naturally? Man, I can’t look stupid in front of them. I want them to approve of me and think I have something to offer to the conversation.” It haunts me. In fact, just like all idolatry (at least, at some point), it’s debilitating. Too often, I let my heart drift away from the reality of the gospel in my life and I seek to find contentment and identity in other places, building my own kingdom one lie and unmet expectation at a time.

As a millennial, I am often burdened by the implied expectations (or perceived expectations) that much of this radical, go-go-go, social justice-y, don’t slow down until you’re dead, type of Christianity that seems to be so common with Christians my age. Because I see what other Christians my age are doing, how much influence God has given them, I often try to one-up them, overcommitting myself, neglecting rest, and feeling guilty when I have to say, “No.” I’ve become perpetually exhausted and overworked. I put too much on my plate because I don’t want to disappoint anyone. The most ludicrous thing about seeking to make my name great is trying to please people I don’t see on a regular basis. It’s as if I am trying to please the idea of that person. I’m paralyzed by an abstract, hypothetical person. I can’t really please what isn’t really real, yet I try often.

It is these temptations, fears, insecurities, and atmosphere that many current ministry leaders, seminary students, and future pastors and church planters find themselves in. With all the gospel-centered, missional living talk, we can easily go from trying to proclaim the gospel in a culturally sensitive and relevant way to trying to build an empire, complete with full-blown PR campaigns and speaking engagements. We may even launch a new website or two. None of this alone is bad, of course. I have seen these used well and I have seen these go terribly, terribly wrong. Nonetheless, it should give us pause as we are about to tweet that pithy theological reflection, sign that book contract, build that blog, or speak at that big event to ask ourselves the pointed question, “If Jesus was not glorified and I got all the credit for this, would I be okay with that? Is this platform about the gospel or about me?” That’s a painful question to ask because if we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll find many messy things in our hearts, stuff we would rather leave alone. We’ll come across mixed motives and unchecked pride. We may find a love for theological systems or projects rather than people. We may discover that all our efforts are spent in building and maintaining a platform, a name, which seeks to make much of us—but belittles Christ. This kind of honesty, it hurts. It’s painful, but it’s good. It’s good because the more we admit our brokenness, the more we admit we don’t have it together, that we have limits, that we truly are human and that means something, we will be able to more confidently proclaim the joy of the Christian life—Jesus is better.

Free Delight Forever

In Jesus, we are free. In fact, the greatest truth we can ever experience as believers is that of our union with Christ. As ministry leaders, we must daily come back to this well and drink deeply from it. We must not neglect to see this truth deeply hidden in our hearts and change the way we “live humanly in Jesus.”¹ In other words, we must cease to depersonalize the cross and understand what it means to be “in Christ.” As Marcus Peter Johnson writes, “Christ is our salvation and that we are the recipients of his saving work precisely and only because we are recipients of the living Christ. Our union with the living Christ is, in other words, what it means to be saved.”² This is the greatest news in the world and between all the blogs, sermons, office work, hospital visits, and dying saints, our weary hearts must come back to this repeatedly. Christ is our salvation. Christ is our salvation.³ Let it echo.

Otherwise, the daily “long obedience in the same direction” will become less important to us because platforms seem to offer more excitement than what we’re living. Deep down, we would rather be remembered than remain faithful. It’s a bad trade. Don’t fall for it. As we become experientially aware of our union with Christ as we are cognitively aware, we begin to live less and less for platforms and people-pleasing. We recognize that while being made in God’s image, we possess dignity and value, that reality never trumps the preciousness and worth of Jesus Christ. It gives us perspective and helps us to live rightly and serve in our ministries in a health, sustainable way. We can be content with being finite and having limitations, knowing fully that we have Christ, “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27).

In God’s grace, he may give some of us platforms for which to speak from, names for which people will know us, and ministries that will outlast us. These are good gifts from the Father and we can accept them as such. However, we must never seek the gifts themselves and ignore the Giver. Jesus is better than our names being great and that may mean we will simply “preach the gospel, die, and be forgotten.”

^{1. This phrase comes from Zac Eswine’s excellent book Sensing Jesus: Life and Ministry as a Human Being (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2012).↩}

^{2. Marcus Peter Johnson, One With Christ: An Evangelical Theology of Salvation (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2013), 18.↩}

^{3. Johnson rightly recognizes that within the Pauline and Johannine corpus, there are a plethora of verses that describe the believers union with Christ in such terms as “possessors of eternal life in Christ” (Rom. 6:23), “created in Christ” (Eph. 2:10), “crucified with him” (Gal. 2:20), “buried with him and baptized into him and his death” (Col. 2:12; Rom. 6:3), “united with him in his resurrection and seated with him in the heavenly places” (Rom. 6:5; Eph. 2:6), among others. See Ibid., 19-20. ↩}

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Chris Crane serves as High School Small Group Leader at Lake Highlands Baptist Church in Dallas, TX. He holds a B.A. in Biblical Studies from Dallas Baptist University and is currently pursuing a Th.M. at Dallas Seminary. He has previously written for Gospel-Centered Discipleship, as well as The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. Occasionally, he writes at chriscrane.net. You can follow him on Twitter: @cmcrane87

The Deconstructed Gospel

What is the gospel? My first semester at seminary I showed up feeling called by God to become a pastor and I couldn't say what the gospel was. Sure I had an idea. Isn't the gospel that we're "saved by faith" or that "Jesus rose again"? The word gospel comes from the Greek word that means "good news." Mark 1:1 tells us the gospel is "the good news about Jesus the Messiah." So what about Jesus' life and ministry is good news for us? Just about every Christian I know has trouble answering this question. Usually someone will bring up Jesus' life, death, and resurrection (something I like to call the three days gospel) and how through them God gives us eternal life. That is absolutely true and so beautiful. But what about the other thirty-three years of Jesus' estimated lifespan? Do those years matter for us too? This is why I break down the gospel into three days and thirty-three years.

The Three Days Gospel

“For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4)

Day 1 - Friday: "Christ died for our sins"

This is a great starting point for defining what the gospel is. Jesus died for our sins. That's a huge statement and is summed up in the fancy theological term "atonement." The Day of Atonement described in Leviticus 16 was the day the High Priest of Israel slaughtered a goat and sprinkled its blood in the Most Holy Place of the temple before God. This sacrifice atoned for the sins of the people for another year. On Good Friday, Jesus atoned for our sins when he became the final sacrifice. He died an innocent victim in the place of guilty sinners.

Day 2 - Saturday: "He was buried"

True, Jesus was buried in the tomb on Friday, but he stayed dead on Saturday. Friday and Sunday of Easter weekend get all the credit, but Saturday played an important part too. Saturday proved Jesus was really dead. He wasn't just passed out or dying. He was locked away in a tomb with no breath in him. Hebrews 2:9 tells us Jesus "suffered" or "tasted" death. He went through all the pain of Friday so he could be dead on Saturday. This is the same death you and I face for all eternity if Sunday's miracle never comes.

Day 3 - Sunday: "He was raised"

Jesus rose from the grave conquering sin and death on Sunday morning. Resurrection! He returned to the living in his old yet newly glorified body. This is what we who trust in Jesus will experience at the final resurrection when Jesus returns. Christ will call us forth from our graves to spend eternity with him in a whole new creation. We who trust in Jesus die spiritually with him on Friday. One day our bodies will really be dead, like Saturday. But our hope is in what Jesus did on Sunday so we too will rise again. The resurrection is good news!

The last three days of Jesus' life matter for you and for me. Those three days are what most people think of when they think of the gospel. We turn to them first because they're what drive us to put our faith in Christ. Jesus offers forgiveness for our sins through his sacrifice on the cross on Friday, through our fear of death on Saturday, and through the hope we have for eternity on Sunday. We turn to them because they matter for us when we die. Even in our last days, we still have hope.

The Thirty-Three Years Gospel

So what about the rest of Jesus' life? How are they the gospel? How does how he lived matter for our lives right now? Usually when I ask this question, everyone goes quiet. It's because we don't usually think about the gospel from this angle. We love our hope in eternal life, but haven't considered what Jesus may have done for our present life.

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Jesus lived a perfect life: "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin,"

Jesus was born, and then he lived. But he didn't live like you and I live. He lived a life of perfect obedience to God, his Father. He "knew no sin.” That means he never lied to his parents, stole from his employer, cheated on a test, lusted in his heart, drank too much alcohol, or got angry for the wrong reasons. He lived without sin through all life's stages. Jesus was a toddler, but he wasn't terrible. He was a teenager, but he wasn't angsty. He was a man, but he wasn't prideful. He was on his deathbed made of wood, and he died with grace.

Not only did Jesus never sin, he also lived a holy life. This means he always did the right thing. He prayed enough, fasted enough, read the Scriptures enough, and gave enough to the poor. He did all those right things and more. Luke 2:52 gives us a glimpse of Jesus' godly character. "And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man." Jesus was a person like us in his experience, yet unique from us in his perfection. Don't you wish your everyday was more like Jesus' everyday? Don't you wish that you weren't the sinner you are? Don't you wish you are as holy and good as Jesus? Here's the good news . . . you already are!

We get credit for Jesus' perfect life: "so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."

Jesus trades his righteousness for our sin. This is the great exchange. Through Jesus’ perfect life and substitutionary death, God has taken your sinful life and placed it on Jesus and taken his holy life and placed it on you. That's what grace does. When God looks at you, he sees the life of his Son! God has permanently credited the righteousness of Jesus to your account. This truth is as old as Abraham trusting Yahweh in Genesis 15:6 and as fresh as Paul writing to the early church in Romans 3:21-26. The gospel is for every believer every day.

This means that when you wake up and blow it sometime this morning, afternoon, or evening—you are holy. This means that when you cuss out the driver in front of you for driving too slow and the driver behind you for driving too fast—you are holy. This means you don't have to regret your teen years, or your college years—you are holy. This means when you forget to be polite and you don't help your neighbor because it's inconvenient—you are holy. This means that the hidden sin you don't want anyone to know about are forgiven in God's eyes,—you are holy. This means your worst offense is completely forgiven at Christ's expense.

Not only does the gospel forgive our outward acts of sin, it cleanses our inward rebellion. Ezekiel 36:26-27 tells us the gospel has changed our very hearts. God takes your old hard heart and gives you a new soft one filled with the Holy Spirit. Where your life was empty, now your life is full. You are awash in righteousness where you once were lost in unrighteousness. When you sin today, remember that God sees you as he sees his son, forgiven and holy. One day your sin will be completely gone, and God's righteousness will become intrinsic to who you are, but until then God has credited us with a spotless record that you may enjoy today. Thank you, Jesus.

Jesus has traded his thirty-three years of perfection for your whole life of disobedience and sin. This means you no longer have to wallow in despair, guilt, and doubt, because you are seen through the lens of Christ. One day soon our sin nature will go away, but until then we hope in Jesus and enjoy his righteousness. As one friend said when he finally understood the gospel, "That's so unfair!" My dirty record is gone. Jesus' fresh record is mine.

So What is the Gospel?

The gospel is the good news that Jesus lived a perfect life, died an innocent death, rose again so that we may spend eternity with him, and now credits us with his holy record so that we may enjoy a guilt-free life today. We make disciples by helping the lost believe the three days gospel and we mature those disciples by helping them live every day in appreciation for the thirty-three years gospel. We need the full gospel message to truly make, mature, and multiply disciples of Jesus.

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Jonathan M. Romig (M.Div., Gordon-Conwell) is the associate pastor at Immanuel Church in Chelmsford Massachusetts (CCCC). He blogs at PastorRomig.blogspot.com and recently finished teaching New City Catechism to his adult Sunday school class and self-published his first ebook How To Give A Christian Wedding Toast.

Redeeming Theology

I knew it was coming. The conversation was inevitably leading to one of my least favorite assertions. I thought to myself, “Please don’t say it, please don’t say it.” Too late—the familiar words spilled out of her, “I’m not into theology. I just love God and people.” I cringed. Another well-intentioned believer had fallen prey to the false dichotomy between thinking well about God and living for God. 

Theology As A Bad Word   

Believers choose to live in a certain amount of ignorance when they claim they aren’t into theology. In their defense, I know what they mean. They’re communicating disdain for the abuse of theology. Many have been recipients of ridicule from theology-mongers who insist on setting everyone straight and causing division. It only takes a few encounters with that guy for the idea of theology to be warped in one’s mind. It’s associated with abrasive people who would rather argue theological views than show Christ’s love. In many circles “theology” now carries with it a stigma analogous to a four-letter word. This creates an unfortunate gap between those who are into theology and those who love God and people.

Theology Has Been Misunderstood

This distinction is flawed. Contrary to popular opinion, theology is not defined by intellectual scholars reading books or arrogant seminarians picking fights. The term theology means “the study of God.” It comes from the Greek words for God (theos) and word or body of knowledge (logos). At its root, theology is the process of thinking about our lives in light of the faith we proclaim. It’s faith that seeks understanding. When we do theology we are attempting to understand who God is, who we are, and how we should live in view of God.

To study theology is to study God—to know him better and delight in him more accurately with the hope of glorifying him through our love and obedience. The Apostle Peter understood this connection between knowing God and glorifying him. He says that believers have been granted “all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence” (2 Pt. 1:3 [emphasis mine]). He continues by exhorting Christians to “make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge” (2 Pt. 1:5).

Therefore, believers who want to love God but not do theology may be sincere but are terribly misguided for at least two reasons:

First, all Christians are already doing theology. As image-bearers of God, humans are interpreters of meaning. Every day we receive data from the surrounding world and systematize it. If you are a believer, at some point you received information about God, the world, and your life and systematized it into a Christian worldview. Whether you acknowledge it or not, you live from this functional set of theological presuppositions.

Everything you do, every choice you make, flows (perhaps unconsciously) from these beliefs—when you process pain in light of a sovereign God, you are doing theology. When you pray with your children before bed, you are doing theology. When you tell your unbelieving neighbor about Jesus, you are doing theology. When you overcome fear and step onto a plane, you are doing theology. When you assess if a Christian should take anti-depressants, you are doing theology. In fact, when you say, “I just love God and people” you are doing so from several theological assumptions about God, man, salvation, and reconciliation.

Second, Christians’ love for God requires knowing God. We grow in our knowledge of God so we can love him, and then grow in our love for him so we can serve him. Just as a husband grows in his affection and devotion to his wife as he studies her over time, so the believer grows in his affection and devotion to God as he studies him over time. It’s the growing knowledge of a person that enables one to love him or her more appropriately.

I’ll never forget how excited my husband was during our first year of marriage when he threw me a surprise birthday party. It was sweet, but topped the charts as my worst birthday to date. He didn’t know I was an introvert disguised as an extrovert. And there is nothing worse for a true introvert then unexpectedly walking into a room full of people and calling it a party. However, over time he learned to love me well by mastering the intimate dinner together or planning an evening in on my birthday. Nothing makes me feel more celebrated than this. In the same way, knowing God and loving him cannot be divorced. The more you study God, the more you learn to love and serve him well. As you grow in the knowledge of God you will be able to celebrate and glorify him in ways he desires and finds pleasing.

Theology Is For ALL Christians

One of my passions is to see theology redeemed in the lives of ordinary disciples. I refuse to believe it’s reserved for brilliant scholars or theology-mongers. It’s for all Jesus-followers. It’s for you! How desperately the church needs good theologians filling its pews today. Can you imagine the transformation of local churches if every Christian became a robust theologian who loved God and people in a biblically informed manner? This may seem like a pie in the sky idea, but it doesn’t have to be. The change begins with you and your local faith family. Take a moment to consider the atmosphere within your home and local church. Does your family and faith family value theological reflection? Have you cultivated an environment that encourages thinking well about God? In what ways are your family and church being intentional about doing theology in the context of community?

You don’t have to be a scholar to begin implementing theological dialogue in these key areas. Take your family for example: If your wife is battling despair, ask how the gospel affects her fight of faith. If you get a bonus at work, ask your family if there is anything in the Bible that informs how you spend it together. If you’re at a stoplight and see a homeless man, talk to your kids about what it means biblically to love and serve someone different from them. Or consider your community group at church. If your group is asked to bring canned goods for a food drive, discuss why Christians should do justice from a biblical standpoint. If someone in your community is struggling with sin discuss what it means to live in the tension of being justified, but not yet glorified. If someone comes to group but not the corporate gathering, discuss why Christians should gather together for worship.

You see, there are hundreds of ways to intentionally practice discipleship through theological reflection in a manner leading to gospel transformation. My hope is that the idea of theology would be redeemed and all would come to see the value that doing theology has for every sphere of life. I echo the prayer of the Apostle Paul asking, “The God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him” (Eph. 1:17) so that you would come to know him more deeply and be motivated by this knowledge to love, serve, and obey him all of your days.

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Whitney Woollard has served in ministry alongside her husband Neal for over six years. She holds an undergraduate degree in Biblical Studies from Moody Bible Institute and just finished her Master of Arts in Biblical and Theological Studies from Western Seminary. She is passionate about equipping disciples to read and study God’s Word well resulting in maturing affections for Jesus and his gospel message. Neal and Whitney currently live in Portland, OR where they love serving the local church. Follow her on Twitter @whitneywoollard.

3 Ways to Grow Leaders

It was one of the best days I'd ever had in ministry. I was walking on clouds. All of my hard work, hours of leading, giving, investing, listening, coaching, and directing came to fruition. There was a wash of relief over me. I didn't lay awake at night wondering how things would succeed or what would happen. Quite the opposite in fact, I knew things would be fine. They would be better than fine actually. I was so happy and excited I don't think you could pull the smile from off of my face. No, it wasn't the day I graduated from seminary. It wasn't the day I started a new ministry or planted a church or launched a regional training center. It wasn't even the day my first book was published.

It was the day I quit my job.

Now, lest you think I was quitting a position that was emotionally horrific and destructive it was quite the opposite. I was quitting a fantastic position. For several years I had been working with a large church as the junior high pastor. Week-in and week-out I had the joy of teaching these students the Bible, loving them and their families, doing fun and crazy student ministry things, going on mission trips, and enjoying the grace of God in watch teens grow up in the Lord. It was a great job at a great church. So why was I so happy to quit?

I was happy to quit because I realized there were strong, capable, gifted, godly leaders developed who could continue the work pastoring those junior high students and their families without me. I was thrilled because the intern I worked long and hard with was ready and able to step into my role and move the mission forward without the ministry missing a step. I could move on to doing other things that would allow the church to cover new ground and grow in new ways while not neglecting the shepherding work that had already been established.

I learned that "growing a garden" is one of the most enjoyable and fruitful things that you can do in planting a church. In fact, I might be so bold as to say that unless you are working to train up and develop leaders in your church plant you probably aren't being faithful to the biblical calling you have as a planter.

Paul exhorts Timothy, "What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, commit to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” (2 Tim. 2:2).

For church-planting ministry there has to be an eye towards growing a garden of faithful leaders who will be able to pass on what they have been taught so that the stream of gospel growth goes forward. Leadership training and development is one of the greatest joys in ministry. It's also one of the most essential works of the ministry.

What does that look like in the context of a church plant? Let me suggest a practical ways to develop leaders within your context.

1. Sow For What You Want To Reap

I want to warn you about assuming this point or placing it on the back burner of how you develop leaders. Whether we intend it or not sometimes the thing we long to develop in others is the thing that is missed most. They get caught up in our technique, our style, our delivery, and sometimes our appearance. By our practice alone the people that we are developing can assume that what they see externally is the focal point of what we want to develop in them.

But developing leaders is more than just replicating clones of ourselves who do ministry like we do ministry or who give sermons the way we give sermons. The development of leaders is the development of a culture, and to develop a culture we have to think with the end in mind.

My hope is that you want to develop a gospel culture in a place. I hope that your leadership development is fundamentally about the life, death, and resurrection of Christ for us. That his good news of liberation from sin, Satan, and death by mean of his life, death, and resurrection stand at the core of what you do. I long to see people that would come and encounter the grace and love and hope and transformation of Christ through the work of church planting.

If that's the goal then you must begin sowing that sort of culture in the leadership that you seek to develop. They must know, see, and experience a gospel-saturated leader. Their development must be means of development in the gospel. It should not be a development merely in technique or style but in the reality of what it means to be a dead person brought to life by the grace of Jesus.

Sure it's possible to develop leaders that will emulate your style or approach or technique. Just be sure that you will reap the kind of leaders that you sow for. If you want theological strong, gospel-saturated, wise, missionary-minded leaders, then sow for that.

2. Water Frequently

Leadership development is never done in a vacuum. You can't just toss a text book at a guy and say, "Read up on this and then we will plop you in ministry here." He might assimilate information, but he won't grow as a leader.

Developing leaders requires investment on your part. You have to nourish and help them as if you were watering your garden on a regular basis. It requires life-on-life relationship. Where will the struggle as a leader? Having them read a book and then regurgitating the information back to you won't cut it. You have to see them in the field. What's their predominate gifting? You won't know unless you're laboring alongside them. Where are they anxious, struggling or worried? You can't know that if you aren't with them.

All of this to say you, as the planting leader, have to be the one to nourish them as well. Don't leave this work up to others. Come along side those you long to develop, give them access far beyond what you would give others, let them see the way you've walked through the hardship of ministry and family and life. Nourish them with encouragement, affirmation, and involvement. Give them roles that are just above their head and then cheer them on when they succeed. As a leader do all you can to nourish and water the leaders you are hoping to develop.

3. Give Up Control

So much of growing a garden is out of the gardeners control. They can sow, water, weed, fertilize, and cultivate. But that doesn't automatically mean that growth will happen. Growth is in the hands of God.

So it is with leadership development. You can spend years pouring into others and never see the development that you desired in their life. On the other hand, you can put in a few weeks and find someone ready to take your job already in hand.

The point I want to make is that you have to give up the control-complex that often surrounds church planting.

Leadership development requires losing control of the timeline. It means that you have to be patient with people, continue to pour in the nourishment of God's Word and wise counsel, but it will take time. A two-year program might not be long enough to develop some leaders. Matter of fact a four-year program might not do it either. The point is sometimes you have to give up controlling the "when" of leadership development.

It also means you have to give up control of the role that you hold firmly in your hands. If you've developed leaders well there will be others that will be better suited for some (if not all) of the tasks you have. Give up control of those tasks. If God gives growth to another leader who is a superior preacher, let the man preach! If a better counselor, administrator, servant, or even entrepreneurial church-planter arises from your garden then give up control of them and deploy them further for the sake of the gospel.

Survival Is About Development

Surviving in church planting isn't about getting off the launch pad. It's about getting a church to the next generation. It's about the hand-off of what has been entrusted to you being entrusted to faithful leaders who will in turn hand-off the gospel to faithful leaders. Church planting isn't successful if it doesn't endure past the first generation. This is why leadership development is so essential. It's also why leadership development is so enjoyable.

As I have watched over the years nothing is more enjoyable and exciting to me in ministry than seeing the people I've spent time grow into the leadership roles I've held. It's let me grow into new spaces, and it's allowed the gospel to move forward in the church in new and vibrant ways. Go and grow a garden!

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Jeremy Writebol(@jwritebol) has been training leaders in the church for over thirteen years. He is the author of everPresent: How the Gospel Relocates Us in the Present (GCD Books, 2014) and writes at jwritebol.net. He lives and works in Plymouth, MI as the Campus Pastor of Woodside Bible Church.

Used with permission from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary’s publication The Church Planting Survival Guide. For more information visit www.mbts.edu or to obtain a copy contact The Center for Church Planting at 800-944-MBTS (6287).